Does Text Messaging Really Help Your Business Thrive?

Nowadays, a lot of people, especially the younger generation, prefer to communicate via text messaging rather than phone calls. One primary advantage of this method is that it gives the recipient full control of when they want to respond to the message.

Another benefit is that it doesn’t intrude on their workflow, unlike phone calls, where the incessant ringing can disrupt your customer’s concentration on a busy workday. You don’t want to annoy your clients with frequent calls that disturb their routine, so it’s better to send a text message if the situation isn’t urgent.

Text messaging can help your business thrive by:

1. Making Communication Convenient

Phone calls are still the most convenient way to speak with your clients. However, as mentioned above, it can cause a disturbance in what your customers are doing at the moment.

While business tools like a predictive dialer can make cold-calling a breeze, this tactic is particularly disruptive because it’s an unexpected and sometimes unwelcome interruption for your customer. You can alleviate this issue by sending customers a text message asking if you can call them first.

Supplement your cold-calling campaign with a text blast to boost the effectiveness of your marketing strategy. Wait for their confirmation and then proceed with delivering your sales pitch.

You must also remember that you shouldn’t aim for a sale right away during the first cold call you make to potential clients. This initial phone meeting is intended to introduce your brand as well as your products and services to prospective customers.

Your goal for this first call should be to set an appointment when you can speak with the other person for a lengthier time. With this, you’re giving them the chance to choose a schedule that’s convenient for them.

2. Ensuring Your Message is Delivered Straight to Your Customers

Aside from the convenience that text messaging offers to your customers and sales representatives, this platform makes sure that your clients receive the message directly. Smartphones have become increasingly personal. Almost everyone, even kids and teens, has their mobile phones in hand.

You can overtake your competitors by marketing to these demographic directly by sending them text messages containing exclusive deals and promos. It’s also useful to send a link to your shop through SMS, which makes your website more accessible. They can easily click on the hyperlink, and they’ll be automatically redirected to their browser for a shopping session.

Some tips on how to create a text campaign for your business:

  • Be Concise – Phone messages can really bring out your creative copywriting skills because of their limited character capacity. While you have the option to extend to more than the limit, it’s better to stick to the number of characters allotted to you. Not only can you capture your prospects’ attention span, but you also lessen their risk of receiving broken or incomplete messages due to technical errors.
  • Engage Regularly But Not Too Often – Strike a balance on how often you send out your business text messages. Ideally, the maximum number of messages each client should receive from you should be seven per month. You don’t want to annoy your customers to the point that they’ll block your number because you keep sending text messages that aren’t even relevant for them.
  • Time Your Messages – Aside from frequency, you should also consider the ideal time and day when you ought to send your text blast. Consider your demographics and their routines. If your target audience is young professionals, you may want to send a message during lunchtime or after office hours, when they can freely use their phones.
  • Create Urgent CTAs – You want your customers to buy your products and services. Motivate them to move by making call-to-actions that are urgent. CTAs are prompts that you send to your clients to get them to do what you want, like sign up for your newsletter or, even better, to purchase your merchandise. Make urgent, concise copies by setting a deadline on a promo, for instance, or informing them that you only have limited stocks.
  • Perform A/B Testing – When you test your text messages, you send out two scripts with one different element to your customers, and evaluate how effective these scripts are at persuading them to buy your product. With this, you get to determine which terms are valuable for your text campaign.

3. Automating the Promotion of Your Products and Services

Mass text messaging has made sending out promotional messages more convenient and manageable. The automation of this process not only helps boost your revenue, but also helps your sales representatives become more productive.

By automating text blasts, your employees can focus on more crucial tasks like following up on customers who’ve expressed that they want to know more about your company. This tool can also empower your staff because they can carry on with more significant responsibilities rather than getting stuck with the tedious task of typing in mobile numbers one by one.

4. Increasing Your Message’s Open Rate

Consumers are bombarded with a lot of promotional messages these days, particularly in their email inboxes and social media feed. However, many companies have ignored the fact that text messages feel more personal. Plus, text messages have the most likelihood of being read, with open rates going as high as 98 percent.

You can easily dismiss a notification of a new email, especially if the sender is trying to sell you something again. With text messages, though, you can’t help but feel compelled to open them and read their content.

Before you can start a text marketing campaign for your business, you need a platform that will help you get your message out to consumers. These are the factors that you should look for:

  • Scalability – If one of your goals for your small business is to expand to broader markets in the future, you should invest in tools that are scalable, including your text messaging software. The platform must be able to grow with your company and continue accommodating its needs.
  • Affordability – This is the primary factor that’s holding back most small business owners from investing in technology for the cost it entails. Fortunately, there are affordable options on the market. You just have to do your research and figure out the features that your business needs.
  • Legal Compliance – Your local government may have strict laws on how brands can use text messaging for promoting their products and services. You have to be aware of these regulations and verify if the supplier is compliant with them.
  • Keyword Limits – Affordable business text messaging platforms typically cut back on the cost by having companies share shortcode. One issue you should expect is when another organization is already using or has reserved the keyword that you plan on sending out to your customers.
  • Automation – As mentioned above, you don’t want to hamper your sales representatives’ productivity by burdening them with tedious tasks, like manually sending text messages. Look for automation and scheduling features that suit the needs of your company.
  • Integration – If you already have a current system in place, you ought to find a text messaging platform that can work seamlessly with the tools that you’re using now. For instance, you may need software that automatically sends shipping confirmations to customers after completing their transaction on your website.

5. Giving Customers the Choice to Opt-Out

Another reason why text messaging is the preferred communication method of most people these days is that it allows them to opt-out without feeling embarrassed to do so.

A lot of customers aren’t comfortable with confrontation. While you don’t see the other person in a phone call, the fact that you’re speaking to them in real-time can add to the pressure that you feel to succumb to their persuasive sales talk. You don’t want customers to feel forced to buy your products and services only to end up regretting the purchase.

Even if text messaging gives them the liberty to dismiss your promo, your goal should always be to generate genuine interest in your brand or merchandise. This way, you can expect recurring sales and loyalty from your clients.

6. Creating a More Personal Marketing Experience

You can also use text messaging to your advantage by personalizing your SMS. For instance, you can send a link to an exclusive deal, like a discount or voucher, to birthday celebrants of a particular month.

You can even tap influencers to help promote your business and send a promo text code to them, which they can then share with their followers. This arrangement typically entails giving them a commission for every sale that comes through their code.

Conclusion

Text messaging has become the communication method of choice by most people nowadays, especially the younger generation, because of its convenience and personalized approach. If they are your target demographic, then your business will gain significant benefits in sending text blasts for updates and promos.

With a text marketing campaign, you can ensure that your message is delivered straight to the customers. This increases the likelihood that they’ll open your message and read its content.

Software for this method also has automation features, which can help boost the productivity of your sales representatives. Moreover, text messaging gives customers a chance to opt-out without feeling embarrassed or guilty about saying no to you.