SMS Marketing Lists - Collecting Phone Numbers & Subscriber Management

Whether you’ve just started promoting your brand via text marketing or have been doing so for over five years, one universal truth remains—your program’s potential is only as strong as the strength of your SMS subscriber list.

Even with a powerful enrollment incentive like a loyalty program, the “build it and they will come” mindset doesn’t hold up. You need to actively grab customers’ attention by boosting awareness, maintaining engagement with your followers, and sustaining subscriber growth rates that exceed churn levels.

Strategically Choose the Incentive You’ll Offer Customers

In the retail and food industries, most customers won’t share their phone numbers without a compelling reason. It’s up to you to offer an incentive that drives SMS list sign-ups. There are plenty of options, including launching a loyalty program, offering discounts on current purchases, waiving shipping fees, or providing early access to new products. But don’t choose the hook randomly. Instead, base your decision on:

• Competitive analysis - if you offer 5% off the recipient’s next purchase and everyone else offers 15%, expect slow growth for your SMS list.
• Past sales performance Turn to your historical data to determine what kinds of incentives previously led to heightened interaction. Perhaps it was a generic discount or perhaps complimentary perks or raffle enrollment that drew the most excitement.
• Market research and buyer personas Different audiences will naturally be enticed by different types of deals. For example, as suggested by Lightspeed, younger adults may be most motivated by free, expedited shipping while older generations may appreciate an upfront discount more.
• Seasonality No doubt, you’ve noticed shifts in customers’ preferences based on the time of year, so why not use these insights to shape the kinds of incentives you use to grow your SMS list?
• Survey customers and the sales teams that work with them If you’re unsure whether a 15% discount or a complimentary gift would be more motivating for SMS list sign-ups, why not ask the people who know best? Survey your current followers on SMS and other outreach channels, and consider posting the question on social media to gather even more feedback. Additionally, consult with trusted sales team members and franchisees who interact with customers daily and can provide valuable insights.

Ideas for How to Collect Phone Numbers For SMS Marketing

Once your SMS setup is in place and your “bait” is carefully selected, the next step is to drive awareness to your enticing offer. There are several tactics at your disposal, including:

In-store signage with QR codes

In-store signage with QR codes helps build SMS marketing lists by providing an easy opt-in for customers already engaged in shopping. Place QR codes on shelf tags, prompting sign-ups for exclusive deals, or on checkout counters offering an immediate discount for joining.

Here’s an insider tip—use different QR codes to delineate the type of promotion and placement. This way, you can learn which promotional efforts yield the greatest rewards and which tend to be overlooked by patrons.

Point of sale verbal interactions

A simple line like, “Would you be interested in joining our Rewards program and getting 15% off today’s purchase?” could be enough to pique the interest of shoppers as they hand over their credit card. Train sales employees on how to effectively present such programs, including answering questions like, “How will you use my phone number?” and “How do loyalty points work?”

Website pop-ups

Website pop-ups are an effective way to grow your SMS list, especially when used to highlight enticing, immediate rewards for customers. The design, placement, and verbiage of the pop-up will directly impact your ability to collect customers’ phone numbers. With this in mind, we suggest:

• Partnering with an experienced designer and ensuring they follow pop-up best practices
• Track metrics related to both text subscriber sign-ups and site engagement; growing your SMS list shouldn’t come at the expense of your site experience
• Consider using UX software that lets you watch actual footage of visitors interacting with your pop-up, helping you identify potential friction points and optimize for better engagement

Website homepage copy

For all the advantages website pop-ups offer, they’re not without their downsides. Mainly, they can be intrusive, potentially disrupting the user experience and leading to higher bounce rates. Additionally, they work best when tied to incentives that offer immediate value to the SMS subscriber, such as free shipping on their current order.

For these reasons, some brands opt to promote loyalty programs and similar incentives with eye-catching homepage copy or a banner, both which commonly lead to a designated page for collecting phone numbers for your SMS marketing.

Host a contest in which customers must subscribe to enter

This tactic for growing your SMS subscriber list can be promoted through in-store signage, social media, email campaigns, or website content. However, live events—such as shows or happy hours—are often the most effective venues for this strategy. Why? These occasions allow you to capture everyone’s attention with a quick 30-second announcement. Plus, since all participants enter at the same time, you can provide instant gratification by announcing the winner on the spot.

