The Rule of 7 was devised in the 1930s to quantify how many times a person needed to see a movie poster before they bought a ticket for the movie. During the ensuing decades, the rule held true for most products. A consumer needed seven “touches” from a company before they would internalize the marketing message and act on the call to action.

These days, with all the noisy messages surrounding us, a consumer may need more than seven touches. They may need up to 25 touches before they are ready to respond to your message. Fortunately, we have more channels to try than just movie posters. Multichannel marketing relies on your ability to create the mix of channels that will supply the needed touches to convert a prospect into a customer.

So maybe the Rule of 7 still applies, but it needs updating. Your mix of channels may need a little overhaul, too. Here’s a list of the channels you’re probably already using:

• Email
• Direct mail
• In-person contact at a trade show or conference
• Print, television and radio ads
• Social media
• Online ads
• Sponsorships
• Online communities
• Billboards
• Phone calls

We’d like to make the case for adding messaging to your channel mix. And here are five great reasons this could work for your marketing campaigns.

#1 – Your Customers Are Digital-First

Your customers have been “rewired” to be digital-first, according to a recent report by Adobe and eConsultancy. The lessons of the past several years have taught them to rely more heavily than ever on their mobile phones, their tablets and their laptops. Non-digital channels are still effective, but your customers look first to their digital devices. Messaging can be central to a digital-first marketing strategy.

#2 – Messaging Is Available 24/7, 365

Your customers are trying to solve problems in their own lives. Sometimes, it’s an ordinary task like scheduling a haircut or taking advantage of a great sale. But sometimes it’s a life-changing event like securing the right attorney after an accident or applying to college or buying a home. In those cases, your customer might want information about your company, product and services after hours. They might search for a lawyer in the middle of the night. They might wonder about interest rates in the middle of the afternoon. They might ask for a campus tour when you least expect it. With automated messaging, you can provide a personalized, but automated, response whenever your customers contact you. Once the first contacts are made, you can switch to in-person conversations, increasing your chances of making connections.

#3 – Attention Spans Are Getting Shorter

You don’t ever have very much time to attract attention, and messaging helps keep your appeal short and sweet. SMS messages are 160 characters long. Multimedia messages can be longer, but they often contain images or videos, making them very appealing. Customers expect messages to be short and to the point, and they are generally willing to give you the 30 seconds it takes to read your message. Use the message wisely and you can have a real impact. Customers trust that you won’t waste their time.

#4 –Premiums Are Effective In Most Campaigns

You probably offer incentives when you make an appeal. Coupons, sweepstakes and bonuses, among others, can help spur your audience to action. Offer something your audience values and you’ll see your response rate rise. Messaging allows you to ask for immediate action. For example, a university might send this message: “Text APPLYNOW to 534567 to waive your application fee.” The reply text might trigger an automated message that leads to an in-person conversation with an admissions counselor. In other industries, you might link to online coupons or offers, tailoring the offer and the response to your situation.

#5 – Compliance & Analytics Are Critical

You probably use a CRM to segment your audiences, direct your campaigns and report on the results. After all, knowing how your campaign performed is critical to your continuing success. The essence of marketing is to design and launch a campaign for a particular audience, gather data about how it performed, and use the analysis to design even more effective campaigns in the future. You probably are also impacted by privacy laws and regulations. They protect consumers and require certain adjustments for marketers. Messaging allows you to work seamlessly with your CRM and to prove compliance with its reporting capabilities.

Increasing your use of messaging in your multichannel marketing mix makes sense in today’s world. People are using messaging systems for an ever-increasing list of tasks, including very private functions like their banking. Other channels are also effective, but messaging can give your marketing an added boost.

If you’re ready to give messaging a try, contact SMS-Magic for a demo or a free trial today!

With email response rates dwindling, brand marketers need to get creative about how they’re engaging with customers. Customer experience is the defining representation of brands and it includes every touchpoint and perception consumers have of your brand throughout their relationship with you.

