You have a choice of two: SMS or MMS.

You probably already use SMS messaging in your daily life. SMS stands for “Short Message Service” and is the type of service that comes with most mobile phones. When you text a brief message to family members with a quick reminder about the day’s schedule, you’re probably using an SMS message. It’s no more than 160 letters and numbers and doesn’t have any attachments. The technology has been around since the 1980s and is the most widely used messaging protocol.

If, however, you send a photo with your message, you’re using an MMS message. MMS stands for “Multimedia Message Service.” You can include photos, videos, audio clips, GIFs and more in an MMS message. MMS also allows you to send up to 1,600 characters in your message. Combining a message and an attachment generally creates a much larger file than a simple SMS message, but more about that in a minute.

What About iMessage, WhatsApp and the Other Services?

When you send or receive a plain SMS message, you’re using the cellular service on your mobile phone. If you’re using iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat or any of the other “Over the Top” apps, the app is using the internet to send the message, not a cellular service. The recipient of the message must also have the same app to receive the message.

For example, if you send an iMessage (which comes with your iPhone) your recipient must have an iPhone, too, or the message will be delivered as an SMS message. You can tell the difference because the bubble on your iPhone goes from blue to green when you message someone who doesn’t have an iPhone.

When you’re sending one message at a time, of course, it doesn’t matter much how it’s being delivered. When you start sending hundreds or thousands of messages at a time, however, the details become much more important.

What’s the Difference Between SMS and MMS?

At SMS-Magic, you have the capability to send either SMS or MMS messages from the minute you sign up for our service. If you have unlimited time and an unlimited budget, you can send MMS messages exclusively. If, however, you are tracking time spent and managing a budget, you’ll need to know when to choose one or the other.

SMS

• SMS messages are limited to 160 characters – text or numerals.
• One credit buys one SMS message.
• Each single SMS message or auto-reply generally takes 5 seconds to be delivered. Group SMS messages depend on the group size for delivery rates. You can expect 10,000 SMS messages to take about five minutes from the start of the send.

MMS

•  MMS messages can contain up to 1,600 characters.
• Four credits buy one message.
• Each MMS message may take up to a minute to be delivered through the messaging system and the carrier.

If you’re running a “text-to-join” campaign or something similar and expect a high rate of return, you probably will opt for SMS. Transactional messages like appointment confirmations, package tracking or password resets probably make more sense as SMS messages, too. Consider SMS when your messages are short, urgent, or concise or direct recipients to links with more information. Be careful with emojis because sometimes they can bump your messages into an MMS category.

Although budget may limit your choice to less-expensive SMS messages, you might have occasions when an MMS campaign will attract more attention. Humans remember pictures better than other information. If you hear something, you’ll remember 10 percent of it three days later. But if there’s a picture, you’ll remember 65 percent of it.

In 2008, BMW launched an MMS campaign to sell snow tires and enjoyed an outstanding 30 percent conversion rate. The campaign cost them $60,000. If they sent to 117,000 customers and 30 percent bought tires at an average cost of $1,300, the campaign brought in more than $45 million. That’s over $750 in revenue per dollar spent on the campaign.

Of course, not every company will experience that kind of result, but you may have campaigns that warrant higher send rates than others. In a 2012 study by ROI Research, 44 percent of respondents say they are more likely to engage with companies that post pictures in their ads. Your audience’s preferences will help guide what types of messages you send.

Managing Relationships with Carriers & CRMs

Do you have staff members who are experts at managing relationships with all the carriers you might encounter? Don’t worry! SMS-Magic does.

As part of our service, we handle everything you need from a carrier – from acquiring short and long codes to troubleshooting issues. We work with carriers every day and can save you the trouble of dealing with them.

In addition, SMS-Magic works seamlessly with Salesforce and Zoho and has the capability to work with most CRM systems. We can help you even if you don’t use a CRM at all.

Does SMS-Magic sound like the partner you’ve been looking for? We hope so!

Contact us to set up a demo or to start your free trial. Let us show you how to accelerate your messaging campaigns with SMS-Magic!

The trick is adding text messaging effectively. For that, you might need to know what we know. Here are eight of our favorite tips for building effective text messaging marketing campaigns:

Secret #1 – Get permission first.

