5 Useful Tips for Collecting Phone Numbers

You finally decided to get into text marketing but you’re facing a problem: how are you going to collect phone numbers to kickstart your campaign? We totally get it—it’s overwhelming and even tedious. But, if you ask us, the results are worthwhile.

Text marketing facilitates business development, increases sales, and helps build brand loyalty. Not to mention, no other channel provides customer engagement at the same level as SMS marketing. Start collecting phone numbers today to reap the benefits of text marketing and grow your business.

We’ve done the hard part and compiled the best tricks for collecting phone numbers for your marketing campaign.

What To Know Before Collecting Cell Phone Numbers

Before you even start, there are a couple of things you should know. First and foremost, no matter how tempting it is to purchase a ready-made list of phone numbers, avoid doing it at all costs. By all means, the purchase itself is legal. However, sending text messages to customers who have not opted in to your campaign is illegal in most countries and subject to heavy monetary fines.

Get acquainted with the laws regarding SMS marketing in your jurisdiction to avoid committing anything illegal. Read on about anti-spam policies and best practices for optimal results.

Second, sending unsolicited text messages to people can and will stain the reputation of your company. Any further communication from that point on—regardless of whether or not you have their consent—will be viewed as spam. That is pretty hard to recover from and will render all your future SMS marketing efforts useless.

SMS marketing is the most efficient communication channel, and reaching people on their cell phones is half the work. Unlike other marketing channels, you need people’s written consent to send them promotional text messages.

Growing your subscribers’ list is important for your text marketing campaign. It ensures that your promotional messages reach more customers and increase potential business.

• Create a Unique Keyword

Customers can opt in to your marketing campaign by sending a designated keyword to your company’s short code. Keywords have to be easy to remember as well as relevant to your company.

People are exposed to all kinds of information on a daily basis. This means that even the most interested customers can forget your keyword to subscribe to your campaign. Creating a memorable keyword is one way to make sure that it will stick around.

• Promote Your Keyword Everywhere

If you want people to subscribe to your campaign, you have to get the word out about your product or service via email marketing or old-school. This means you have to advertise your keyword everywhere to get as much exposure as you can. You can do this on your company website, social media accounts, or even email newsletters. Irrespective of where you intend to advertise your keyword, you must prominently display it alongside a call to action to attract new subscribers.

• Create a Sign-Up Form on Your Website

Texting a keyword to subscribe to an SMS campaign is the most popular way of growing your subscribers base. But, a good alternative is having people opt in through a sign-up form directly from your website. This makes the process easy in addition to giving customers more options for subscribing.

• Provide Incentives to Subscribers

Do you want people to opt in to your campaign willingly? Provide them with incentives to do so. People realize their mobile numbers are valuable information, which is why you have to create a reason for them to willingly share their contact information. Whether you do it through exclusive perks or discounts, people should know that they get something out of subscribing to your campaign.

• Host Text Contests

Everybody knows that SMS has the highest open rate of all communication channels. What's more, the easiest way to collect a list of cell phone numbers for marketing is by hosting text contests. Create a contest with a desirable prize and ask people for their phone numbers to enter and earn sweepstakes. Not only does your list of subscribers expand, but you also spread brand awareness and increase customer engagement.