Business text messaging is unique as a communication channel in several ways:

• Text messaging straddles offline and online and is available to nearly every mobile phone without being reliant on an internet connection.
• Messaging invites two-way conversations, not just one-way pushes of what brands want to say. The way in which consumers respond helps marketers understand and build contextual relevance that enhances experiences with the brand.
• Consumers prefer and respond to text messaging better and faster than other communication channels. How many unread texts are on your phone right now?
• Text messaging complements other channels to help boost traditional campaign performance. Sending a text message reminding your customer to check their email to access a research report, for example, can keep that email from languishing unread and ensure your customers get information important to them through the device where it makes the most sense to engage.

Because our mobile phones are always within reach, it’s prudent to assume that your audience will be reading your messaging and content on their smartphones. Whether email, website, mobile app, video, podcast, Facebook Messenger exchange or text message, the small screen is your entry point to consumer attention and prolonged engagement.

SMS messages are responded to quickly – within minutes – making business text messaging the perfect way to connect content and experiences across channels. Everything is moving toward a mobile framework. So too should your marketing and customer experiences.

Use SMS Messages to Have Contextual Conversations

Marketers must move past the idea that they’re marketing the brand. It’s imperative to think about the purpose and meaning driving your customers’ experience. After all, experiences with your brand are being compared to their experiences with Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and Google. How easy and satisfying is it to engage with your brand?

One of the things we do as marketers is make assumptions. We have a standard for collecting email addresses, so we email messages we want our customers to see. But when was the last time you asked them what device or mode of communication they prefer for specific messages?

Podcasts are most often listened to on mobile phones. How easy are you making it for consumers to listen? Can they tap their messaging queue and tap the link to listen or do they have to scroll through an endless email inbox to find it?

Do you know which topic they’re interested in learning more about or are you assuming because they clicked on several web pages of your site that they’re interested in a topic you covered on one of them? With text messaging, you can ask them. In fact, you can post a sidebar message on an article about the latest in fall fashion for rock climbers that invites them to text ROCK to receive notifications about new arrivals for that category. When they opt-in, you’ve got context around their interests.

Knowing that context and facilitating it seamlessly is what will set your brand apart and bring higher engagement. And the beauty of it is you can continue to engage them with automated messages on that topic.

Marketers are often a bit removed from customers. Text messaging allows you to close that gap by asking a consumer about their preferences or inviting them to ask questions about your products or services that you can answer in real time.

With every message – incoming or outgoing – recorded as a conversational history within their lead or contact record in your CRM, you’ll build that 360° conversational history that helps you personalize your messages without that “creep” factor. When you use what you learn from information your customer has shared, they see the effort and the care you’ve taken to converse with them.

Initiating and continuing contextual conversations with consumers will transform the customer experience. It’s time to break out of the way you’ve always done it and think about how to create more meaningful interactions with your customers.

The Bottom Line

Embracing mobile is not about shrinking experiences made for PCs to fit on a small screen. Advanced text messaging platforms enable marketers to use text messaging as a catalyst for transforming the customer experience.

Using SMS Messages Invites Marketers to:

• Think proactively, rather than reactively.
• Think dialogue, rather than monologue.
• Think context, not just content.

Consumers care about receiving the messages they Opt-in for on the device that’s appropriate for that information. Send an order receipt via email to be filed away for a record of the transaction, but send that coupon offer via text so it’s easily redeemable in store and top of mind.

When marketers look beyond the content to the context in which it will be used, channels blur and the focus is on the experience and the interaction.

Your customers will thank you.

SMS text messaging is more personal and has a greater chance of engaging your audience. While adding another channel to a marketing mix can be more challenging, the payoff is higher. A business text messaging solution that integrates with your CRM, will reduce your workload.

There are many reasons lead nurturing programs can fail. Here are four common mistakes marketers make while nurturing leads.

Don’t quit too soon

A relationship needs to be ongoing, but some marketers give up early because they mistakenly assume their prospect will buy on their marketing timeline. Marketers need to shift from a campaign mentality to a customer journey approach that meets buyers where they are in their buying process—including the mix of content and channels.

