The overall growth of an SMS program depends upon strong lists which is why you should always be focused on acquiring new subscribers. While compliance requirements dictate the language to be used at the time of acquisition, you have endless cross-channeling opportunities to promote opt-in, welcoming new contacts to your brand.

The lifeblood of SMS list growth really comes from aggressive popup strategies.

Popups are proven to bring in new contacts consistently throughout the year, trending along with website traffic. On mobile phones you can incorporate a “Tap To Join” strategy, making it easy for end users to provide their consent.  They simply have to tap the Call To Action on the popup, and a keyword is prepopulated in a text message along with your short code, ensuring they just have to hit the send button. 

Once opted in, you can deliver a double opt-in response, signup incentive coupon, ask users for their email address or birth date, and more. On desktop, you can promote opt-in by providing a phone number box. Popups should be delivered as soon as a new visitor hits your website, ideally within a few seconds of page load.

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But what happens if someone closes the popup right away?

That’s where you can begin promoting opt-in across all of your digital and print channels, leaving opportunities to join your program throughout the customer journey.

One of the easiest ways to do this is through keyword promotion via email and social. With your dedicated shortcode, you can use any keyword you’d like to and encourage prospective subscribers to text you directly to provide their opt-in. 

Emails provide an excellent opportunity for your day-to-day marketing campaigns as well as automated campaigns like Welcome Series, Shopping Cart Abandonment, and Transactions. On social, you can do this through feed posts (free or sponsored), and through stories leveraging the “Swipe Up” functionality. Much like the Tap To Join popup, you can direct contacts to a pre-populated text message for them to simply hit “send” on.

You can also promote SMS opt-in alongside any forms you have on your website. Whether it be an evergreen miniform in your global footer, or through the account create and checkout processes, you can collect phone numbers for SMS subscription with a simple checkbox for contacts to provide consent. 

Per compliance rules, checkboxes must be left unchecked by default and include the required disclaimer language near the Call to Action to sign up. The checkout process, in particular, is the perfect spot to promote opt-in for Transactional SMS programs, delivering order updates and notifications via text.

To grow an SMS program effectively, you must continually acquire new SMS subscribers. It’s important to look across your channels for opportunities to ask for opt-in. However you must do this in a compliant way, making sure you provide people with multiple opportunities to join.