SMS Messages: The Future of 2-Way Business Communication

Messaging and Salesforce Einstein shared centerstage at Dreamforce ’16. Marc Benioff spoke about how many of us prefer to communicate with mobile messaging, yet many companies “are not equipped to have conversations on this highly personal channel.” Conversational communication creates a “two-way dialogue” on the “channel that customers love.”

The Salesforce founder began his keynote by talking about how “we’ve moved from 100,000 mainframes and 10 million PCs to 6 billion smartphones and 75 billion smart things. These changes create an unprecedented network of information and interaction.”

Benioff went on to point out that mobile is a key part of everyday life. In fact, 61% of consumers say that technology is redefining their behaviour.

Chris Sacca, founder chairman of LowerCase Capital, one of the most successful venture funds in history, also spoke about messaging in Dreampitch. He said, “The open rate for SMS messages is about 100% and the conversion rates are over 50%” in many cases. “It’s smart to be going down that path versus app installs, versus trying to do something on the mobile web.”

SMS-Magic at Dreamforce ’16

We met hundreds of prospects and customers from different industries like technology, service, education, non profit and finance. SMS-Magic also took part in Demo Jam, where we placed third.

Our new products like –

Jacob, a Facebook assistant
Onehop, the world’s first SMS marketplace
Advanced analytics
were well received.

90% of the people we met were yet to use messaging for business and were unaware of its capabilities for handling complex use cases.

How can your business leverage Salesforce’s emphasis on messaging?

Messaging is especially suited for businesses, which target the youth and have high touch points with customers and prospects. Millennials prefer to message, so sectors like retail, education, nonprofit, finance are likely to engage better with their target audience, with this means.

Messaging complements your other communication channels like email and calling, with a response rate of almost 50%. You can follow up on an unread email or an unanswered call with a message to prompt your target to reply.

Summary

Whether you are in marketing, sales or support, a two-way personalized communication channel like SMS messages can help you engage, win and retain customers. Like Marc Benioff said, live messaging is a powerful, personal channel that you can use to move ahead of your competition.