The Trajex Take

Startup founders are the adventurous heroes of the business world. The men and women like you who create the world’s constantly growing array of life-changing products and services deserve to be commended for their vision, hard work, and ability to take action on something as simple as an idea. Entrepreneurs are well known for their strengths in those areas, but many have one great weakness: enamored with the beautiful thing they’re creating for mankind, they assume that their target audience will beat the tar out of one another racing to get to it first. Marketing? It’s an afterthought. This product, this technology, this software is so great, we won’t even need to market it, they assume. And even if we do have to run some ads, it won’t be a big deal. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

We’ve covered many aspects of SMS marketing, from building an audience to execution. Still not sure how this highly cost-efficient tactic can be used by your business? Read on for some specific applications!

When you’ve got a growing, segmented database, it’s time to launch your first campaign! In the third article in this series, we’ll go over the details of launching one and some SMS best practices. First, you’ll have to choose a platform. You don’t run these campaigns by simply plugging a bunch of numbers into your company cell phone; an external platform allows you to send bulk messages at low rates, from a number that isn’t traceable to your personal phone. There are dozens of choices, so take time to research the platform that fits your company’s needs best.

In this post, I’m going to describe how you can build an SMS text audience to run your marketing campaigns. In some ways, this is the hardest part of the process, because you have to build up a roster of numbers in much the same way you’d build up a list of customers for your website or followers on social media. It’s always a challenge! Regardless, the effort is worth it, because the ROI on these campaigns can be insane, even with a relatively small audience.

When most of us think about the concept of digital marketing, the first thing that comes to mind is social media. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are the standards for B2C companies, and networks like LinkedIn and Twitter are well known as B2B platforms. If we expand further, we may think in terms of email marketing: customized campaigns sent out to groups of clients, customers, donors, or investors. However, one area remains commonly overlooked and undervalued: SMS text message marketing. 

This month's blog post comes from Caleb Smith, a recent Business graduate of Houghton College, who shares his perspective on the world of online marketing by comparing it to his experience as a dormitory Resident Assistant.

I want to talk today about the major goals of social media marketing. Everyone knows that social media is promising. Every major company has at least one page, social media influencers make six figures posting selfies and subtly representing brands, and empires like Facebook and Twitter dominate our headlines and business news. So when you start up a new page, you know you're joining the mainstream. However, just having an online presence isn't enough. You need goals and a sense of purpose to make the best use of your social media accounts.