Be more Barbie: 3 ways to inject some fun into your business messaging

Barbie mania is taking over the world! The world’s favourite fashion doll is making her way onto the big screen and the press hype around Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling’s latest movie is inspiring marketing campaigns and licensing tie-ins across the world. 

Barbie is a natural choice for brands to tie in with  – she’s instantly recognisable, well loved, and most of all fun – conjuring memories of playfulness in people of all ages. 

Now, we’re not suggesting you have the marketing budget of the movie, or that you turn your marketing campaigns a bright flamingo pink; but injecting some fun into your SMS is a great way to engage your customers, stand out from the crowd and keep your messaging fresh and creative. 

Here are our 3 suggestions for adding some fun and engagement into your messages:

Message like you’re talking to a friend

When we text our friends and family our language tends to be informal, easy to read and straight to the point. This advice translates really well to online SMS campaigns, where you want to drive people to a call to action as quickly as possible, using the right tone. No one likes to feel like they’re being pushed to do something, or sold too, and choosing to use a light, fun tone of voice can really help drive action without feeling too pushy. 

Personalisation is another easy to add differentiator; a text with your name on, is immediately more appealing than a generic promotional message. 

Consider too, follow up messages; SMS is brilliant for getting the message straight to your customers hands, but often our hands are busy; we’re at work, school, driving etc. Reminder messages, used thoughtfully, can be helpful and drive increased engagement; and let’s face it, who hasn’t had to send a friend a reminder text at some point?

Brighten it up and get visual! 

Part of the reason the Barbie movie is unmissable right now, is it’s bright and colourful appearance. Adding this to messages is easy – emojis are easy to use and brighten up any message. Our advice on emojis is to use them sparingly – opening a message with a wave emoji to attract attention, adding the sunshine emoji to a seasonal promotion, or simply just adding a smiley emoji to convey emotion and add some brightness, can make your messages immediately more friendly, fun and attractive. 

And don’t forget that both RCS messaging and WhatsApp can be used to share multimedia – images, photos and GIFs can really help stand you out from the crowd, increase brand familiarity and add more impact to your message.

Be playful – interact

Playing Barbie as a child was fun, but playing with friends was even better (until that one kid cut her hair and scribbled on her face with a pen). The same goes for messaging; sometimes one off SMS notifications and messages are all you need, but increasingly we’re seeing more and more businesses turn to conversational messaging, recognising that 2 way messages can drive valuable customer interaction. Whether you choose a simple SMS survey to gather feedback and help your customer feel heard, or decide to offer customer support through WhatsApp; mobile messaging allows for customer interaction that is easy and cost effective to manage, and helps provide a convenient experience that customers love. 

We hope this article has inspired you to find your inner ‘business messaging’ Barbie and inject some fun into your messaging this summer!

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