Numbing prospects with repetitive content

Marketers often blast their audience with the same content over and over. Track your communication and tweak it if it’s not getting results. Besides turning off prospects, you risk your communications becoming classified as spam.

Using only email for lead nurturing communications

In addition to mixing up your content, marketers can boost performance by integrating various communication channels. This approach will help you identify the channels your prospects prefer and where they’re most responsive. Try adding a call to action for them to choose text messaging for future communications. Build your opt-in list and commence with adding texts to your nurturing program.

Once you’ve done that, remember to sync all your communications with the prospect on one platform. This will help you customize your conversation with your buyers. You’ll increase the chances of continuing response rates as your nurturing program progresses. Using multiple channels increases your response rate by 37% according to a study. And that’s just what you want to see.

Treating your audience as if they’re all the same

Same content, same channel, to all prospects completes this short list of marketing mistakes. A prospect is more likely to respond if you send relevant and meaningful content. For example, a woman interested in purple sweaters is much more likely to respond to a promotional offer on a new shipment of purple sweaters than to a generic 10% discount offer. Or, a new home buyer looking for a 3-bedroom home with a pool who receives a property listing update for a 2-bedroom condo will just hit delete and wonder why they opted in to hear from you in the first place.

A marketing automation platform will help you apply segmentation so it’s easy for you to personalize your content for different needs within your audience. Seventy-three percent of consumers surveyed in an Accenture study said that they would rather buy from retailers who used personal information to make their shopping experience more relevant.

Easy Fixes to Get Lead Nurturing Right

Now that we’ve seen what marketers are doing wrong, let’s talk about how they can leverage the data and tools that are available to them, to increase engagement.

Segment and personalize

Segmentation can help you deliver relevant communication to your audience. Targeted messages can increase engagement significantly, compared to a single communication blast. You can segment leads by source, function, level of product interest, or activity, for instance.

Use your CRM to better know your prospects and customers and apply that knowledge in your communication. Just a few tweaks to a content piece can personalize it by industry or lead source, earning better results.

A software company used progressive profiling to get prospects to opt-in for text messaging by providing their mobile number and website URL to access a resource. It then texted them, offering a free analysis of their website, naming the prospect, company and URL. Responses were swift as text messages are opened in short order. The immediacy of the personalized message enticed them to reply.

Blending channels brings advantages

Use email and text messaging together to get the best out of both. For heavier content that people may prefer to access via their PC or laptops, use email. After a few days, send a text to those on your list who have not opened their emails, reminding them to look with a teaser message about what they might be missing.

You can also promote a VIP program with exclusive offers and content to those on your nurture list as a way to identify prospects who are more interested in your products and services. Or you can invite your prospects to ask questions about the topic of the information you just sent them by asking them to text a keyword for a quick answer. There’s no need to worry – you can set up alerts to ensure a messaging user is advised to respond quickly to incoming questions.

Focus Nurturing on the Customer Lifecycle, not the Initial Sale

Anticipate your prospects’ next move. Create different nurture tracks based on the segments you identified. If your prospects’ behavior shows that they are interested in a product related to the one they first looked at, you can send them to the nurture stream for that product.

Your nurture should be flexible, so that as your prospects shift focus, your content is still relevant to them. SMS text messaging can help you do this more easily then email, through keywords. If a prospect selects an option from a choice of keywords in a text, you can send the next text based on that keyword.

Think long term when it comes to nurturing a relationship, not a one-night stand. You need to get a conversation going with your prospects, whatever be the medium. Rather than relying solely on email, diversify with other channels, including SMS text messaging. This way, you’ll amplify engagement and momentum towards conversion—again and again.

Traditional lead nurturing programs rely on email. Response rates for email have declined, but even more challenging is that email nurturing programs are usually one-way monologues, rather than two-way conversations.

If a prospect is not opening an email—or acting because of it—then it’s time to switch channels to find resonance. SMS text messaging is more personal and has a greater chance of engaging your audience since nearly all text messages are read within minutes of receipt. Even better, should your prospect reply, you’ve got a conversation started. And that’s a big advantage over email.

