What is text marketing? It’s the act of a business communicating with its customer base through cell phone text messages to inform them of deals, specials, promotions, or other important information.
How does this help grow your business? Exactly what this article is about. But to make it short: the response rate to text messages is very high and you can engage more people this way than almost any other form of marketing.
If you’re having a slow day or week… or you’re in an industry with traditionally slow days (restaurants, for instance)… you can send out a deal, via text, to your customers.
This deal is seen by everyone on your list almost immediately. The idea is to incentivize them to come in!
It’s easier to sell something to an existing customer than is to get someone to buy for the first time.
This is a powerful way to drive repeat business and build loyalty with your customers.
Technology is great, isn’t it?
Smartphones: we all have them. We all know what they can do for us, right? (For those who remember the days before smartphones, it is especially amazing!)
They make life so much simpler and multi-tasking so much more efficient, don’t they?
And with them, we can stay abreast of sales and specials at our favorite stores. This is text marketing: when a business sends specials and deals to its customers who opted in to receive these notifications.
It may have taken a while for all of us to get on board with new technologies but most of us have by now.
Even our senior citizens have “caught up” to the action and are texting and sharing on social media.
Even if you don’t know much about technology I’m sure you know what text messaging is.
For the longest time we have used our phones to call another person to have a live conversations with them. I don’t think many people had any issues with this up until text messaging became popular. Now, it seems many people prefer texting over calling. Would you agree?
Why is this? Well, it is a lot more convenient to be able to respond when you have time to respond.
Maybe you are a mother attempting to shop for groceries with three kids and your phone starts ringing.
Text messaging allows you to respond when you have time… when you don’t have kids running in different directions and can focus on the message.
Text messaging makes communicating a lot more convenient for everyone.
One of the best things about text messaging is the ability to get a message to a person immediately!
Most everyone carries their phone in their pocket at all times. If they don’t have it in their pocket, it is usually not far away. A matter of feet from them anywhere they are.
The fact is this method of communication is so prevalent these days is a sign of the times. Companies have started to catch up with the times a little better these days too. They caught on to the trends and are using it to their advantage.
Every successful company does this well: marketing.
There are more marketing strategies out there than you can count. But none of them reach their customers instantly the way text messages do.
Television, magazines, newspapers, social media, billboards, etc. None of these are instant forms of marketing.
People like me, for instance, who do not own a television or buy magazines often… how can a company reach me? I do take part in social media but I only check it a few times a day. We all pretty much ignore billboards, these day, right?
These forms of marketing, called Interruption Marketing, or Outbound Marketing, are losing their effectiveness bit by bit.
So, how do companies reach me and others like me? Well, one thing I do check many times a day is my phone. I check it for almost everything, but what I check it for and use it for most often is text messaging.
And I am not alone. Almost 95% of people check a text message within minutes of receiving it.
This is one reason why text marketing is so powerful and effective. An overwhelming number of people will read your message within minutes of it being sent.
With such a powerful response rate, it makes sense companies would figure out a way to use it!
They can now send mass text messages to their customers or potential customers and have them see those messages immediately.
Of course, the customer has to opt-in to receive these messages first.
Some messages are more interactive. The messages will have a keyword with a number to text it to if they choose to. Once the user does this, he or she gets an immediate text back with further instructions.
Other types of messages are less interactive and just notify the customer of something special with no texting back and forth required.
This is effective in getting a company’s message to the customer! Given we all check our text messages nearly as soon as we get them, this type of marketing is highly effective in reaching people.
Text marketing rules…
There are, of course, some rules companies have to follow. For instance, companies have to include “opt out” instructions at regular intervals. This way, the customer has the option to not receive further text promotions. The customer responds “Stop” to the number given and they stop receiving promotional texts. It is the same principle as when a customer chooses to be on a “Do not call” list.
In this way the companies are still abiding by the rules for text marketing. The FCC and the CTIA both have a list of rules companies have to follow to be SMS marketing compliant.
Some of the rules are confusing, and some companies are still figuring out what is and is not OK in text marketing. It’s a new thing for a lot of companies and there will be some growing pains while they figure it out.
But, it has the potential to be an awesome marketing strategy for companies. I expect we will all see a lot more sweet deals coming our way soon via our hand held wonders!
RedFynn’s got text marketing figured out and “dialed in.” It’s proven to be an outstanding marketing tool for all of our partners and increases profits quickly. Let our team of experts guide your business to more money with our unique and very affordable text marketing plans. Learn more here.