You can’t just start texting your customers, even if they’ve given you their phone numbers. Government regulations say that you must have their permission first. So you’ll probably want to ask for permission in every way possible – on your website, in emails, with printed ads, on receipts, and many other ways. Find tons of great ideas for promoting your texting program in one of our recent blogs and examples of those first few texts in this one.

Once you have permission to text, here’s how to design your campaign:

Secret #2 – Decide what you want to accomplish.

What are your goals for the campaign? Do you want to increase opt-ins to your text messaging lists? Do you want to increase sales, applications, or appointments? If you can, put some numbers in the goal. How much of an increase in sales? How many new appointments or applications? Knowing what you want to accomplish will help you know when you’ve done well.

Secret #3 – Research your market.

If you haven’t already done so, you should conduct research to define your market. You need to know who they are, where they hang out, and what makes them tick. What are their challenges and how can you help? In a business-to-business environment, you need to be sure you understand their business. How do they want to be served? Do you know what they think value is? The more you know about your market, the easier it is to design campaigns that help them solve problems.

Secret #4 – State the call to action clearly.

What do you want them to do? Remember KISS – Keep it short and simple.

Secret #5 – Personalize the text messages.

As your opt-in list grows, take the time to segment your list into personas. You can send tailored messages to segments of the list. Using a CRM will help define and track your audiences.

Secret #6 – Don’t overwhelm your audience.

Think about your own experience. Nothing makes us angrier than texts we haven’t opted into or too many texts from anyone. Treat your customers like friends and be respectful of their time. Keep in mind that we read texts within two minutes of receiving them. Time your texts for your customers’ convenience.

Secret #7 – Choose an SMS provider who can help on the back end.

Your provider should make respecting opt-outs easy and should be able to provide the reports to prove compliance with local and national laws. Even better is a service that works easily with your CRM. You may not ever need to show you comply with regulations, but knowing you could, will keep you from pulling your hair out.

Secret #8 – Test, Evaluate and Tweak

When you decide what your campaign goals are, you should determine how you’re going to measure it. Whatever your method is, remember to test appropriately. You need to know if your campaign is working. If it isn’t, figure out why and adjust it. Then test again. Nothing is perfect, and you’ll get better results with flexible design.

Those eight secrets should help you get started. Text messaging is a powerful tool, and it’s available to organizations of all sizes.

Let SMS-Magic Help You

The SMS-Magic team works every day to make building effective campaigns easy. We are Salesforce and Zoho experts and can make those integrations seamless. We would be excited to share our experience and help you decide what is best for you.

Does the SMS-Magic team sound like the partner you’ve been looking for? We hope so!

Contact us to set up a demo or to start your free trial. Let us show you how SMS-Magic can help you build and automate your text messaging campaigns!

Automated text message campaigns are a popular way to respond to leads anytime, schedule appointments with busy clients and provide important information to customers.

Here are examples of how you can use automated text messaging campaigns across a variety of industries.

1. Automated Text Messaging Means Responding to Leads Anytime

With automation you have the ability to respond to leads right away, no matter what time of day it is. Clients and prospects are no longer left waiting, and you don’t have to always be checking to see if there is a new message. You’ll be able to communicate and interact with even your busiest clients. You can set this type of automation up to be as easy as:

• Confirm consent & stay compliant.
• Offer information about new programs.
• Continue to nurture prospects with relevant information.

2. Automating Enrollment to Save Time and Resources

Universities spend insane amounts of time dealing with enrollment processes that can be incredibly tedious. It also takes valuable resources to ensure all of these processes are completed, and most higher education institutions don’t have unlimited budgets. That’s why universities love automating enrollment with text messaging. This allows them to notify applicants of key information still pending, remind students of enrollment dates, and even switch between automated messages and interactive individual questions and requests.

3. Scheduling Interviews and Appointments

Scheduling interviews and appointments always takes longer than any of us thinks it will. Between finding a time that works for both you and a client, people cancelling appointments, or things getting shuffled around, it’s always a dance. Can you imagine the time you would get back if you didn’t have to do this all manually? Automated text messaging  campaigns take care of scheduling so you get back valuable time with your clients and prospects.

