How to Use Text Message Marketing
If you’re a small business owner, you want to reach your customers and potential customers, but you also want to ensure that they read your messages. While email is the most common way businesses reach out to their customers, emails have a low open rate, between 17% and 28%. People spend much of their time on their phones, and many check their messages almost as soon as they come in.
As text messages have an open rate of 82%, it’s far more effective to use texts to market your small business and create an engaging experience for your customers when they visit. In this article, we will cover why your small business should use text message marketing and how to use it properly.
What Is Text Message Marketing?
Text message marketing uses SMS to send customers short text messages directly to their phones. It allows you to reach customers quickly and in a way that makes them more likely to read your messages. You can use text messaging to send your customers news, promotions, coupons, and other messages. Using texting to reach your customers gives you an advantage over other businesses in your industry that don’t.
Reasons Small Businesses Should Use Text Message Marketing
There are many reasons why small businesses should use text message marketing, but we will cover three below.
1. Builds Customer Relationships
People check their phones several times per day, with an average of 344 times per day, or once every four minutes. You can use that to your advantage by creating short, personalized messages about your brand that they’ll see and remember.
2. Customer Engagement
When you contact your customers, you can use the messages to direct them to your social media feeds, and website, or remind them about upcoming events. Doing so boosts engagement with your brand and helps your customers, and potential customers feel included.
3. Improved Customer Service
If your text message marketing uses a chatbot, you can use it to answer customer queries outside of business hours, freeing up personal time for you and those who work in your business. Customers want someone they can rely upon to answer any questions they may have, no matter the time of day they ask.
How To Use Text Message Marketing Properly
While text message marketing is an excellent tool for businesses, many are hesitant to use it as they aren’t sure how to do it properly and don’t want to risk the perception of being pushy or invasive. Here are a few ways to properly use text message marketing.
1. Always End In A CTA
Each message you send should have a direct purpose and a call to action, preferably with a branded link that acts as a CTA. You’ll confuse, annoy, and frustrate your customers when your messages don’t have a purpose.
2. Keep It Short
You want to keep your text messages shorter than 160 characters. Don’t add details of what you want to say, as you’ll have the information on the page the link sends them, and sending longer texts risks losing customer attention.
3. Keep Messages Relevant
When sending messages to a segment of your customer base, you want to send them relevant and highly targeted texts. An elderly customer isn’t likely to act on a text about a sale on diapers, and a young man probably isn’t interested in learning what brands of denture cream you carry.
4. Timing
People receive a lot of texts and emails on their busy days, so it’s a good idea to send your messages when your customers are more likely to read them. Instead of scheduling them to deliver in the middle of the night or at dinner time, schedule to send them at a time when they’re not likely to be as busy, such as in the early afternoon around lunch or in the early evening when they’re likely to be home and have already eaten dinner.
When you have an audience, text marketing is the most cost-effective, reliable, and direct way of reaching that audience. With McEnroe Voice & Data’s mass texting service, you can automate reminders, send thousands of messages at once, text to landlines, build your contact list, and more. We have expert support staff ready to help you become a texting pro, so contact us today to get started.