In order to measure your SMS marketing success, you need to know what metrics to look at.
Before You Begin
Always set the parameters of your metric analysis before actually starting the monitoring process. If you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. Ask yourself these questions:
1. What are your goals for your SMS marketing campaign?
2. Do you have any standards already set for your SMS campaign?
3. What do you hope to learn from the data?
4. How are you going to use the data collected?
Subscriber List
As we've said with other metric-based blogs, the subscriber list is only one thing, but understanding where your numbers are coming from is even more valuable.
First, look at the total number you have. Does it match up with your target market?
Then, ask these questions:
1. Where did the opt-ins come from?
2. How many came from your website?
3. How many came from your email marketing campaign?
4. How many opt-ins came in from your promotions for the cool SMS service?
5. Did you collect their information first, through opt-ins?
6. Did subscribers sign up on their own?
7. Which campaign is the most effective?
New Subscribers
Clearly, most of the answers for this usually stem from the questions from your basic subscriber list. All of the questions above apply to this metric as well, but it also narrows down how effective your SMS promotions are.
Understanding where new subscribers are coming from will help you tailor future promotions.
Some additional questions to ask:
1. How many new subscribers came from a forward or a recommendation from a friend?
2. How many came directly from a promotion or offer?
Opt-Outs
Sure, opt-outs are sad, but their incredibly helpful. If you have a mechanism in place that allows subscribers to let you know why they're opting out, then that is valuable. Never underestimate the power of opt-outs; it's the best place to learn, and ultimately grow.
Again, here are some questions to ask when analyzing these metrics:
1. How many subscribers opted out after a special offer? Meaning, if you publicized a discount for signing up for your SMS messaging, how many of them opted out after they received their discount?
2. Is there a pattern of opt-outs? Say, is there a flux after a certain type of SMS message?
3. What is the demographic of those who are most likely to opt-out?
4. To determine your comprehensive growth rate for your SMS marketing campaign, take the total number of opt-ins and subtract the number of opt-outs; divide by your total list number, and you will get the percentage growth of your campaign.
In some ways, opt-outs are more important to the overall success of your SMS marketing campaign than any other metric you can analyze.
Subscriber Action
Okay, you've sent out your latest SMS marketing message. What did you want your subscribers to do? If there was a specific call to action or goal, start there.
1. How many of your subscribers did what you asked them to do?
2. Aside from your call to action, what else happened with your SMS message?
3. How many visited your website?
4. If you included a promotional code or discount in the SMS, how many cashed in?
5. How many subscribers contacted your business for additional information or to ask questions?
6. What is the percentage that visited your social media sites?
7. How many subscribers forwarded the text to others?
8. How many of those forwards resulted in direct action (visited website or social media)?
Sales
For most businesses, the bottom line is how much this marketing strategy is costing the business? Essentially, what is the return on investment for each campaign?
Ideally, the result is in an increase in direct sales.
Though the other SMS marketing metrics may be positive, looking at the number of sales generated directly from your SMS campaign is the most critical one.
However, by understanding the previous metrics, you'll be able to make changes and increase sales.
So, until you make necessary adjustments to your other metrics, then the sales metric is somewhat meaningless or misleading.
There are some important questions to still to answer, however:
1. Directly, how many sales resulted from your most recent SMS message?
2. What is the average percentage of sales per SMS?
3. If directed to another channel, say, to your website or social media site, how many sales resulted?
4. Is there a return on investment? For this, consider not only money spent, but time spent by your staffers to manage and launch each SMS campaign.
By answering the questions above, you will not only know how your campaigns are doing, but you will see what needs a tweak and what needs to be dropped altogether.
What metric do you believe is the most important one to watch after sending an SMS marketing campaign?