4. Surveys

Surveys are a great way to get a pulse on how customer interactions are going or how a customer is liking a product or service. But, building and sending individual surveys can be time consuming. With automation, you can trigger a survey and get a quick response, helping you ultimately create better customer experiences. In the example above a contact center automated an NPS Survey once a case was closed and then automatically stored the customer rating in Salesforce. Such an easy way to continually improve your business.

5. Share Tips and Updates

Engaging with customers and prospects on a personal level is more important than ever. And with everyone obsessively checking their phones, text messaging is a great channel to reach your audience. Automating tips and updates can be an easy way to connect with customers and leads. And you can provide an option for them to ask a question or reply back, starting a conversation that may not have happened otherwise.

The Bottom Line

Automated text messaging campaigns can put you ahead of your competitors and help you gain loyal customers. Texting provides the ability to easily engage and interact with your audience, and your customers will appreciate the convenience and personal touch they receive with this type of communication. It’ll give you the competitive advantage you’ve been looking for. 

Want to see how SMS-Magic Converse helps clients achieve all of this with text messaging? Reach out and we’d be happy to give you a personal tour and share examples from our clients!

As we described in our last post, When to Use Text Messaging vs. Email in Marketing, there are many use cases for blending email and text messaging. So how do you decide?

Here’s a basic rule of thumb:

• Whenever you want simple attraction or engagement (meaning you want to get their attention,) use text messaging.
• Whenever you want to deliver long form content, or when you’re communicating with a lead or customer who prefers, use email.

Let’s go through a common business scenario to share some thoughts on the best ways to use text messaging and email.

How to Use SMS Messages with Email

Every business needs new leads to thrive. Whether a sales prospect, job candidate, student, patient or client¹, our prospects are what drive new business growth.

Just as you need new leads, so does your competition. That’s why our markets are so noisy, and our prospects overwhelmed with promotional communications. Your competition is doing many of the same things that you are to attract and engage those new opportunities.

Not when you blend text messaging with email! Here’s an example of how to innovate your communication strategy to increase your pipeline volume.

• First, SMS messages get 6X the responses of emails. Our customers actually report 75% response rates. Use text messaging to attract your new leads. Create an opt-in to your text messaging campaigns with an offer that’s compelling to your markets.
  • You’ll receive the responses you want. Just be sure that you manage the text messaging consent in a legally compliant manner.
  • Once the opt-in is confirmed, immediately fulfill the offer using your automated text messaging campaign.
• You can continue your automated campaign, using simple text messages to start a personal conversation. Wait, how can automation be personal? It’s simple, thanks to keywords.
  • Ask questions to learn about their needs. What problem are they trying to solve? What new thing do they want to know about? What’s their goal?
  • Offer keywords that represent what you know are the top 3-4 areas of interest for your new leads. For example, you might start with your types of customers (SMB, ENTERPRISE, CUSTOM), or your solutions (LAPTOPS, MONITORS, DISCS.) Once they respond, you can automatically trigger a text messaging campaign that relates to that specific topic, offering them information that’s relevant to their specific interest area.
  • At any point in time, they can ask a question, send a keyword like TALK and you can quickly send the lead to sales to respond with a 1:1 interactive conversation.
• Let’s say your new lead has read a couple of your texts and they reply with a request to receive another piece of information, let’s say a white paper focused on best practices for their specific industry.
  • Using a text message, ask them if they prefer email or text delivery, for that piece of information. After they respond, ask if they’d like to set that channel for all content delivery, then record that personal preference and use it.
  • Send the content in the way they requested.
• As part of your text messaging lead nurture campaign, offer them a regular communication from you. Perhaps it’s a weekly blog, a monthly newsletter, updates on your market, or customer use cases that you publish that reflect their interest area.
  • Use keywords to offer different types of educational, informative content, for example: TECH, NEWS, MARKET.
  • Send whatever regular, long form content they request through email, unless they’ve requested text messaging for all communications.

One key point to note. Be sure that when you create your Opt-in offers, you segment the content related to your offer in a specific theme or area, and tie it to a specific outbound text messaging phone number (whether it’s a long or short code.) That way when they do opt-in, they’ll be opting in to a specific content thread. Which means that if they decide to opt-out, you haven’t lost all of your ability to communicate with them.