Enroll the help of local influencers

Just starting out with SMS? Give your subscriber list an early boost by enrolling the help of influencers. They can spur their followers to text a keyword to subscribe and receive an immediate discount on their next purchase.

Important Best Practices to Follow When Collecting Phone Numbers

• Texting customers without their consent is illegal so ensure you have legitimate opt-ins in place. Always provide clear information about what subscribers can expect and make it easy for them to opt out at any time. For a fuller explanation, check out our TCPA compliance checklist.
• Clearly state the specific kinds of texts subscribers will receive. Will recipients be sent codes for early access to upcoming product releases? Weekly fitness tips? Limited-time promo codes? Not only does clearly defining such details help entice subscribers but also prevents future drop-offs in participation rates.
• Make joining your SMS list as simple as possible, ideally a one-step process. Examples include:
  • Filling out a simple online form field with the person’s phone number
  • Texting a word to a number
  • Scanning a QR code
• Encourage direct mail and email marketing contacts to enroll in SMS as well. For example, a mailed catalog invites a relaxed browsing experience that sparks interest, while SMS delivers limited-time deals that turn that interest into action. The takeaway? Maximize engagement by encouraging customers to opt into multiple touchpoints. While email isn’t necessarily dead, it’s not always the best vehicle for certain marketing messaging.

Managing Your SMS Marketing Lists to Optimize Engagement

Subscriber Sub-Groups Through Data Imports and Automation

SMS 101 may entail sending the same text blast to all your customers, but marketing pros should know better. After all, the more you can align the messaging—and localize the sending telephone number—to the individual recipient, the more likely they are to engage! We’ve written plenty on this subject in articles like Personalized SMS Marketing – Maximizing its Potential but the first step to making all this possible is establishing clear sub-groups within your SMS subscriber list. Ways you can divide and build your SMS marketing lists include:

• Closest franchisee location
• Purchase frequency and average order value
• Preferred product types
• Gender
• Loyalty program status
• Interactions with texts and other marketing content
• Sign-up source
• Past satisfaction survey responses
• Event participation
• Past history of appointment tardiness

Ideally, organizing your subscribers into SMS marketing lists would not be manual, but rather an automated through real-time data sharing through tools like Voxie.

For more tips on how to organize your SMS subscriber lists to maximize results, read Effectively Segment SMS Lists - Tactics for Greater Engagement.

Remember to Refine SMS Marketing Subscriber Lists

Your SMS software should automatically remove any subscribers who opt out, but that’s just one aspect of regular list refinement you should be doing. Tools like Voxie make it possible to automate such SMS list management tasks as:

• Automatically removing invalid or duplicate phone numbers
• Moving inactive subscribers to lists designated for “win-back” or lower contact frequency
• Adding SMS subscribers to new lists based on up-to-date purchase behavior
• Changing loyalty program enrollment status

SMS Software Criteria for Optimal SMS List Management

Your choice of SMS software directly impacts the ease and sophistication with which you can organize and manage your marketing subscriber list. When weighing your options, keep a close eye out for:

• Software that specializes in SMS, specifically - While there are plenty of broader direct marketing tools that include SMS, the lack of specialization ultimately means limited supporting features.
• SMS that enables bespoke integrations with other components of your tech stack - Your chosen SMS should connect with your CRM, e-commerce platform, and other marketing tools to help automate workflows and keep your subscriber data up to date.
• In-depth reporting at both the campaign and sublist level - Robust SMS analytics let you track performance not just overall, but also for specific segments or sublists so you can refine your approach with greater nuance.
• If you’re a franchise or multi-location business, list management that mimics your organizational structure - Opt for software that allows you to create and manage lists by location or franchise. This makes it easier to send relevant messages to the right audience and maintain brand consistency across locations.
• Automated compliance enforcement Ensure the software includes built-in compliance tools, such as opt-in/opt-out list management and SMS message archiving.

Franchises Can Perfect SMS List Management With Voxie

Voxie designed our SMS platform with robust list segmentation features, making it easy for users to organize and target their audiences effectively. We developed these capabilities specifically with franchises in mind, understanding the unique needs of multi-location businesses. With Voxie, you can group your SMS marketing lists by location and franchisee owner, allowing for tailored messaging and streamlined reporting. This structure not only simplifies customization but also ensures that each franchisee can manage and communicate with their own marketing lists independently, without accessing or viewing the lists of other franchisees.

To learn about this and related capabilities, schedule a demo of the Voxie SMS platform.