You may think adding another channel to a nurturing program will introduce challenges in consistency and coordination, but we can simplify that for you. An advanced text messaging platform with native integration with Salesforce keeps your effort low but ensures the payoff from your nurturing programs is high.

4 Common Mistakes Rectified with Lead Nurturing with Text Messaging

Marketers quit too soon.

A relationship is built via ongoing communications, but marketers often give up early. If what you’re selling takes a bit of thought, two touches and a sales pitch won’t get the job done. But it could also be the timing. Maybe it’s not convenient today, but they’ll buy next month. To capitalize on your target market, it helps to shift from a campaign mentality to a customer journey approach.

Automated lead nurturing campaigns with text messaging will help you keep in touch with your prospects. Incorporating calls to action to have them reply with keywords for more information when they’re ready means you have a higher chance of creating connected conversations that inspire purchasing. Where an email nurture doesn’t allow you to step in when appropriate, as soon as your prospect responds via text, you’ll get an alert, so you can step into the conversation in stride.

Sending the same content that repeats the same message.

Sending the same content that didn’t engage prospects the last time is not a solid plan for gaining traction. Track your communications and tweak them if response rates are low. It’s important to think of nurturing as a progressive story meant to drive education and engagement. Show prospects something different that piques their interest and you’re on the right track.

Lead nurturing with text messaging also allows you to insert simple surveys into the stream to allow you to personalize your content and offers based on your prospect’s interests.

For example, if you sell furniture, ask them which room they’re furnishing. Use keywords for the replies so you can automatically trigger the follow-up message. You can ask them, “Are you interested in options for BATH, KITCHEN or LIVINGROOM? Reply with your choice and we’ll show you our latest arrivals.”

Using only one channel.

Besides trying different content, you should also try various communication channels. Where some communications are better facilitated by email, others can play well to an SMS or MMS message. You can even send an email and then send a text to remind them to check their email using a teaser statement that gets their attention. When done well and thoughtfully, using both channels will help you customize your conversation with your prospect. Using multiple channels increases your response rate by 37% according to a study.

Advanced messaging solutions that also integrate with your marketing automation platform will help you facilitate a cross-channel nurturing program that’s in sync and designed to help you start and continue connected conversations with a full history of related behavior for both texts and emails.

Sending the same content to your entire database.

Different prospects have varying needs, interests and issues to solve. Sending the same message to everyone is what gives marketers a bad rap. 73% of consumers surveyed in an Accenture study said that they would rather buy from retailers who used personal information to make their shopping experience more relevant.

Just as marketing automation can help you apply segmentation so that you can personalize information for different members of your audience, so will an advanced messaging platform. Even better, the two can work in sync to coordinate your content flows. You can segment leads by source, function, level of product interest, activity, for instance.

Because text messaging invites replies, questions and responses and all incoming and outgoing messages are recorded in the lead’s history in your CRM—along with response to emails sent by your marketing automation platform—you’ve got a record of the entire conversation.

By analyzing what they respond to and which messages they ignore, you can tweak and tune your nurturing program to get the most from each exchange, as well as using the channel that garners the best response. And, when your leads’ behavior indicates their interests have shifted, it’s easy for you to move them into a nurturing program that better meets their needs.

The Bottom Line

It’s not clear why nurturing has been pursued as a single-channel marketing strategy. But what is clear is that channel preferences are changing, along with expectations. It’s time to start taking a multi-channel approach to your lead nurturing programs for better engagement and outcomes.

Think long term when it comes to developing customer relationships. You need to get a conversation going with your prospects, whatever be the medium. Rather than relying solely on email, consider adding diversify with communication channels like SMS text messaging. This way, you’ll amplify engagement and momentum towards conversion.

Smarter customers expect smarter exchanges with companies

Brands with relevant messaging campaigns have a better chance of engaging and satisfying customers when proactively choosing to use a preferred channel and device for communications. Business text messaging is proving to be a powerful way for brands to get customers’ attention. It’s intimate and immediate. And we rely on our mobile phones more now than ever before. In fact, more than half of consumers say they wish they could do more with their mobile devices.