If you’d like to see exactly how you could benefit from implementing SMS messages in your business, try out a Free Trial to see how text messaging can help you attract more leads.

Anyone can execute an SMS marketing campaign, but the success of the campaign depends on rules, compliance and using the right strategy. Without a strategy, marketers may be executing campaigns completely unaware that their text message marketing tactics are causing them greater damage than good. SMS marketing campaigns requires Opt-In and Opt-out options to be given to your audience.

If you do not want to become one of those businesses that sees more customers opting out than opting in, note the following reasons people Opt-Out from SMS Marketing campaign and what can you do to increase Opt-Ins.

Why Consumers Opt-Out Of SMS Messages & Campaigns

1. SMS Marketing Tone and Content: What you say is important, but it’s also how you say it. Make sure your message is professional, that your company is identified and that the intent is clear and easy to grasp at a glance. Don’t be too casual or use jargon or emojis that can have your message be misinterpreted.
2. Irrelevance: Relevance is an imperative in an inbox considered by many to be a personal communication channel. Irrelevant messages will harm your relationship, rather than enhance it. Irrelevant messages result in customers opting out. If you have not provided an easy Opt-Out option, they could choose to mute the conversation which is the equivalent of sending an email to the junk folder.
3. Too Many SMS Messages: Frequency is a careful balance. Best practices indicate 4 messages per month. Your audience may expect more or even less. Make sure to set expectations when customers opt-in (also required by compliance) and then stick to the expectations you set.
4. Wrong timing: Sending messages at the wrong time can greatly impact opt-out rates.The Frost & Sullivan report found that the rate for opt-outs on messages sent during the week was only 1.8 percent, but that number jumped up to 5.8 percent when messages were sent out on the weekends.
5. No Incentives: If you fail to provide incentives to customers, then you can count on them quickly opting-out. They expect some kind of offer from the brands and companies when they Opt-In for your text marketing campaign. Give them a reason to take action, learn something or be entertained; otherwise your messages become clutter they can live without.
6. Lack of Responsiveness: Remember that texting is a two-way dialogue. Should a prospect or customer reply to your text, make sure a team member is ready to respond quickly or that an automated response is set to trigger. Consumers consider it rude when their text messages aren’t met with timely response.

The reasons above provide plenty of motivation for your prospects and customers to opt-out of your SMS marketing Campaigns. Let’s look at the flip side to the steps you can take to give customers reasons to opt-in to your text marketing campaign.

Steps To Increase SMS Marketing Campaign Opt-Ins:

• Invite Your Customers to Text You (integrating SMS across all channels): Advertising and promoting your SMS campaign is essential for building an opt-in list. Make people aware of the value they’ll receive by including a mention in emails, promoting your campaigns on your website, and via social media. You can also offer a reward just for opting in. Customers love to receive discount coupons, free desserts, and exclusive access to new collections, for example.
• Be Clear and Respectful: The clearer customers are on exactly what they are signing up for, the more successful your SMS campaign will be. Tell them why they should opt-in, what they’ll get, and how often they’ll hear from you. SMS opt-in promotions must follow compliance regulations and the more transparent you are in your SMS marketing campaign promotions, the more trusting consumers will be and the more willing to opt-in for the value you’ve promised.
• Personalize Your Messages: With an advanced text messaging solution, you’ll have a full history of all your conversations. You can ask questions to profile your customers and learn more about their wants and needs. You will know what they’ve responded to in the past. Align your messages to their behavior, purchase patterns and responses to increase the performance of your SMS marketing campaigns. Give them a reason to stay.
• Maintain Value: Make sure that every message delivers on what you promised for the program people gave their consent to participate in. If some new reason comes along to communicate with your prospects or customers, start a new campaign. Because you have their consent, you can text them to invite them to reply with a new keyword to also receive the new messages. If they don’t respond, respect their rights.
• Humanize Your Messages: There’s a difference between marketing language and language that engages your customers. Because SMS text messaging is considered a personal exchange, make sure your messages sound human. Because of the length limitation to 160 characters, marketers often try to put too much in one message. It’s harder to write short than long. Take your time and craft a message that demonstrates empathy. This is what drives engagement and invites people to respond to your offers.

