As a way of starting your SMS (Short Message Service) campaign, you have got to urge your customers and prospects to opt-in. There are a couple of ways to try and do this, like putting signup widgets on your web site and in your email newsletter, or making a call to action on a commercial or anywhere else where your customers can see it. Plus, you should check out Emailnphonelist’s Cell Phone Numbers List for quality leads from USA.
But, before thinking about the most effective ways to use text messages for communication with customers or staff, make sure you understand the legal necessities. Anyway, here are some tips you can use:
Conduct Brief Client Surveys
Quick surveys are a natural, simple way for you to build relationships with your customers. Send out a text asking a multiple-choice question, to which your clients can reply to. A quick text to any or all prospects and leads with a message like, “What kind of automobile are you thinking of purchasing? Reply with Sports Car, SUV, Sedan, or Compact,” would be a good method for a small car company to find out what kind of inventory to keep in stock.
That said, make sure to not turn text surveys into your primary source of shoppers’ insights. Utilize those insights together with data from different channels like social media, web site analytics, in-store real-time behavior, business and geographic trends, and so on.
You can also use surveys to find out more about client demographics, interests, satisfaction levels, and more. After you meet someone you’re interested in face-to-face, you would like to know more about them. Surveys are the “getting to know you” of small business SMS communications—they’re mutually beneficial—you collect valuable knowledge whereas customers feel like you’re taking the time to get to know them.
Alert Recipients of Updated Data and Promotions
When something changes within your organization, or you’re launching a brand new promotion, you may need to let your contacts know about it. Why not tell them via text so that you’re sure they’ll get the message? Communication is the only way to keep your patrons within the loop.
When you have a long message to send, it should be best to avoid trying to send an email-length letter to peoples’ phones. Messages that are too long can be a significant turn-off. Instead, what you can do is provide a link to your home page in your email that outlines the update or promotion.
Alerts are probably the plan of action that you think about at first when you consider text message use for small businesses. There are no rules on what info you’ll be able to share with your recipients. keep in mind that it’s crucial to use a trustworthy platform that allows you the functionality needed to deliver what you need, like:
- Shortcodes: five- or six-digit numbers that will send and receive SMS and multimedia messages to and from mobile phones.
- Short URLs: an internet technique in which your URL (web address) can be made considerably shorter and still direct to the same page.
- List segmentation: the flexibility to send the most pertinent data to the proper individuals at the proper time. (“Divide & Compartmentalize” your contact lists by data collected on newsletter submissions or based on the prospect’s behavior)
Modern text messaging platforms ought to integrate easily with your customer relationship management (CRM) software system. This way, you can simply and automatically keep track of when prospects or customers opt-in or out (which, again, is a requirement for promotional text messages). Although it may seem like you should be ready to text anyone whose contact data you have got, don’t do that. If you do, you may find yourself with angry patrons and large fines from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).