List Segmentation with SMS Keywords

List Segmentation with SMS Keywords

If you’ve ever used Facebook’s advertising platform, then you’ve experienced one of the most powerful and effective segmentation tools online. It enables you to target your ideal customers based on age, gender, location, interests—you name it.

With a little bit of work, similar results can be achieved by segmenting your SMS list. Just as it sounds, you divide your contacts into smaller segments based on demographics, locations, and industry. These segments can be as broad or as defined as you’d like.

What are the benefits of list segmentation?

  1. More conversions and happier customers. Your customers genuinely want to hear from you. Personalise your content based on their interests and they’re more likely to take action.
  2. Higher click-through rate. By nature, SMS messages are short and sweet. Delivering fresh, relevant content can encourage your customers to click on your links, increasing your web traffic.
  3. Less unsubscribes. People often unsubscribe from a list for two reasons—the content isn’t relevant or they’re getting too many SMS messages. List segmentation can help control how often they get your text messages and the content that’s in them.

List Segmentation for Burst Customers

There are many ways to segment your list, especially if you’re using CRM to manage your contacts. But if you’re only using Burst, then use SMS keywords to help.

SMS keywords act as a prompt for replies and activate different functions, which include entering a competition, forwarding to an email or mobile device, sending an auto-response, and adding them to a new list.

For example, let’s say you own a nutrition store and you’re interested in separating the body builders and athletes from your master list.

Send an SMS alert that looks like this:

Those that reply with “protein” will be added to your new list and will receive an auto-response:

This will set you up for future promotions when you want to specifically target body builders and athletes.

To create a SMS Keyword with Burst:

Log in and click on the Keywords tab.

2. Choose a Number, enter a Keyword, and select a listfor Add Number to List field. Create an auto-response message with the coupon code and a call-to-action. You may ignore the other options but feel free to use them for more comprehensive campaigns.

And that’s it. Happy segmenting!