How to Set Up Smart Text Reminders for Business in Under 60 Seconds

Are you running light on tasks today? If so, don't read the rest of this post.

If you're like most of us and have too much to do today, automating business text reminders to your customers can be key to staying sane, saving time, and, therefore, increasing productivity. How much time do you spend manually making calls or sending emails for payment reminders, birthday wishes, customer anniversaries, or appointment reminders?

Or, maybe you've given up on these crucial, revenue-boosting tasks because you simply don't have the time. Either way, setting up automated text reminder campaigns can help you accomplish more in less time than you thought possible.

Setting Up Text Reminders for Business in 1 Minute or Less

In this post, we'll show you how to automate text reminders for your business in less time than it takes to fill your coffee mug. Knocking this task off your to-do list will probably give you the same energy boost you'd get from that same hit of caffeine. We'll outline those steps below. But first, let's determine which reminders to send.

Brainstorm Reminder Campaigns

Take a little time up front to plan out which campaigns you'd like to send. Think things through so that your contacts don't get hit with too many texts in too short a span of time.

Payment Reminders

Using Simple Message Service (SMS) reminders for business payments is one of the most valuable uses of business texting. Cash flow shortages can sink small businesses in a hurry, and late payments can be a major component of those shortfalls. And, your customers don't like being late with their payments or paying the additional fees which may come with those past due bills, so they'll appreciate these reminders.

Birthday Wishes

If your database already has entries for birth dates, make sure to capitalize on this feel-good opportunity to wish your contacts a Happy Birthday. If it doesn't, consider using birthdays as an incentive to get people to sign up for your texts. Advertise "Get $5 off on your birthday! Text 'BIRTHDAYS' to 474747 to opt-in." Then follow up with a reply to get their birthday and enter it into your records. Your contacts will get hit with a flood of Facebook well wishes, but your text will stand out because it shows up in a different channel.

Customer Anniversaries

Your current customers are the lifeline for not only current and future revenue, but additional sales through referrals. Saying "Thanks for being our customer for [X] years!" is a great way to build goodwill with these contacts. It's a good reminder that they've been pleased with your product or service for a long time. And it's an excellent opportunity to stay in touch without asking for anything from your customers.

Appointment Reminders

Missed appointments can be a big drain on both customer happiness and missed revenue. Your patients/customers are prone to forget to put appointments on their calendars or check their schedules. The best way to avoid this is to use SMS marketing for appointment reminders because of the immediacy of the reminder and our incredibly high open rate of text messages of 98%. Your customers will appreciate the reminder. If you're in the medical services field, check out The Top Benefits of Automating Healthcare Appointment Reminders.

Event Reminders

Have you ever thrown a party and no one showed up? That's a bummer. You can boost your event attendance simply by reminding those who planned to attend to show at the right time in the right place. If you work with a religious group, check out Texting for Church Event Reminders.

Avoid These Common Reminder Mistakes

We've helped thousands of organizations grow over the last decade by using bulk text message marketing, and we've learned a few things in the process. Here are a few of the common mistakes we see from organizations that are new to text reminders:

• Not sending text confirmations in addition to reminders.
• Not automating reminders in advance.
• Not giving customers an option to reschedule online if the reminder time doesn't work.
• Not including the business address with the appointment reminder.

Build Your Business Text Reminder Campaign

Now that you have some campaigns in mind and which common mistakes to avoid, we'll show you how to set up a reminder campaign in a minute or less.

Step 1: Select Caller ID (5 Seconds)

The first step in creating a reminder campaign is to select the Caller ID. This is often the preset shared Short Code you already use. We recommend using a textable number so that contacts can reply via text.

Step 2: Name Your Reminder Campaign (10 Seconds)

Next, name your campaign. Make sure to use a name which clearly identifies the campaign type, and one that other members of your team will easily understand.

Step 3: Create Your Message (40 Seconds)

Create your message as either an SMS text (160 characters or less) or as a Multimedia Message Service (MMS) text which can include rich media. It's a good practice to use the personalization tools provided by your text message marketing software to include the contact's name and the details of the reminder such as amount owed, date, time, and location.

For reminder messages, you can use a preset message template (which some text message solutions provide) or create and save your own template for later use.

Step 4: Set Your Reminder Times (5 Seconds)

Finally, schedule the timing for your reminders to go out. By default, your reminders will be sent on the exact date and at the exact time specified for each contact. Alternatively, you may choose to schedule the reminders to be sent at any date and/or time prior to the specified time for each contact. You can set up recurring reminders to automatically go out each day, week, month, or year.

Text Reminders is Just the Beginning

As you can see, automating contact reminders with text marketing can be not only a huge time-saver but a boost to customer satisfaction and revenue. But there are a lot more benefits to using text messages for business marketing.

You can also use a bulk text messaging service to provide customer support, poll your contacts to learn their preferences, and drip content to contacts to show them how to get the most from your product or service.

We've designed a free, downloadable Text Marketing Guide which will show you the advanced tips to:

• Grow your contact list
• Increase engagement
• Create successful text marketing campaigns

Get it now by clicking on the button below.

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