Most people around the world own a mobile phone, making SMS marketing a powerful way to reach out to your target audience. While it’s not possible to manually send messages to the masses in a simultaneous manner, luckily there are automated SMS services you can consider for your business.
A good automated SMS service provider like Drop Cowboy can help send your text messages to all of your subscribers without experiencing any problems. So, no matter the size of your business or the niche you’re focusing on, you can be assured that mass texting is within your reach.
What You Should Know About Mass Texting?
Mass texting is basically a communication strategy, which enables you to send messages to a large group of people at the same time. Many businesses are using this kind of text messaging to communicate with their target consumers. It also saves effort and time by enabling a consistent message to be broadcast to a huge number of employees, customers, or potential new clients.
Mass texting may be used across various industries to send promotions, daily updates, staff communication, promotions, alerts, and so on. With the use of a mass text app, it’s also possible to schedule your text message for a certain group of people in advance.
Mass Texting – How It Works?
Generally, mass texting is like an email campaign. It works by choosing what you want to say and making a template for it. Through a mass texting app, you can input the message you want and send it to all of your contact lists.
Creating a message for mass texting is easy. You may choose to say anything as long as it stays within the 160-character limit.
When doing mass texting, there are various things you should take under consideration and these include the following:
- Mobile Subscriber List – You should have written permission to send your customers a text message. Without a contact list, you won’t be able to send anyone a message, even if they opted into some marketing campaigns promoting your business.
- Use Keywords – Keywords are basically special words that prompt action. The common reason for using keywords is to make your campaign effective in reaching the right audience. Your potential clients may text a short code or word to a number that may send them an automatic response.
- Work With A Major Carrier – The majority of mass texting platforms work with some major carriers. But, if the network of the subscriber isn’t covered, they won’t opt-in to your marketing campaign. Thus, it’s best to pick a platform that’s recognized by numerous networks. Moreover, the fees that your customers may incur can vary depending on their individual plan and telecom carrier.
- Choose Subscribers To Target – You may use this for other purposes such as texting inactive customers to bring them back, sending messages to your existing and current customers, and communicating with new subscribers who have recently signed up to get text messages from you.
Mass texting may also work as your chosen communication channel. In addition to useful digital marketing tools, you can utilize it for purposes such as:
- B2C Communication – This is a widely used type of mass texting as businesses use it for marketing their products and brand to customers. Companies may send out product updates, make appointments, send out greetings and reminders, and conduct polls and surveys. SMS is engaging so businesses that use mass texting can benefit from having increased sales.
- B2B Communication – Typically, the value chain involved in product manufacturing to selling isn’t as direct as selling a single business proposition to consumers. Large companies have manufacturers and distributors. For this reason, having an effective communication channel is essential to ensure a smooth operation between every intermediary. They may also use mass texting when informing every department of hazards immediately. The speed of mass texting enables employees to act as soon as possible and minimize damages.
- C2C Communication – Because of technology, all communication barriers have been eliminated. These days, consumers may sell services or products directly to others, which can be beneficial for startups. With mass texting, it’ll be much simpler for you to grow your listing and communicate with interested buyers with ease.
Why Mass Texting Works Effectively
From big companies to local businesses, mass text messaging has transformed marketing strategies and changed the way businesses communicate with their audience. One of the reasons behind it is that mass texting is efficient and easy. Rather than messaging everybody individually, you can save time and effort through a quick mass text.
Another reason why mass texting works effectively for businesses is that it’s affordable and has high open rates. Since many people have smartphones with them, they’re more likely to read an SMS instead of answering a call from an unknown number.
Advantages Of Mass Texting
Any business can benefit from mass texting. Because of its versatility, format, reach, and timeliness, it’s a good addition to your marketing strategy.
Below are some of the perks of mass texting:
- Reaches Your Customers Instantly
A text message can easily reach your intended audience since most people have their own mobile devices. Gone are the days when businesses had to rely on traditional marketing methods like flyers or billboards. Mass texting makes it convenient to reach all of your existing and potential customers regardless of their location.
- Easy To Integrate With Your Marketing Campaigns
One of the best benefits of mass texting is that you can integrate it easily with your marketing campaigns. Like emails, you can just create a text message that includes your promotions for a certain period of time. It’s also easy for your customers to send or share your message with other people they know who might be interested in buying your products or services.
- Versatile
Mass texting isn’t used for marketing only. It can also be used as a communication channel within your business. If you want to send a message to every team member of a department, it can be done quickly with mass texting. This way, it can help you avoid investing additional money in another communication service meant solely for your business.
