Marketing

As a marketer or business owner, planning for the End of Financial Year (EOFY) can be challenging with juggling multiple campaigns and effective budget management. It is also a time to consider the best marketing channels to maximise your return on investment. Reaching and engaging with more of your target audience is a priority; and can be done in various ways from promotions to product launches. It’s an opportunity to also plan for the year ahead, by allocating from the current funds to start campaigns and avoid being short-changed in the next budget.

SMS marketing can be a game-changer for your business as it reaches more of your customers with an open rate of 98%, it is a great option for EOFY campaigns. It can also be easily added to your current marketing mix to boost your ROI. Here’s 6 tips to assist with elevating your EOFY campaign results.

1. Stay on top of digital trends

Staying on top of digital trends is key to any marketing strategy. Search trends are constantly changing, and it’s important to keep up with them to understand your audience’s priorities and consumer preferences. To connect with your audience and increase conversions. Tools such as Adwords Keyword Planner and Google Trends can help you identify these trends.

Other ways to stay ahead include:

  • Conduct market research regularly - what are your competitors doing? What are the key statistics of your target audience? Are there any gaps in the market?

  • Follow industry influencers and thought leaders on social media, blogs, podcasts and other platforms. Engage with them by commenting on their posts, sharing content and asking questions.

  • Attend industry events (webinars or in-person) - share insights on LinkedIn and other platforms and follow industry news updates.

  • Monitor social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to track popular hashtags, trending topics, and conversations related to your industry or niche.

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like Chat GPT are making a buzz. It can be helpful to get messaging ideas quickly, using your keywords.

2. Audit your previous SMS campaigns

During the financial year, evaluate your previous SMS campaigns to see what worked and what didn’t. By auditing your campaigns, you can identify those that are top-performing. Pay close attention to campaign metrics, focusing on those that delivered high ROI and engagement.

To enhance your best campaigns, use the data to compare if there is any overlap with the search trends you discovered in tip one. These insights can provide new ideas to help relaunch your campaign.

3. Create new opportunities with SMS marketing

While leveraging your top-performing campaigns can drive sales, it is also a good idea to try something new to capture the attention of your audience.

Create new opportunities and stand out from your competitors with SMS marketing, which can help cut through the clutter. Customers can experience sales fatigue especially when they are inundated with communications from competitors. SMS campaigns are a scalable way to reach your target audience with personalised communication.

SMS marketing ideas to get you started:

  • Send EOFY sales, promotions or competitions to incentivise purchases. This can be tracked with sales codes and personalised with exclusive offers.

  • Introduce a new product or service to excite and engage with your customers.

  • Ask for customer feedback and use this information to relaunch another campaign that addresses their needs.

  • Remind customers about appointments or events to encourage attendance.

  • Send a message of gratitude to your customers to show your appreciation.

For messaging inspiration, refer to our Free SMS Messaging Templates.

4. Plan your SMS marketing campaign

Ensure you reach your customers with the right message at the right time. Consider the following when planning your EOFY SMS marketing campaign:

Timing:

As with other marketing initiatives such as social media posts, timing is crucial when it comes to SMS marketing. Plan your campaigns and send messages at a time where your target audience is most likely to be engaged, such as during lunch time on weekdays or after work hours. Timing of the send should also be respectful to your subscribers, for instance SMS sent after 7pm till late in the evening are more likely to be ignored.

Messaging:

Messaging should be concise and include a clear call-to-action. Avoid using jargon or technical terms that may confuse the recipient. Instead, focus on the product or service benefits and how it can help your customer. Consider any tracking links or codes to include as part of your message to track the effectiveness of the campaign.

Personalisation:

Personalise your messages to ensure they are more relevant and engaging. Address the recipient by their name and refer to their previous purchase history or preferences. You can also tailor the message to specific recipients for SMS marketing, for instance, encourage a testimonial for a specific item purchased or offer an exclusive discount if they have left some items in their cart.

5. Measure your campaigns

All marketing campaigns need a quantifiable way to measure results. This provides insights as to which campaigns are performing better and which need to be improved.

Tracking and analysis for SMS campaigns

The simplest way to track your marketing campaigns can be by adding a tracking code UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters or tags to your URL. If you are using Google Analytics the UTM data can highlight which channel your traffic is coming from and how many customers are clicking on your link. This can assist with optimising your campaigns to generate the best results. As SMS campaigns are personalised and easy to send, you can respond quickly if required to change offers or messaging to engage more with your customer.

6. Manage your EOFY budget spend effectively

Budgets can be a source of stress for many marketers with EOFY approaching, using the remaining budget in order to avoid losing it in the following financial year.

If you have remaining budget consider:

  • Have you achieved all you set out to in your marketing plans? Review and identify any gaps in activities as an opportunity to allocate budget to run additional campaigns.

  • If your objectives are to boost sales, reach more customers and improve engagement - SMS campaigns can be set up quickly and easily to achieve this, for example Zapier can be used to integrate with existing programs and apps.

  • Emails have a lower open rate and click through rate of 4% vs SMS with 19%. SMS marketing can boost your email campaigns. It’s also ideal for time-sensitive communications: promotions, one-time passwords and appointment reminders. Email can also be used to send SMS.

  • Repurposing existing content across various channels. For example, a whitepaper can be turned into an infographic and animation video for social media.

  • Re-targeting customers that have interacted with your brand with Google Ads, social media, and SMS marketing. Reach out with special offers, review requests and abandoned cart reminders.

An EOFY SMS marketing campaign can effectively maximise your revenue.

Additional resources