5 Surprising Benefits of Text Message Marketing

You’ve probably already heard about text message marketing and how it's one of the most useful tools that a business can use to interact with their prospects and customers. It's surprisingly simple. It’s effortlessly easy to use. It’s astonishingly effective.

Text messaging your customers may seem too good to be true, but there's a reason why it works. Let us show you just a few of my favorite benefits that you might enjoy when you start your first campaign.

The Top 5 Benefits of Text Message Marketing

1. SMS Marketing Will Boost Your Customer Engagement

The number of people with smartphones has been increasing dramatically year-over-year. Since 2014, the number of smartphone users has doubled. Statista expects that the number of mobile phone users in the world will pass the five billion mark by 2019. A typical cell phone user will even touch their device an average of 2,617 times each day. While those numbers can be surprising when it comes to text message marketing, they can work in your favor. Every time they pick up their phone that's an opportunity for them to see a message from you.

Here are a few types of text message campaigns to boost engagement:

Exclusive Deals:

You can easily offer discounts and other specials only to people that are subscribed to your text message marketing list. This helps them feel like they are receiving something special. Just keep in mind that with this type of offer it's important that it remains exclusive and unique. So make sure that you change it up throughout the campaign and never repeat the exact same offer. Also, do not use this offer on any other marketing channel.

Insider Information: 

This is another way to help the people on your list feel like they are receiving something exclusive. Send out targeted Insider information like behind the scenes looks or access to announcements before anyone else receives them. You could even consider allowing early access to sales just for people that are subscribed.

Run Contests:

Running a contest is a great way to get people excited about your brand. You can also get people to take direct action. You just have to make sure that the prize is enough to get people to participate. All they have to do is text a keyword to a number and then they're entered win. This is a very low friction way to collect someone's information and subscribe them to your list. You can also consider offering small prizes like special coupons just for entering.

Surveys and Polls:

What is your favorite color? Numerous studies have proven how effective asking a question is in a marketing campaign. Human beings are naturally wired to respond. As soon as you ask a question, they start thinking of the answer. When I asked you what your favorite color was, you immediately thought of the response. For example, if you owned a restaurant, you could send out a message to your subscribers asking them to choose a dessert for the new menu that you’re creating and include three or four choices. Then you can look at which option received the most votes and include that in your new menu. You can send an announcement out to your subscribers letting them know which one got the most votes and is going to be included in your new menu. This makes them feel like their voices were heard.

2. SMS Marketing is More Reliable Than Email

Did you know that 98% of the messages that are sent via SMS are opened within 5 minutes? This means that...

• You'll be bypassing the email spam filter black hole.
• You will enjoy an almost guaranteed open rate.
• And, for many of your customers, it's a preferred method of communication. So they will actually enjoy it more than a phone call or email.

They will also typically respond in as little as 90 seconds! Meanwhile, email has an average response time of 90 minutes and an average open rate of only 22%.

So instead of spending a ton of time and money carefully crafting emails just to end up in the spam folder, start using text messaging. You will enjoy a direct line of communication between you and your customers.

3. You Can Integrate Text Marketing With Other Marketing Channels

Most text message service providers will allow you to integrate with many other marketing channels. For example, here at EZ Texting, we make it easy to integrate with a variety of different tools like the ones listed below.

Constant Contact: Constant Contact is a software for sending emails. You can connect your email contact list with your text message list in EZ Texting.

MailChimp: MailChimp is a prevalent platform for email marketing for small-to-medium businesses. We allow you to integrate your customer data and outreach by connecting your MailChimp list with your text marketing list.

Eventbrite: Eventbrite is an event management site that allows you to create events and market them. By syncing Eventbrite with your EZ Texting app, you can generate excitement about your upcoming event. You can also send reminders to your attendees before the event begins and a follow-up message after the event ends.

Aweber: Aweber is another email marketing provider that's popular with small businesses. If you connect your text messages with it, then you can join the data in that account with your text marketing lists.

Salesforce: Salesforce is a really powerful CRM. It collects data about your customers that you can use for marketing and sales. When you sync EZ Texting with Salesforce that connection gets even stronger. You can integrate communication and information through this synchronization.