Consumers want brands to anticipate their needs through SMS messaging

This includes personalized messaging, relevant offers, and timely rewards informed by their behavior and preferences. Even though technology has influenced consumer expectations and preferences, they still prefer a human connection with a brand. SMS messaging campaigns can provide insights to facilitate this, as well as the responsiveness consumers crave. This is because text messaging is one of the few channels that’s direct to the consumer and invites easy response without being considered intrusive.

It’s critical for businesses to provide an easy-to-use mobile experience, say the majority of customers in the Salesforce study. Texting, an application that’s native to all mobile phones, smart or dumb, makes it easy for both customers and companies to communicate easily with each other.

A consumer traveling on a bus could think of a product question for your customer sales representative and dash off a text message. She would then expect an instant reply, because that is inherent to the nature of texting as a medium of communication.

Time is even more of a premium when it comes to business buyers. So it’s crucial that your communication be mobile friendly when it comes to this segment.

It’s important that companies communicate with customers based on what they know about them and their preferences. Otherwise, they run the risk of being discarded in favor of companies that engage with them in the way they prefer.

Rules of engagement for customer communications

Even though consumers expect quick responses, they want these responses to resonate. The more relevant your communication, the more your customer will pay attention. Personalize your SMS messages as much as you can with merge fields. You can use customer data from your CRM to do so. Don’t be afraid to ask your customers for information. Sixty-three percent of millennial customers are open to sharing data with companies that send personalized offers (Salesforce’s State of Connected Customer report).

Ensure that your communication is consistent. If you’re calling your customers by their first name in a text, a follow up text shouldn’t miss out on doing that as well. Three in four consumers expect companies to provide a consistent experience when they engage with them.

More than seventy- five percent of consumers want to work with a salesperson who aims to fulfill their needs rather than on completing a sale quickly. For example, your sales team can use texting to nurture leads with links to content rather than constantly pushing leads to request a demo.

Business text messaging applies to the entire customer lifecycle

Now that you have a good idea what consumers want from your messaging campaigns, it’s time to look at why SMS messages are relevant across the customer lifecycle, at every stage.

Awareness: The awareness stage is also known as the discovery stage or when a consumer learns that your product may be able to solve their problem. Most consumers will start with an internet search to learn about their options. When they find your product and click through to your website, they may have questions. Providing an option for easy text opt-in enables them to initiate a conversation on their terms in the moment they need to. Since mobile search has surpassed desktop, it’s likely they’re already on their mobile device.

Consideration: Once prospects have opted-in to text with you, a messaging campaign is a great way to keep them informed about specials, related products, and to provide more information that can help them make a buying decision. You can also survey them to learn more about their interests and provide more relevant information.

Purchase: Providing offers, discounts, or coupons when a consumer’s behavior indicates an intent to buy can be the tipping point for them making the decision. Text messaging campaigns can also be automated to send purchase confirmation and shipping details.

Customer Service: Once the customer has your product, they may have a question or want to re-order or look for accessories. Providing a means for them to do so quickly and conveniently through text messaging can show them that you’re always putting their needs first.

Loyalty: Customer lifetime value (CLV) is an important facet of the customer journey. Using texting as a key component of your loyalty program can be instrumental in driving repeat business. Send texts with offers on special dates like birthdays, anniversaries, or when you think it’s time for your customer to order more of the product they have already purchased. Text messaging campaigns are also a great way to collect feedback, testimonials, and to monitor NPS and customer satisfaction.

In a world where only the fittest survive, technology will help you and your customers develop better relationships with each other. Simple technology like business text messaging will enable you to create messaging campaigns that communicate smartly with today’s consumers at every stage of the customer journey.

Take a look at the time it takes for businesses to plan, create, test, and send emails, then analyze their performance post send from the 2018 State of Email Workflows report from Litmus:

Add all these tasks up and you’re talking about 24.5 hours, on average. The email marketers surveyed in this report also said that these hours span at least two weeks to reach completion, given the handoffs and routing workflows between teams and departments it takes to get the work done.

