SMS Marketing: 7 Steps to Successful Texting

Texting is ubiquitous, but SMS marketing is still an underutilized channel. Adding it to your sales, marketing, customer service, and even employee communications can create a near-immediate boon for your business. Here’s how.

Why text at all?

People expect you to text these days, and businesses who do are able to get tasks done faster and sell more stuff. Point 6 covers how in more detail, but in short:

• 9 in 10 want to text with a business
• 70% say texting is the fastest way to reach them
• 80% read and respond to texts within 30 minutes
• Consumers get 8x fewer texts than emails, on average

Texting both stands out from the pack and fits with what people are already doing. It’s rare you find that combo, and worth taking advantage of.

(View more texting statistics here.)

1. Create a plan—know what you’re texting for.

If you don’t know what your goal is, you won’t be successful. So, what do you want texting to accomplish for you? A few questions that might help you clarify your goal:

• When are you waiting on customers or employees to respond?
• Where are you repeating tasks (like making extra phone calls)?
• Are there moments you can turn into revenue opportunities?
• What promotions could use more oomph?
• What messages do you have that are time-sensitive?
• Will texting replace something else you’re doing, or be additional?

You can text for anything and be successful. Just know what you’re in for before you start.

(For more help, view our Texting Success Guide.)

2. Choose a texting service.

A good texting service will handle the bulk of SMS compliance for you, and let you text from your office phone numbers (if you’d like). From there, the right service for you depends on what features you need and who you want to work with. Obviously I love Text Request. It’s ease-of-use and customer support are hard to beat for the money.

3. Complete your 10DLC registration.

Mobile carriers require you to complete “10DLC registration” before you can text through their networks. It’s an extra step, but ultimately it verifies your organization as legitimate, helps cut down on spam, and lets you send higher volumes faster. All are good things.?

Your texting service should handle this and the associated fees for you (Text Request does, at least), but if unsure, just ask. The timeline to get approved can take a few days or longer, so if you’re starting fresh, make sure you account for this in your timeline.

(View more about 10DLC registration guidelines and regulations.)

4. Import contacts or build your subscriber list.

If you already have opt-ins, import them and create your contact lists, like for seasonal customers, by location, or whatever’s relevant to you. To start or continue growing your SMS subscriber list, put a few things in place:

• Replace “Call us” with “Text or call us” wherever you advertise your number
• Add a live chat widget for texting to your website to start new conversations
• On contact forms, include a field for mobile phone number, and include a disclaimer stating that submitting the form gives you permission to text them
• Create a keyword, like DEAL, to get prospects to opt in for a discount or other offering

A great list takes time to build, but you should see progress quickly.

5. Set your team up for success.

Proper onboarding goes a long way. Take the little bit of time to make sure your contact data is good to go, relevant employees have access, message templates are created for FAQs and other common communications, your Google Business page is connected if you’re texting for reviews, your merchant account is connected if you’re texting for payments, and that you have phone lines set up for any departments or locations that need one.?

Each step is simple and sets you up to text successfully.

6. Start texting!

The best way to succeed is to start. Not sure what to text for yet? These are the most common use cases:

• Scheduling:? Send confirmations for existing appointments to increase show rates, and send out messages anytime you need someone to schedule a new appointment.
• Customer service:? Handle one-to-one conversations with customers to make sure the help and great service they need.
• Sales follow-ups:? Have leads and need to close them? Text to book a meeting or get an instant response.
• Employee communications:? Update your employees or handle regular company communications, including the hiring and scheduling process.
• Lead generation:? Enable prospects to text you for sales opportunities.
• Marketing and promotions:? Use mass texting to get your message seen now and drive registrations or sales.
• Payments and collections:? Request and collect payments entirely through text, share receipts.
• Reviews and feedback:? Earn Google reviews or private feedback, track your progress, and respond to reviews.

For many, the easiest places to start are for customer service conversations and sales follow-ups.?

7. Analyze, iterate, and improve.

You’re always better with practice, and SMS marketing is no exception. Pay attention to how frequently you text, when you get the most conversions or responses, where you’re able to save the most time and stress, and what really moves the financial needle for you. Then look for opportunities to expand.?

Do that, and texting may actually be game-changing for your business (I’ve certainly heard plenty of people say that).