Guerrilla marketing is a broad practice, so well integrated into our daily lives that we often don’t notice it. Whether it looks like a quirky art installation like this McDonald’s coffee streetlight or slips below the radar as a brand CTA on the back of a package, these brand messages slip into your life from all angles.
Since we’re all permanently attached to our phones, it makes sense that using SMS marketing would be an integral part of a guerrilla campaign – but many companies are still working to handle it with the same ease they bring to other tactics. To make SMS marketing work as a marketing tool rather than an invasion, then, takes powerful strategic thinking. Here’s how to make it work.
Get The Tech Right
Not all great marketing requires technology or takes technology as its first step. This is why billboards and fliers remain powerful marketing tools. Fitting SMS marketing into a comprehensive guerrilla campaign then, can mean starting off the small screen.
7-11 has successfully demonstrated how well placed guerrilla campaigns can move people from the material to the digital with their cup and coupon tie-in. By placing a “text us” message offering coupons on the side of their cups they put the power to engage with digital marketing into customers’ hands. Rather than collecting customer information and then bombarding them with messages, customers opt-in for specific offers and do so while enjoying a beverage. The combination works.
Skip The Stunts
If you’ve already pulled a few bigger guerrilla marketing stunts, you’ve more than hit your limit. No one wants an entire block of McDonald’s coffee streetlights for weeks on end. Instead, you’ve got to form a comprehensive campaign. That’s why it’s worth moving towards different digital formats as your campaign moves forward. You‘ve grabbed everyone’s attention, now you need to build continuity.
When the stunts have played out, integrate them into your web design and use SMS campaigns to direct people to your page for more information. Don’t pack the SMS messages themselves with too much content, though. A simple link is all you need, especially in the age of smartphones. Just be sure to build a custom link that also increases interest, motivating customers to click through.
Just Say Stop
No matter how good your SMS marketing campaign, some people will want to opt out – and you’ll build more loyalty by making that easy than by continually messaging someone who’s annoyed by your campaign. People opting out of your SMS marketing isn’t the end of the world and it doesn’t mean they don’t like you. It just may not be their preferred format. Offer a “stop messaging” option at the end of your messages and send one final confirmation and thank you message when they opt out.
SMS marketing is the new in thing and it can be surprising and engaging when you do it right. Build it into a multi-faceted guerrilla attack and watch your tech savvy customers grab on. Guerrilla marketing is undercover and surprising, the remarkable result of companies fitting themselves into daily life.
