Crushing The Second Half Of The Year: 6 Ways To Keep Your Energy And Results Up

Entry By Jason Brick

We’re now half way through the year, so it’s as good a time as any to reflect, assess and plan. Is this the year your business explodes? The year you finally ditch the yellow pages and go web-and-mobile only? The year you hire that manager so you can work on your business instead of in it? Well, you’ve had six months to start that process. If you’re still stuck in first gear, now’s the time to really push the gas pedal.

A strong SMS marketing strategy can help make those goals a reality, but only if you stay focused on and excited about your message. This can mean struggling to come up with compelling content week after week. Your subscribers will know when your text plan starts to feel like a chore, and numbers will reflect your indifference. Consider these strategies for keeping content dynamic and exciting over the entire year. 

1. Set Goals If you play video games, you know that you can spend hours on Xbox Live accumulating achievements without complaint. You can make your SMS campaign feel more like a video game by tracking your numbers carefully. Set goals for performance, and adjust your plan to make sure you reach them.
2. Work in Chunks Because writing and sending an SMS message takes just seconds, many business owners relegate it to a "spare time" task. This often means writing them in a panic because you've ignored it until deadline. Instead, set aside an hour once a week to write out several SMS messages. Broadcast them on schedule, but prepare them when you can give it your attention and excitement.
3. Springboard One good idea can lead you to another, and another, and yet another. When something excites your imagination, follow it. There's no better way to stay enthused about your SMS than to make it feature topics about which you're already passionate. 
4. Reuse and Recycle Nothing succeeds like success. If a message or format gets results, use it again. Depending on the format, you might rebroadcast it a few months later -- or tailor a basic idea to better suit a second application. Either way, you spend less effort on the idea and see better results with the proven message.
5. Read More The more you put into your brain, the more will come out. Reading trade publications, books and newspapers will stimulate your imagination and keep the ideas flowing. You can get the same results from podcasts, blogs and other forms of 21st-century media. 
6. Delegate If you're just not loving SMS, give yourself permission to pass the job off to somebody who does. You can hire a text marketing firm, or find somebody in the office who’s interested in mobile marketing. Either way, you keep the message exciting by giving responsible to somebody who's excited about it.