To successfully grow and develop your small business, you have to leverage multiple channels and instruments. Text messaging is one of those instruments you can leverage. With 68% of phone owners checking their devices every hour, SMS might be one of the fastest ways to reach your consumers.
And keep in mind that most messages are read just within 3 minutes of receiving. Considering the statistics above, it might be a good idea to use SMS for time-sensitive promotion campaigns. And when time is not vital, you can support your email or any other marketing campaign with texting.Sending sales offers is just one way to use SMS for communicating with your customers. Another side of the coin here is customer retention. By sending a quick text with an order confirmation, or an appointment notification, you’re letting your clients know that they are cared about.If you run a real estate brokerage, law firm, consulting agency, or any other appointment-based business, you are probably aware of all the losses from no-shows. SMS happens to be a great tool that can help reduce them. In fact, studies prove that appointment reminder texts can lower the number of no-shows by 40%.There is also another type of text reminders you can send out to your clients via SMS – payment reminders. We all know the pain of dealing with non-paying and late-paying customers. Text reminders can help reduce their number.Apart from clients, you can also use texting to communicate with your staff. Sending them a text notifying about an appointment cancellation, or providing delivery pick-up details, is the fastest way to get important information through to them.
There is a great variety of ways how you can use SMS for your small business. The guys from Text Magic have put together an infographic that sums up the most common ones.
See your text messages in Daylite and send bulk SMS messages right from Daylite with the Fone&Text plugin from iOSXpert.
Transcribed Infographic:
Transcribed infographic:
7 Tested Ways to Use texting For Your Small Business
While both corporations and small businesses use emails, paid social advertising another means of search engine marketing to keep their heads above water, they often forget about the important channel of business texting.
Take a look at how SMS can improve your sales and marketing efficiency, and increase both customer and employee satisfaction.
Sales and Marketing Campaigns
Texting can be leveraged as a powerful and cost-effective promotional tool. Here is why:
A text message has the estimated open rate of 98% compared to email’s 20%.
90% of the time a test message is read within the first 3 minutes of receiving the message.
Customers who receive texts have a 40% higher conversion rate than those who don’t.
Quick tip:
For promotions that are time sensitive, use text messaging. If time is not critical, combine test and email campaigns.
Discount Coupons or Vouchers
For some categories, the redemption rat for SMS coupons is more than 10 Tims th average for a pair coupon. SMS Coupons are:
- Easier to get, compared to signing up for an email newsletter for a coupon, which can be a barrier to purchase.
- A nifty way to build a database for future bulk texting.
Quick Tip:
Create QR codes, Customers scan the code with their mobile devices and have a coupon request message appear on their phones. All they have to do is click “SEND’.
Orders and Order Confirmations
Snd companies allow customers to order by sending a text. It reduces barrier to entry which can occur when a customer has to fill out a huge online form.
Domino’s Pizza allows customer to re-order their “usual” by sending a pizza emoji text.
Quick Tip:
After you have received an order from a client, send an automatic confirmation text– this will improve customer satisfaction.
Automated Appointment Reminders
One of the biggest problems for doctors, real estate agents and anyone else who operates their business on an appointment basis is no-shows.
Automated text reminders are proven to reduce no-shows by up to 40%.
SMS reminders are cost-effective and less time-consuming than manual calls and emails.
Quick tip:
These types of text messages should contain the exact date and time of the appointment, the location, your name (or your company’s name), and your phone number.
Alerts and Notifications
IT specialists quickly resolve issues with servers after they receive an SMS server error alter.
Travel agencies send their customers texts with flight change details.
Companies, such as Amazon and Argos, send delivery updates and tracking notifications.
Alerts and notifications lad to increase of customer satisfaction.
Quick Tip:
Don’t make the tests wordy, only include important details.
Staff Communication
There are several reasons to communicate with staff through SMS:
- Notifying employees in case of emergencies.
- Streamlining work effort
- Sharing seasonal greetings/happy birthday wishes.
All of the above improve employee retention.
Quick Tip:
When you’re sending texts for the first two examples, keep your message short and online include essential information.
Short Surveys
SMS is the fastest and easiest way of finding out what your customers think about your brand.
Email survey response rates are typically low – less than 25% – so implementing some micro surveys via SMS might be a better idea.
- Create your poll
- Customize and update it online
- Send a short text to your audience with details on how to vote
Quick Tip:
Template for a survey: “Vote for your favourite type of Crispy Cookie! Text Chocolate, Milk, or Fruit to 555-555-5555”