SMS Messages Reduce Complexity and Effort

Don’t get me wrong, many texting tools require the same effort as shown in the report above. A simple campaign can take 3-4 weeks, more sophistication can take months.

That’s a problem we wanted to solve.

And we did. With Converse.

Imagine:

• Your marketing users creating and deploying proven campaigns, easily and effortlessly.
• Your team intelligently managing more conversations, more responsively and seamlessly across every stage of your pipeline, from lead to opportunity to account.
• Having the analytics insights you need for every messaging campaign, right at your fingertips.

To make this a reality, we’ve prepackaged customer-proven best practices in every Converse App, speeding your time to messaging campaigns. Each app is purpose-driven so that you can choose what you need to achieve your goals—from simple single blast messages to sophisticated multi-faceted campaigns.

Need to build your subscriber list? We’ve got an app for that.

Want to learn more about your customers? Our progressive profiling app has you covered.

Your product is a considered purchase, so you need to nurture prospects along their buying journey? Our nurture app sets you up for success.

Are you having an event and you want to encourage registrations and promote special opportunities? Use our events app.

Take surveys, schedule appointments, send offers and promotions or anything else you dream up without need for developers or heavy technical lifting.

Converse apps include content, automated workflows, global messaging services, and powerful data management, along with integration to leading platforms, like Salesforce, ready to go. All you need to do is tweak the message content templates to suit your needs and brand and you’re ready to go.

Conversations vs. Information Dumps

The cool thing about SMS messages is that they are conversational. Rather than just pushing information at your prospects and customers, like you do with email, you can invite two-way conversations that build better relationships and trust with every interaction.

You won’t need to worry about how you’ll manage all this because we’ve also created Converse Desk. The Desk is an intuitive messaging interface designed like an email inbox, inviting your users to get hands-on with little training. Even better, it has an intelligent guidance system that creates a virtual worklist for your users, making it fast and easy for your users to find any conversation and manage multiple conversations.

You’ll never miss another opportunity and your responsiveness will impress your prospects and customers and show them how attentive you are to their requests, queries, and needs.

Simplicity Meets the Need for Speed

Businesses that take 2 weeks or more to craft and deliver communications to prospects and customers will find their ability to engage them diminishing. Sixty-nine percent of respondents to CCW Digital’s recent study on customer experience view speed-to-communications as a top priority. And, 64% want interactions that require less effort.

SMS messages can help you deliver on both. Not to mention that your marketers will be more productive and can focus on creating the most relevant messaging possible, not on the technology that powers them.

Text messaging already gets a 6x response rate over emails. Which means that when you use text messaging to compel opt-ins, you’re highly likely to get more compliant opt-ins than with any other form of communication.

The question then becomes, “How do I compel my audiences to opt-in?” Here are three ideas.

1. Give them something relevant using short code in return for their opt-in to text messaging.

Offering discounts and coupons is a tried and true approach for product and service-oriented companies. You see these discounts in coupon flyers and envelopes mailed out en masse, in advertisements via direct mail, as well as in online digital ads and emailed offers.

Steps to using promotional offers to drive opt-ins:

• Have your IT admin create a Keyword Response tied to a specific promotion conversation
• Add that keyword to your short or long code in SMS-Magic Converse
• Promote that keyword and short code, along with the offer, in all of your print, digital and event marketing promotions
• Deliver the offer automatically when someone texts the keyword to that short or long code

Be sure you’re using a compliant opt-in approach to the text opt-in, before you have any type of conversation with the prospect. Also, be sure to follow-up after the opt-in is complete to actually send them the offer via text message. SMS-Magic allows you to automate offer delivery based on keyword responses.

You’ll also want to message them to let them know that you’ll be sending other offers and informational content via messaging conversations.

Here’s an example of how this works in higher education:

Your students are digital natives. Using messaging to recruit them gives you the advantage over other institutions. Here’s how you can use SMS-Magic Converse to quickly reach out to students, get their consent, and then move on to recruiting them.

