How often do you check your email? For most, it’s the bare minimum. How about that archaic thing called “voicemail”, if anyone even dares to leave you one these days? But the familiar “ding!” of a new text message – now there’s a priority! As open and response-rate data shows, text messaging (aka SMS or Short Message Service) has a powerful grip. We simply can’t not look. From friends checking in to your kids asking permission, e-transfer notifications to offers from brands you buy, text messages have an intimate quality and a heightened sense of urgency. They are, after all, sent directly to you. On your phone.
If we are so conditioned for “fomo” (fear of missing out) on our text messages, so too should companies have a fear of missing out on revenue opportunities that come with SMS marketing.
In this article:
- CRM plus SMS: A Powerful Combination for Revenue Generation
- SMS Marketing Best Practices
- SMS Marketing Use Cases
- Do You “Twilio”
With open rates of 98%, read rates (within 3 minutes) of 90%, and response rates of 45%, SMS is a very effective and nearly universal communications channel for sales, marketing, and customer support (source: Twilio). Add to this, in the U.S. alone, over 6 billion text messages are sent every day (source: Pew Internet Research).
SMS Marketing Best Practices
Like email marketing, SMS marketing has best practices that improve the odds of having a productive and revenue-generating conversation with your customers and prospects:
- Obtain permission. Just as you would for email, use an opt-in check box on your contact form. Alternatively, get a verbal “ok” over the phone or in person. But get consent before you start sending text messages!
- Identify yourself. Make sure you clearly identify your organization in every text message. This serves also for brand and frequency/top of mind awareness.
- Keep it short. Seems obvious, but 160 characters is the gold standard for hold interest. Need to send a brochure? Use a URL shortener (e.g., TinyURL) to trigger a download or take the receiver to a web page.
- Keep it simple. Short form communication requires a thoughtful, razor-sharp message. Every word matters.
- Not too often. Keep it relevant. Too much, too often and you risk becoming a nuisance. Aim for that crisp message that will demonstrate real and timely value to the receiver.
SMS Marketing Use Cases
There are several sales-driven marketing activities that are well-suited to SMS. Some examples include:
- New customer onboarding updates. Grow your SMS opt-in list by providing status updates during a customer’s onboarding journey.
- Promotional discounts/seasonal campaigns. Send customers a quick offer linked to a specific campaign.
- Upsell offers. Harvest additional revenue from your base with a targeted upsell offer.
- Reactivation offers. Lost a customer? Try a win-back offer by SMS.
- Renewal offers. Do you want to stay in the frame when renewal time comes? SMS is a quick way to initiate a renewal conversation.
- Feedback/surveys. Sending a link in an SMS to a survey or feedback form that is connected to a CRM captures information used to improve products and the customer experience.
- Invitations. In-person sales events are slowly coming back. Texting an invitation is a quick, and personalized way to connect with customers who may want to attend.
- Customer service. SMS is a sharp way for customers to get short answers to simple questions, or initiate a support call for more complicated issues.
Do You Twilio?!
Twilio, combined with Maximizer’s sales- and revenue-focused CRM, is the perfect tool for quick, concise SMS customer communications. And Maximizer’s Twilio integration makes enterprise-level SMS marketing easy – so you can focus on selling faster. And selling more.
Once your Maximizer database is connected to Twilio, you can send and receive text messages to the mobile number of any contact or group of contacts in your Maximizer address book. Replies will be sent to your device or logged as an interaction right in the platform, and then sent to your inbox. Undeliverable texts are flagged so you can update your database, or reroute the prospect to other forms of communication.
A key advantage of using Maximizer to manage customer SMS conversations is transparency: the entire history is visible in Maximizer’s Timeline and Interactions interfaces, as opposed to just stored in individual phones that could be lost or stolen, or have the data deleted.
In addition to a Twilio integration, read more about how Maximizer Sales Leader Edition provides Sales Leaders with the right tools to manage their teams and sell more. Now.
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