5 Ways to Build an SMS Database for Your SMS Marketing Campaigns

SMS marketing is still one of the most efficient and fruitful channels to build relationships with your clients and increase their engagement. However, you need to create your bulk SMS database to reach this result. 

How to create a customer database and avoid major problems with SMS rules and regulations? Let’s figure it out in this article.

What Is an SMS Database?

SMS database is a list of mobile numbers you might use for your SMS marketing. While sending bulk text messages, you just need to upload numbers in your SMS software, run SMS delivery testing and reach out to your subscribers.

Building your marketing contact database in the SMS industry is a sensitive matter. There are various regulations in different countries you should always comply with, otherwise, you would suffer from reputational and financial losses. 

The main principle you should follow while collecting a customer contact database is to always ask for permission before adding a number to any bulk SMS campaigns. It would not only help you avoid any legal issues but grants you high engagement and conversion rates.

There is another challenge you might face while working with a database of mobile numbers and SMS marketing overall, and it is SMS deliverability. To ensure regular decent results, you need not only to collect a database and prepare quality content but to resort to testing text messaging.

This will help you check the quality of services provided by your SMS vendors, choose the most efficient routes, remove inactive numbers and get real data on SMS campaign performance.

By the way, using API for text message testing will simplify and automate this process, saving your marketing team more time for creative, strategical tasks.

5 Ways to Build Your Text Marketing Database in 2022

So, how to build a customer database using legal options and not exposing your company to any risks? We have collected five methods you might choose to get the mobile numbers from your customers or prospects.

Create Mobile Keywords

Mobile keywords are a set of letters or numbers that a mobile user can send to your business shortcode as a request to receive SMS from your company. By sending such messages, the user is automatically added to your text message database and turns into your subscriber. 

You might create marketing campaigns through other communication channels to let your customers know about these shortcodes and call them to use them.

Ask Clients at the Point of Sale

Another way to obtain your clients’ mobile numbers is simply to ask them at the most suitable moment. Doing it while they are interacting with you and making a purchase might be it. In fact, it even doesn’t matter, whether it’s an online purchase or the client has come into your store. The set of right questions and careful, the unobtrusive approach will help you get the personal data from clients and their agreement to stay in touch with you through regular SMS campaigns and promotions.

Offer Incentives

However, not everyone will want to share their numbers just like that. So, it might make sense to offer an additional motivation for people to get their contacts to you. 

Incentives and loyalty programs might help here: when joining your contact base, the client will receive special offers unavailable otherwise or get a regular discount. These bonuses can reduce the annoyance a lot of people feel while getting promotions for businesses and push people to give their numbers to you.

Use Social Media

It is hard to overestimate the importance of social media nowadays. So why not use their potential to grow your database for SMS marketing? 

Through social media and SMS messaging marketing demands different approaches and might work differently on different audiences, they might supplement one another greatly. Moreover, you might add suggestions from previous paragraphs we mentioned, for example, to use a specific shortcode for your social media or offer a discount for your social media followers who will share their number. 

Leverage Your Website

If you have invested in your website development and its promotion, you might also try to direct its visitors to become your SMS subscribers. A lot of companies have widgets offering to subscribe to an email newsletter. You might create a similar widget but with a call to action to share a mobile number to receive regular SMS updates, promotions, etc.

Wrapping Up

Creating a mobile number database is a long process when done right. You need to contact every client or prospect and get their permission to send SMS, and it will definitely take more time from you than, for example, buying a complete database. 

However, buying numbers will lead to the negative consequences we have mentioned in this article. Hence, we suggest choosing only legal ways to obtain mobile numbers.