The Bottom Line

It’s just as important to be aware of what causes consumers to opt-out as to opt-in to your SMS messages and campaigns. Use these steps to proactively manage your text message marketing to expand reach and solidify a position in your target markets. These dos and don’ts for SMS marketing campaigns will help you formulate a winning strategy to drive high-performance outcomes. Given the noisy channels you’re up against, text message marketing definitely has its upsides.

The effectiveness of SMS messages continues to grow as marketers use SMS messages to connect with their target audience on a personal level. Let’s face it,  your customers increasingly live on their mobile devices In 2018, 52.2% of all worldwide online traffic was generated through mobile phones, up from 50.3% in the previous year (Statista, 2018).

Once you have decided to use SMS campaigns, three factors are key initiate campaigns.

• Business Text Messaging Solution: A business text messaging platform that integrates with your CRM, records conversational histories to lead objects and enables you and your team to easily manage consent and connected conversations, send automated campaigns and measure performance (like an email marketing platform) is your foundation for SMS marketing.
• Active Database: To start SMS marketing, you’ll need mobile phone numbers for your contact database to send text messages. This data can be acquired via opt-in invitations at various touch points with your target audience.
• Customer Consent: Consent from a prospect or customer is required by various regulations, including GDPR, TCPA, and others. Fines for non-compliance are expensive. You’ll want to make sure that the business text messaging solution you choose provides a process flow that ensures you meet compliance regulations.

Once you’ve addressed these factors, you can initiate your SMS campaign. To ensure your SMS marketing campaigns are successful, you’ll want to incorporate best practices in execution.

Best Practices for SMS Messages and Campaigns

• S.M.A.R.T. Goals: Setting a Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reliable and Time Specific (S.M.A.R.T.) Goal before starting SMS campaign defines the objectives and business goals for each SMS marketing campaign.
• Call-To-Action: A all-to-action is what you want your customers to do interact with the brand/company. A call-to-action can take a variety of forms, including a keyword response, clicking a link embedded in the message or redeeming an offer or promotion presented in a message. A keyword is a unique word or phrase that people text to a short or long code to opt-in or participate in your campaign. For example, Rachel, a salon owner, is opening a new salon. To build a customer base she posts signs around the location with this message: Text HAIRCUT20 to 520520 and get 20% off your haircut.
• Leverage Incentives: Incentives provide something valuable to your customer, something relevant to them that will motivate their intent to engage with and buy from you.  Incentive can be monetary as well as non-monetary.Examples of non-monetary incentives include:
  • Personalization – “We’ll notify you when your favorite item comes in.”
  • Reminders – “Your shipment will be delivered today.”
  • Engagement – “Tell us how we can help you.”
  • Access – “You’re receiving exclusive early access to this New Summer Collection because you’re a VIP.”
  • Privileges – “Earn VIP points with every purchase to redeem as you choose.”
• Permission required: A customer’s consent is essential for a successful SMS campaign. Opt-Ins can be achieved in two ways:a) The Call-To-Action as mentioned in best practice #2, above
  b) A prospect or customer including their mobile number via a web form or personally, during an event in agreement to receive text messages from you.For example, a real estate broker holds an open house for home buyers and asks those who tour the home to sign a guest log and check a box to receive text messages alerting them to similar listings in the future. When a suitable listing becomes available, she sends these contacts a text message, alerting them to the listing. She also includes: “To learn more, reply 74OAKST or you may reply STOP to opt out from receiving messages.” This information ensures the prospective home buyers have the option to choose whether to permit the broker to continue sending them text messages or not.
• Timing: You want to make sure you’re sending messages that align with your business and your customers. Best practices follow business hours of between 9AM and 6PM.Of course, if you’re a night club and you’re promoting open seats right before a show at 9PM, your customers’ expectations will vary. The key is to understand that the nature of text messages is considered in real-time. Sending your messages in a time frame that relates to your offer and your audience will generate better response.
• Consistency: Timing and consistency are related and can help build expectations from your prospects and customers. For example, a restaurant that sends a text offering discounts every Thursday at noon for weekend specials will have customers come to expect these texts on Thursdays.
• Less is Better: Text messages allow for 160 characters. The format forces brevity. It’s best to write concise messages using correct grammar, rather than try to fit too much in by using acronyms or emojis your audience wouldn’t expect from you. Focus on one key point and make clear what’s in it for them and what you’re asking them to do.
• Measurement: SMS Marketing is measurable. You can easily track messages sent, messages delivered, keyword responses and conversations, as well as promotions redeemed, as long as the promotion has a code used only in your SMS marketing campaign. After every SMS campaign, you should evaluate your strategy and iterate for improvements in future campaigns based on what you learn from the results.

