Communicating with your customers and potential customers can be a little tricky, especially for marketing purposes. You don’t want to bombard them with unwanted communications for fear of gaining a negative reputation. After all, you don’t want to be lumped in with the companies trying to ‘reach you for your car’s extended warranty’! Did you know that a business SMS platform is not only easy to operate, but can help you improve your response rate? Read on to learn more about what SMS is and why your business needs to have a good business SMS platform.
What is SMS?
SMS stands for short message service, and simply put, when you send an SMS, you are sending a text message. Therefore, SMS and text can and are used interchangeably. However, all text messages are not created equally. And depending on the content, messages sent via text may not all classify as SMS.
The alternative is called MMS, which stands for multimedia messaging. MMS enables users to send media along with their texts. This media includes video, gifs, photos, etc. While these messages can be very dynamic, they can also use up more data than SMS. When sending a message as a business, you need to be considerate of your customers.
How Can You Use SMS for Marketing?
Once your customers and clients give you permission to contact them through messaging, you can begin sending SMS messages to them but not before. There are very strict rules and regulations surrounding marketing in general. Giving the option to opt-out is a must.
SMS messaging offers up some great opportunities for you to provide an enhanced customer experience (CX). Below, you will see some fantastic business uses for SMS marketing.
- Appointments
- Confirmations
- Reminders
- Discounts
- Promotions
- Follow Ups
- Customer Support
- Quick Research
Compliance
Please keep in mind, you must give your recipients an option to remove themselves from receiving messages. Failure to do so could cost you heavy fines and legal fees.
Why Should You Use a Business SMS Platform?
You should use a business SMS platform for your business for several reasons. First of all, you will get all the benefits SMS itself. This includes fast open rates. In fact, 90% of texts are read within 5 seconds! There is no other digital marketing method that has that high of an open rate. Along with open rate, SMS messages have high click rate and response rate as well.
With the low cost associated with sending SMS and the ability to reach a lot of customers at once, the ROI (return on investment) of SMS is very high. This is great news, especially when so many consumers own mobile phones and prefer you to contact them through SMS messaging.
A business SMS platform takes all the positive attributes of SMS and helps you apply them to your business. Depending on your phone system, SMS can be integrated into your solution. Your business SMS platform will be a small, but important, part of your communications platform. This is because business SMS platforms come with automation.
Automation allows you to simply manage your SMS marketing techniques. You can create and store SMS templates, schedule your messages (that can be delivered even while you are out of office!), and you can work with your existing client list.
Ready For a Great Business SMS Platform?
If you’re ready to begin using SMS marketing for your business, Rytel Hosted can help you out. We offer a business SMS platform that is easy to use and full of the features you need to run a successful SMS marketing campaign. Our experts are here to help you integrate and operate your business SMS platform. Contact us today to start improving your customer experience through SMS messaging.