1. Promote your school. A web page, promotion or email campaign uses the offer of a Virtual Event to compel a text opt-in from a student using the keyword SCHOOL. The Compliant Opt-in App manages their confirmation automatically.
2. Fulfill your promotion. Following confirmation, an automatic message delivers the event information and registration which was offered as part of the opt-in promotion, using a Single Message App.
3. Promote a student event: An Event Announcement is triggered through our Event App, offering registration for an Open House. After the student registers, a confirmation is sent, followed by a series of promotions for the event. A message in the event nurture offers the option for the student to SCHEDULE a meeting with admissions at the event, or ask to chat with someone (HELP).

2. Make it easy for new clients to contact you.

Let’s say you’re in real estate, financial services, or some other service-oriented industry. The key to getting new clients is to promote yourself and your business, right?

In every promotion, whether it be a Home for Sale sign, an advertisement, a Yellow Pages listing, or Chamber of Commerce registration, include a keyword and short or long code to make it easy for new prospects to connect with you.

• For multiple options/services, you can use different keywords with the same short or long codes to delineate which service a prospect is interested in discussing.

  For example, different houses for sale could use the numbers in their address as the keywords. In this way, you can immediately know what the prospect is interested in exploring, then trigger an automatic set of messages (after a compliant opt-in) to give them more information that’s highly relevant to their interest.

• If your business is more focused, say landscaping, you can use one keyword for all of your opt-ins.
• You can also combine the concept of a discount or offer with your business promotions. For example, offer a discount on services when someone opts-in to your conversation about relevant topics to your business.

It’s important to note, these nurturing conversations should be relevant and information-based, not self-promoting. Self-promotion is a fast way to get prospects to opt-out of your messaging conversations.

3. Include keywords in your emails or other communications.

The best communication strategy blends all your channel options. So, use your email communications to get people to opt-in to your messaging programs.

Since most people prefer messaging over any other form of communication, why not give them what they want?

Try these simple tricks to promote your text messaging opt-in:

• Customer update emails: In your next customer update email, offer special insights into a topic that’s relevant to your customer base. Use text messaging to deliver those insights. Which means the customers need to opt-in to get them.

  You can use this technique when you’re announcing new products or updates, new services, or new partnerships. If your customers want the juicy information, they’ll get it through texting. Texting is intuitive; we all text. Your customers prefer it so you’re serving them by moving to more text messaging conversations.

• Lead nurturing: In your lead nurture emails, promote a text alternative with a simple opt-in. Again, offer something special like unique information and insights, a free trial or discount coupon for everyone who successfully opts-in to your messaging conversation.

You can also include a keyword and short cord in your IVR messages so that when people call your company, they get a quick option to reach out and converse with someone, quickly, without waiting on hold.

The Bottom Line

Text messaging offers a compelling way to interactively converse with your audience. Since people read and respond to text messages far more than they do emails, gaining opt-ins to text messaging programs results in getting the consent marketers need to be able to continue to communicate with prospects and customers—especially once GDPR comes into effect.

Using the above techniques will enable you to promote your offerings and services, while you also gain the consent you need for ongoing text messaging conversations.

• Open Rates for Emails: 18% on average
• Open Rates for Texts: Above 98% on average
• An average individual checks his emails 18 times a day while he checks his smartphone 150 times a day

And if these statistics are not convincing enough, 174 million people text daily while 91 million login to Facebook daily. And that’s in the US alone.

Put these together, and it’s pretty simple to deduce that texting is holding its own as a primary channel people prefer.

Texting has become the fastest and easiest channel to reach people, whether consumers or professionals, and irrespective of their location and availability. Texts are easier to share and have a better call to action value. Statistically people are more responsive on texts than on emails. They tend to share texts with friends and family. Sending coupons, discounts, and relevant information via text messages results in better response rates and more follow-through on your calls to action.

