In a fast-paced digital world where marketing tactics evolve rapidly, SMS marketing shines as a timeless strategy embraced across industries. Texting allows for direct, immediate, and personalized communication with your audiences at scale.
As you start to think about implementing SMS into your marketing mix, it should be viewed as an ongoing marketing and distribution channel to help you reach your most engaged audiences and amplify your existing marketing efforts. Think about it this way, if you’ve built an engaged audience, do you want to abandon it after one campaign or do you want to continue to grow the audience and engage them year-round? In this blog, we explore how leveraging Subtext’s platform and features allows evergreen SMS channels to be effective at engaging audiences.
Musicians:
- Promote new music: Drive anticipation and streams for new music by texting teaser videos to your next release, links to stream your newest single, or where to buy your new album. Include exclusive offers, such as early access to new music or discounts on merchandise.
- Announce tour dates: Promote your tour through SMS. Personalize your texts by letting fans know when you’re in their area by using our geo-targeting segmentation feature!
- Connect with your fans: Through text and voice, you have the ability to engage directly with your biggest fans at scale and make your fandom even stronger. Two-way engagement is the backbone of the Subtext platform. Use it to your advantage. Respond to fans. Engage them with behind-the-scenes content from recording sessions or the tour bus. They’ll love you more for it.
- Drive merch sales: Having a direct line of communication with your biggest fans when new merch drops ensures you’re reaching the people who want it most. You can even offer exclusive merch for text subscribers to show you care.
Political Coverage:
- Share news as soon as it happens: SMS is a great way to share breaking political news and quick updates. Media companies can allow SMS subscribers to opt-into specific types of political coverage by using Subtext’s segmentation feature. Peter Schorsch uses the Florida Politics channel to engage Florida constituents on the happenings in the state, from the latest in the legislature to the ever-changing elections.
- Promote fair election content: Help subscribers stay informed during upcoming elections using Subtext’s drip sequences feature to make sure voters are aware of election dates, registration dates, mail-in ballots, polling places, and more.
- Do your own research: Drive engagement by asking your audience about their thoughts and opinions on upcoming legislation, policies, and political events. When audiences feel like they’re part of the story, they’re more engaged and less likely to churn.
Events:
- Promote your event: Encourage sign-ups by sharing information about your upcoming event, including notable speakers, dates, locations, and ticket information.
- Day-of Communication: Let your attendees know what’s happening where. Morning Brew used Subtext for their in-person event as their main communication tool with attendees. They utilized it to share schedule updates, wifi passwords, and whenever an issue arose, they were thankful to have an immediate way to alert attendees.
- Engage attendees: Collect questions from your audience in real time by having them send in their questions. When it comes time for Q&A at the end of a session, you’ll have a list of questions ready to go.
- Collect feedback: After your event, send texts to your attendees to collect feedback. You can ask them what they liked and disliked, and what they would like to see at future events.
- Share memories: Tap that emotional feel-good button by asking your attendees to send their favorite pictures from your event to encourage registration for next year’s event.
- Promote future events: Drive revenue by using your channel as a sponsorship opportunity for other events in your industry. You’ve already got a targeted list of people so use it to your advantage.
Podcasters:
- Promote new episodes: Text a link to your latest episode to drive immediate downloads. Tease important moments and link straight to the episode.
- Bridge the gap between episodes: Have videos or pictures you reference in this week’s episode? Share them via text. Ross Jackson, the host of the LockedOn Saints podcast talks about how he uses his Subtext channel as an extension of the podcast.
- Bring listeners into the podcast: Collect questions or ideas from listeners for the next episode. Make them feel like they’re a part of the episodes.
- Run Q&As, Polls, and Surveys: When you engage and connect with your audience, they're more likely to continue to listen and engage with your podcast, leading to more subscribers and more revenue down the line.
Building a successful SMS community requires continuity and personalization. Subtext was built with those ideas in mind, making it simple to text audiences at scale. We’re here to ensure your SMS channels are helping you reach your goals. Whatever you’re thinking, our fantastic customer success team can help you strategize ways to grow and engage your audience to create a successful channel. Book a demo with an SMS expert today.