5 cost effective ways your business can use mobile text messaging

Mobile phones have become an essential part of everyday life. We carry them around with us everywhere we go, and we feel lost when we misplace them or leave the house without them. And text messaging has become a simple and convenient way of communicating with each other.

Consumers have mastered the art of text messaging, but businesses still have a long way to go to make the most out of text messaging as a powerful marketing tool.

It takes typically just 5 seconds to get your marketing message into the hands of your target audience. And with read rates of 95%, a text message is 3 times more likely to be read than an email. So why aren’t more businesses taking advantage of this inexpensive, simple and effective marketing tool?

A decade or so ago, business mobile messaging was mainly used as a premium rate SMS text service, often for competitions and prize draws. It was a quick win for making lots of money. “Text in on this number at £1 per text.” And that left many consumers feeling that text based marketing was all just a bit of an expensive waste of time.

But times have changed.

The focus of SMS business text messaging has moved away from increasing revenue by customers paying premium rates to text in, to businesses using it as a customer service and targeted promotional tool.

Whether it’s to attract new customers or retain existing ones, business SMS texting is a powerful way of keeping in contact with the people who matter to your business’ success.

So if you’re not using it already, here are a few ideas how your business could benefit from business mobile messaging.

Confirmations

Confirmations are a great way of giving reassurance to clients. And in the electronic age, we have come to expect an almost immediate confirmation, whatever transaction we’re making.

So whether you’re letting them know of a successful purchase, or simply confirmation that their appointment has been booked, it goes a long way to offer reassurance.

Plus an uncertain customer giving you another call or sending an email to confirm an appointment or make sure their payment went through wastes time that you and your employees could have been spent focusing on more valuable business activities.

Hot promotions

If you have something to promote (which you should!) then a simple bulk SMS text message to a targeted group of people gets that promotion out and read in seconds.

• “Come join us with 2-for-1 cocktails, 7-9pm tonight!”
• “Our best ever SALE ends this weekend”
• “0% finance on all used cars while stocks last”

It doesn’t matter whether you provide products or services, to new or existing customers – business SMS text messaging helps you promote what you have on offer quickly and easily. It gets the message out directly into the hands of consumers and clients when it could have been easily missed.

Use it as a standalone product and it’s powerful. Integrate it with other marketing strategies for promotion, however, and its power grows exponentially.

Take for example Social Media WiFi.

Offering customers free internet in return for some useful data is a fantastic way to capture mobile phone numbers. You can learn their shopping habits and interests, then target specific promotions to them via business mobile messaging.

You could deliver a brief introductory promotion using business mobile messaging, followed by more traditional marketing methods in the coming days or weeks. Having read the text message (95% read rates, remember!) your traditional marketing methods appear more genuine, more targeted and more beneficial for your customers.

Put simply, using business mobile messaging as a part of a wider marketing campaign can have impressive benefits.

Reminders

What would it cost your business if a customer or client missed an appointment?

If you make appointments with your customers or clients, you can not only provide a good level of customer service but also save yourself the expense and inconvenience of a missed appoint with a simple text reminder.

You could even fire out a quick text to your customers to let them know an appointment space has become available and make your day as productive as possible.

What about a quick, friendly text to remind clients their invoice is due?

News Alerts

As an expert in your field of business, there are always plenty of opportunities to share some industry specific information.

By sharing your information, not only do you make sure your clients always think of you as the leading industry expert, but you’re improving your customer service.

A simple text can make them feel valued and always in your thoughts. And that goes a long way to retaining them as clients.

Events

However big or small your event, just by alerting a target list of people could make a huge difference to your numbers. This is really effective if you have already categorised your clients and customers.

Are you holding a dinner event at Doncaster Rovers’ Keepmoat Stadium and you need to contact those who attended the last event? Could you text your list of `rockers` that a popular rock band are at your venue tonight?

Sending out a few hundred texts will only cost you a few pounds. And how many extra people do you need at your event to make that money back? One ticket? A couple of pints? One extra client?

It’s important to remember that business SMS messaging costs just a few pence per message sent. To send an email is free of course, and email marketing still has its place. But text messages will almost certainly be read by everyone on your lists, and when done properly, the benefits of SMS text messaging far outweigh the cost of sending them.

If you’d like us to share our knowledge about business mobile text messaging with you, please give us a call on 01302 260195. Or visit our business mobile messaging page to find out more about our services and claim your free messages to see how the service can work for your business