Patrick Biddiscombe walks through five ways to build an SMS list legally: contests, free trials, keyword campaigns, email conversions, and in-person asks. You need written consent, can only text 8am-9pm, and must offer easy opt-out. Loliology signed up 200 subscribers in three days by asking customers directly.
Questions this video answers
Patrick Biddiscombe
July 10, 2022
1) Written (expressed) consent (opt-in); 2) Hours of operation: communications between 8am and 9pm; 3) All texts must allow opt-out via reply at any time.
At least $500,000 (per business.com example).
$1,500 per phone number (tripled penalty example).
Chapters
If you're trying to collect phone numbers for your SMS marketing campaign and don't follow the three laws I lay out in this video, it could cost your business millions of dollars. Let me show you how to legally and easily collect phone numbers so that you can make that money. And if you're interested in learning more about mobile marketing, when you're done with the video, make sure to click and download the link in the description. Before I go into the top ways to secure phone numbers for your SMS campaign, let's go into how to do it legally. Number one Written consent. You cannot text someone with a marketing offer if they didn't give you permission to do this is called expressed consent. In order to get it, you have to get the consumer to opt in to being contacted via text. And just so we're all clear, just because someone purchased your product and left their phone number in the contact info section doesn't mean they've given you permission to contact them for marketing purposes. Don't be a creep. Two Hours of Operation Generally speaking, text marketing communication must occur between the hours of 8am and 9pm 3. The opt out all texts must allow consumers to opt out of the subscriber list by replying to the text at any time. The breaking of any of these laws can result in some fines. Example, let's say that you sent out a text message to a thousand contacts that you collected without consent. According to business.com that'll result in penalties of at least $500,000. But don't worry because the fun keeps going. If a court then decides that you use stolen numbers on purpose, then it's tripled to $1,500 per phone number. So for that one campaign, you could face a penalty of $1.5 million. And that's all assuming that you only sent one text message per contact. Have I scared you yet? Good. Now here's how to avoid all that drama and collect phone numbers for your SMS marketing campaign that will generate sales the right way. Number one Host a competition of sweepstakes. Create a contest and let people who sign up win something. This CTA is clearly letting people know what they are signing up for and what they can win by doing so. Number two Offer a free trial, discount code or demo for signup the juicier. And more valuable the access you provide, the more participation you'll see on this step. Do some research on your own content and find out what you can offer a free trial to discount for or demo of it either needs to be of your best performing content or most needed for this specific audience. Number three keyword campaigns text 01 to codes for deals. This is a keyword and a short code. With them you can invite customers to text a specific number and get access to special offers. This allows for ease and simplicity. Add this number to as many of your channels as you can to ensure impact. Another great thing about a keyword campaign is that you can use it to accomplish Step number four Turn Email Subscribers into SMS subscribers by sending an SMS invite offer to your email subscribers, it allows them to clearly see the extra value they'll instantly receive by doing so. So real talk right now what I love about this offer is that if you zoom in a bit to the bottom, you can see the exact campaign expectations, rules, guidelines and a link for the terms and conditions. Number five Just Ask Tori Storytime A business called Loliology wanted to pivot to online. The owner of the shop would verbally ask customers one by one when they came in if they were interest receiving extra discounts or promotions from their shop. Through text, they were able to get 200 customers onto their database in just three days. Moral of the Story if you're super struggling to figure out the most engaging way to convince someone to opt into your campaign, you can always just ask. As always, if you want to dive even deeper into the wonderful world of digital marketing, be sure to check out our free Academy course and get yourself certified. If you like what you heard and you want to hear more, subscribe, comment and like to hear more. Until next time, adios. I can find this client info.
Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform so it shares its data across every application. Every team can stay aligned. No out of sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