Building the Case for Texting for Business

Budget Friendly

Interestingly, using texting as a marketing and sales communication tool extends your communication outreach, not your budget. Texting is budget friendly and works like magic for all businesses, from startups to enterprises. For those looking to kick-start a marketing campaign, whether on a crunch budget or not, texting is a channel to be considered. The ROI will be a welcome boost to your campaign performance.

Instant Engagement

Texting drives engagement. It’s that simple. Whether you are at your kid’s sporting event or moving between meetings, a text message is simple and straightforward. Short and precise, the text does its job and response is easy, without switching devices or networks. Given we check our phones 150 times every day, this makes texting an instant way to reach and engage with your customers, coworkers, and prospective business opportunities.

Makes Content Personal

An email is no longer personal. But a mobile device is. Hence, every activity on the mobile device becomes a lot more personal. Texts, in their true form, are short, precise and assure instant delivery. That itself is a value proposition that cannot be disregarded. Mix it with a fair amount of personalization and this becomes your most valued customer touch point. Timed well, a text message can do much more than just engage your customers. It can drive customer loyalty and retention to a personal level. Something that emails today fail to achieve.

Texting Works for All Businesses

A salon, a restaurant, a spa or a logistics company – texting works for everyone. Non-profits can use it to drive volunteer participation. Educational institutions can use it to notify students about schedules and upcoming events. A text can reduce multiple phone calls to a logistics company to track delivery status. Restaurants and hotels can use texting to push offers and notify guests about availability or reservation confirmations. Loan officers can use it instantly to notify clients about loan statuses. Simply put, it is a solution that every business can use effectively to attract, engage, win, and retain customers.

Every individual with a mobile device texts. Every individual is part of some target market for a business. The question is: Are you putting texting to work for your business?

SnapApp defines interactive content as “Content that requires the participants’ active engagement — more than simply reading or watching. In return for that engagement, participants receive real-time, hyper-relevant results they care about.”

This sounds pretty wonderful when compared to the self-serving, static content and irrelevant emails that so many brands push out to consumers.

You may think of quizzes, assessments, ROI calculators, and dynamic infographics when the concept of interactive content comes up. And when done well, those do fit SnapApp’s definition.

But they are still, for the most part, one-way content. There’s an end date to the engagement. Once you’ve taken the quiz and learned which is your spirit animal, you’re not likely to take it again. Its value has been played out.

Purposeful Conversations Require Back and Forth

A conversation is an active exchange of ideas. This infers more than one participant. And it also allows for a following of those ideas to hone in on what’s meaningful to someone.

Relevance is a prerequisite for a continuing conversation. And businesses need to have the flexibility when communicating to adapt to what their prospects and customers want to talk about.

Your boutique may have a special on boots, but if your customer is interested in tennis shoes, your conversation will be short lived.

However, if you can let your customers steer the conversation to their interests while still being responsive, you have a huge opportunity to continue the conversation.

Keywords Enable Purposeful Conversations

Advanced text messaging platforms enable businesses to use keywords to allow prospects and customers to initiate conversations. But you can also initiate conversations with them by giving them choices.

Please note: In the conversations below, green represents an automated conversation, yellow represents a 1:1 conversation.

Taking the example above about footwear, you could invite a conversation by texting and asking your customers to respond with a keyword that identifies what they’re interested in:

When Sherry texts back SNEAKERS, you know exactly what to send her next.

Sherry receives your text, clicks the link, and looks at the shoes.

Once Sherry replies with HELP, an alert is sent to the staff at FancyFootwear so they can step in and respond. But your automated message flow buys you time by triggering a response.

Gain the Advantages of SMS Messages

The advantage of using SMS messages to create purposeful conversations is that they motivate inquiry and action relevant to your customer.

In the series above:

• The first message activated a customer to let the store know what type of shoes interested her
• The second message motivated Sherry to go look at the new inventory of sneakers
• She got her question answered quickly, which removed the doubt she had about making a purchase
• The store made a sale that may not have otherwise happened

If you want to have more purposeful conversations with your customers, try automated text messaging that alerts you when to step in and keep the conversation flowing.