The Bottom Line

SMS messages and campaigns are growing in receptiveness for your prospects and customers due to their increasing reliance on their mobile devices. Business text messaging platforms, like SMS-Magic, can help you comply with regulations and embrace best practices to build relevant conversations that grow your business more easily than other channels where it’s becoming more difficult to rise about the noise.

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.

Defining a Single Message Campaign

Single message campaigns sent to a list of contacts in your CRM, or database, can be used for a variety of business use cases. Responsiveness to text messages means your audience will quickly learn about your new products, job opportunity, property listing, event, class schedule, or the amazing discount you want to give them when you notify them with a single message.

Here’s the basic simple principle.  Anytime you want to communicate with your audience and be sure they pay attention to your information, use a single message.  You can send a single message today, then send another in two weeks, or four. You can use them in so many ways to inform and serve your audience, you’ll simply love the versatility in how you communicate—and so will your prospects and customers.

Why Become a Textpert at Single Messaging Campaigns?

• Match Audience Preferences: According to a recent survey by Ellie Mae, 97% of consumers asked want texting to be part of the sales conversation. In fact, Gartner’s 2017 Channel Survey found that there’s a place for messaging at every stage of the customer journey.
• Get Their Attention: People check their phones every 15 minutes or so, even without the ping of a notification. More than 80% of Americans text regularly. And, because nearly all text messages are read within a few minutes, this channel has the highest opportunity to get your prospects’ or customers’ attention.
• Deliver on Your Promises: The ability to automate replies to inbound keywords used in a single message means you’ll always deliver instantly when your audience responds to your campaign—sending a coupon triggered by the keyword reply of “PROMO,” for example.

Converse Apps Kickstart Relevant Conversations

The Converse App for Single SMS Messages contains everything you need to define and launch your campaign. Once you’ve installed the App, you’ll find:

• Content templates that come with suggested messaging you can tune to your specific needs to meet campaign goals.
• Pre-built automated responses triggered by a keyword or to confirm an opt-in, and other scenarios, where applicable.
• End-to-end data, analytics and reporting to capture key insights, define performance and that you can use to optimize your future campaigns.
• Click-and-go user interface that’s intuitive and designed to simplify your effort to manage the volume of conversations you’ll create.

All that’s required is for you to tune the App parameters and content to match your campaign need.

Here are a few ideas to help you kickstart relevant conversations with the single message App.

Use a single message campaign to:

• Survey new leads about their specific interest or share requested content
• Send various offers, discounts, and coupons
• Alert prospects and customers to special sales events or new products
• Follow-up from an event to continue that conversation
• Build an opt-in list for a new texting program

How the Converse App for Single SMS Messages Campaigns Works

Take the following 6 steps to design, launch, run and respond to your single message campaign.

Step 1: Select your list from your CRM or database.

Step 2: Tune your message in the content template provided with the App to meet your specific needs, select the number to send your messages from, tune name fields to match your CRM and add your company’s name and any URL specific to the message or offer.

Step 3: Set the goals for your campaign and track them on the Insights dashboard. Goals can include metrics such as the response rates, number of supplies, conversions from responses, and more.

Step 4: Assign users to your campaign by choosing which members of your team should be alerted and can view and respond personally to replies to your message.

Step 5: Run your campaign by selecting the start and stop dates, time and time zone.

Step 6: Respond to leads that take action by personal message or automated message, as appropriate for your campaign.

As your campaign is running, you can monitor your results via statistics reported through the Insights dashboard in real-time.

Mastering the basics of single text message campaigns will help you become a Textpert in short order.

Find out more about Converse Apps and transform your campaigns and communications—into relevant experiences that your potential and existing customers will thank you for sharing. It’s easier than ever to reach and engage your audiences with relevant content that drives business growth.