Integrations aren’t just limited to other software that you can connect to. It also involves connecting your various marketing campaigns so that they work together for better results. For example, a retail business might include their keyword and a short code on a receipt and encourage their shoppers to text in to redeem a special discount on their next visit.

4. Learn More About Your Customers

Text message marketing is about more than just blasting a message out to everyone on your list or even a segment of your list. You can have one-on-one engaging conversations on a personal level with a single member of your list. It can sound really time-consuming, but software like EZ Texting automates a lot of the process for you and still makes everything feel personal.

Connect With Current Customers:

Text messages are more relaxed than a phone call and significantly less intrusive. For example, instead of calling your customer to remind them of an upcoming appointment, you can send a quick text message that they can read when it's convenient for them. This process can be automated so that it saves you time and money while providing a lot of value to your current customers. Another example is when you need to send a just-in-time message to your subscribers. Let's imagine that you own a restaurant and it looks like it's going to be a cold, rainy night. Instead of sending out an email that they might not read until a day or two later, you can send out a last-minute text message. You can tailor this message to the current situation by enticing them with a mobile coupon offering a free cup of soup with any entree to warm them up.

Attract New Customers:

The biggest challenge with any new marketing campaign is acquiring an audience. Text message marketing is no different. You have probably seen quite a few examples of companies acquiring new customers through text messages in your day-to-day life. You will usually see companies telling people to text a code to an easy-to-remember phone number to opt-in for whatever offer they are providing. You can advertise these promotions in a variety of different areas:

• If you have a physical storefront, then you can advertise inside your store using store signs and even the receipts.
• If you already have an email list of subscribers for your regular newsletter, then you can ask them to opt-in for text marketing for additional benefits and discounts.
• You can add “Click to Join” widgets on your website to make it easy for someone to opt-in.
• You can include this offer in any existing marketing campaigns that you're already running. This includes any print, radio, TV, or other paid marketing methods that you're using.
• You can invite people to sign up through any social media channel that you're currently using.

5. SMS is the Most Cost-Effective Marketing Channel

The cost of many paid advertising programs is increasing year-over-year while yielding fewer results. There are so many people advertising on social channels and on Google pay-per-click that people are quickly tuning out those ads while the advertisers are paying higher costs for the views. Many companies see a drastic reduction in marketing cost as well as a higher ROI when they implement text marketing campaigns.

Collecting Payments:

Companies report amazing results when it comes to collecting payments. When you consider that a large number of people are using their phones to make purchases and payments online, this is really no surprise.

• Collection agencies say that SMS strategies for debt collections are yielding the highest success rate of repayment. Customers are also reporting that they enjoy this method of communication more because it's easier on them.
• A business that invoices customers and faithfully awaits their payment can use SMS marketing tools to send out payment reminders and allow people to go ahead and pay their bills quickly.
• A nonprofit organization can use SMS marketing to raise donations and awareness of their cause.

Connect & Upsell:

With SMS costing mere pennies per message and being opened more frequently and faster, it's really no surprise the businesses are seeing way higher redemption rates on offers made through SMS.

• Restaurants are quickly crafting offers related to current events like weather or local happenings. They also enjoy an opt-out rate that averages only 2.7%. So it doesn't take long to build a pretty big audience and leverage these just-in-time offers to generate some serious ROI.
• Residential communities report significantly better engagement with SMS messages. These include things like rent or association fee payment reminders, emergency alerts, neighborhood watch initiatives, block party invitations, and so much more. You don't have to worry about following up with people over and over again to see if they received your email or printing off posters and going door-to-door.
• For retail stores, these promotions are not only cheap but save so much time. You can plan ahead and schedule promotional announcements, create templates and keep them for future campaigns, allow the software to personalize the message with the customer's name to drive more impact, set up drip-fed campaigns, and more. These simple strategies will enable you to achieve higher ROI with less of your time invested.

Master Text Message Marketing

The advantages and benefits of text message marketing are limitless.

You will enjoy increased customer engagement, more reliable delivery than email, integration with your online and offline marketing channels, gather amazing insights about your customer base, and enjoy a lower cost and higher ROI.

Download our Strategies for Successful Text Marketing for more ideas, concepts, and inspiration. You’ll learn about lead generation campaigns, contests, fundraisers, voting, polling, and more.