Tips To Make The Most Of Mass Texting For Your Business
It’s important to bear in mind that there are regulations you should follow when it comes to business texting. Even if you’re tempted to violate such regulations, you should avoid doing so if you don’t want to upset your target audience or existing customers.
Breaking the rules won’t benefit your business. So, you should always keep pertinent regulations in mind, especially if you want to send mass text messages to your customers. In order to get the most out of mass texting for your business, follow these tips:
- Never Send Too Often
Mass texting may give you a big advantage, but that doesn’t mean that you should use it too often. As a responsible business owner, you should determine the best frequency of sending messages, which may depend on the kind of business you’re running.
For instance, if you’re a pest control business, you might like to send texts quarterly or monthly with service reminders and maintenance tips. If you’re a gym owner, you can send texts daily with great motivational quotes. Depending on the nature of business you’re operating, you may also include CTA in your messages.
Once you’ve determined the right frequency, it’s essential to let all of your contacts know when to expect messages from you. Some companies choose to provide a frequency notice in an auto-reply subscription.
Usually, two messages in a week is a good frequency. If your contacts know how often you’ll send messages, they’re more likely to subscribe to your business voluntarily. Just make sure to stick with it and don’t change it, so your customers won’t find your text messages annoying.
- Send Text Messages Only When You Have Consent
When using mass texting for your business, one of the essential things you should understand is that it’s a kind of permission-based marketing. In short, consumers will only receive your messages once they provide written consent. If they choose to opt out, you need to comply.
Providing their phone number and signing up for your service doesn’t mean they’ve given their permission. Your customers should actively volunteer to receive your messages. If you text people without their explicit permission, you’re basically spamming them.
You may get consent from your contacts by letting them subscribe via text. They can also subscribe via a website or email.
- Personalize Your Message
Since texting is more intimate compared to other communication channels, your message should be personalized with your subscribers in mind.
In terms of mass texting, personalization may take several forms. You may insert the name of your contacts dynamically in your text messages and make them more personal. Using the first name of your contacts may show that your text message has been created specially for them.
Another way to personalize your message is through segmenting by interest groups. You may use polls to get data about preferences from contacts and use that insight to send messages they would definitely be interested in.
- Maintain A Consistent Brand Voice
Every business has its own brand voice, which serves as a personality of sorts that your customers associate with your brand. Never ignore this factor when you market using mass texting. Even if it’s tempting to use a trendy abbreviation in your text messages due to the limited character count, you might not want to consider it. This may result in losing your brand credibility in the long run. So, make sure to have a consistent brand voice if you don’t want to mess up your mass texting strategy.
- Determine The Right Timing
Don’t forget that your contacts receive your messages exactly when you send them. Many text messages are read within three minutes of receipt. Some businesses do not send messages early in the morning or late in the evening. Others might also not send them on the weekends. If all of your subscribers have different time zones, you might need to have a separate list for every time zone or ensure that your texting service provider takes into consideration the time zone when scheduling.
When you use a mass text app, scheduling text messaging in your business can be done easily. With this, you don’t need to set an alarm just to remind yourself to click the ‘send’ button at the right time.
- Be Brief
Mass texting is limited to approximately 160 characters. Although you might get tempted to send longer messages, this may annoy some of your subscribers. It’s because most people these days expect short messages, especially if it’s a promotion.
Take note that you may use a text to link to a social post or website page with more information, but never try to do too much when it comes to text messages. If you can’t get your SMS to be succinct, you should rethink your marketing strategy.
- Respond To The Replies
Texting is actually a conversational activity. Although your contacts know they’re on the list of mass texting, they may reply to your messages and expect you to respond. Other business mass texting services may provide you the option to handle this correspondence within their online portal, so that you’ll be able to manage conversations effectively.
- Don’t Forget To Include A CTA
Mass texting is more like a game of momentum. You might like to lead your contacts to take action, which may or may not mean spending money on your business. Of course, there are some exceptions, but the majority of texts must encourage your contacts to do something. If you’re not sending contacts with actionable information, you might be texting them just for the sake of texting. Because of this, it may result in a negative brand experience and lots of people may end up unsubscribing.
Bottom Line
Mass texting isn’t just a great part of your marketing strategy, but it also lets you stay in touch with your customers. If you’re planning to include mass texting in your marketing efforts, make sure to use a quality mass texting app or service to get the best results and enjoy its countless benefits. At present, there are numerous service providers to choose from, but only a few are reliable. So, be a smart business owner and choose wisely.