How to Include Mass Texting into Your Marketing Strategy

Marketing is the process of creating a relationship between businesses and their customers. It is an integral part of that relationship from beginning to end, and the plan a business devises to create, maintain, and improve that relationship is called a marketing strategy. We will cover how including mass texting into your marketing strategy will help.

Think of fishing. You don’t just decide to catch a fish and hooray, you have a fish. There’s a whole process. Much to be considered. Where will you fish? What time of day ? How will you entice the fish? Will there be other people fishing? Do you have the right lures for the fish you want to catch?

Marketing is the same way. You need to know where to market, who to market to, how to approach them, what time of day, and the list goes on and on. Fortunately, technology keeps advancing, as it often does, to make it easier to accomplish our goals, and in marketing, it’s allowing us to cast a wider net.

Capturing customers attention

Our job is to learn how the new technologies work and how to apply them to our circumstances and environment. One marketing method that’s quickly becoming popular is text message marketing. It uses an opt-in or permission-based strategy that consumers are very receptive to.

Customers adapt to marketing methods. They learn how to tune out what they see and hear. For this reason, marketers must adapt to have a chance at capturing their attention and drawing them into a relationship with their business.

Customers want to have a relationship with businesses that make the products they buy. Plus, they want it convenient to their lifestyle. Most people keep their mobile phones within arm’s reach at all times, so it’s become the place to meet your clients where they are.

Remember the fishing analogy? Sending individual texts is a lot like fishing with one lure. You’re only going to catch one at a time, and for some people, that’s what works best. But, if you’re looking to fish for more at one time, you’re going to need a different method. The answer is mass texting.

Text message marketing

Text messages, in general, have a 97% open rate. And that rate holds for text message marketing too. Text marketing is best because it requires a customers consent in order to be widely used. This consent is received warmly by consumers.

Text message marketing is also considerably more affordable than other marketing options. Even the smallest marketing budgets have room for text marketing. Text marketing typically provides good ROI and conversion rates.

Customers propel text message marketing forward because they want the ability to communicate with more brands via text. Studies have shown that across all age groups, over two-thirds of consumers would prefer to be contacted by a company by text rather than by phone.

Think about your own experience as a customer. A text confirmed your appointment. A text reminded you to pick up a package. And a text reminded you to use a coupon at your favorite restaurant.

How to text message market to customers

There are many reasons to text your customers. Some things to remember when you start to incorporate text marketing into your marketing strategy are listed below.

Have them opt-in. Consent is crucial to the success of text marketing. Failing to do this can land you in a blocked list faster than you can hit send.
Set expectations and parameters. If you want consent from your customers, it’s important to be honest and upfront about what and when you plan to message them.
Add value to every message. Part of the appeal of opting-in for consumers is the expectation of added value. Exclusive coupons, priority placement, or first-to-know information are ideal.
Balance is key. You don’t want to lose your subscribers by overdoing it with the frequency, but you also don’t want to go so long between messages that you’re depleting added value.
Time it right. Messaging your customer at times that aren’t convenient to them or pertinent to the moment will keep your messages from being successful.
Present the option to opt-out. You don’t want to lose subscribers, but you also don’t want them to feel like they’re being held hostage. Leaving them the option of opting out builds trust.

Incorporating mass texting to your marketing strategy

After you understand the rules of SMS marketing, you’re ready to think about mass texting. A lot of people believe that mass texting is like group texting. If you’ve ever been stuck in a group text where you knew only the sender and got back 10 texts from random phone numbers, you know group texting isn’t an enjoyable experience.

Good news! Mass texting is not group texting. Group texting has a limit on the number of people you can text, and while you may be texting multiple people one message at the same time, it’s counted as multiple messages being sent at the same time.

Group texting is considered to be an MMS, a multimedia message service. Unlike SMS, short message service, not all mobile devices support receiving an MMS message. So, there’s no guarantee that your message will make it to every recipient.

Mass text messages are used to text a large number of people at once. You need a texting service to send mass text messages, but the messages are sent as an SMS message. This means that any mobile device user can receive the message.

There is typically no limit to the number of recipients for a mass text, and it works like a BCC does in email. No matter how many people you’re sending the message to, the other recipients aren’t aware of each other.

Group texts have their place in the world, but as a business, it’s much more likely that you’ll find yourself in need of mass texting. Group texts or individual texts can quickly become unmanageable while you’re trying to also run a business.

Mass texting specifics

Mass texting can be used at various times during your text marketing relationship with a subscriber. Some examples of the types of messages you would send with mass texts:

Welcome texts
Appointment reminders
Order confirmations
Special offers and coupons
Event reminders
And more

Mass texting doesn’t have to mean you’re texting your entire database every time. Using keywords that subscribers text to a shortcode will help you to group your database into sections of people who want to receive certain kinds of messages.

Mass texting can be automated so that as your business grows, and you won’t have to be overwhelmed with trying to schedule all the texts you need to send to your subscribers. Your customers stay engaged, but you don’t have to worry about juggling an unmanageable amount of contacts.

The reachability prospects of mass texts are really exciting. If you want to add them to your marketing strategy, there are some important advisements to understand:

Always identify yourself or your organization.
Stay under 160 characters because that is the character limit of an SMS text.
Be mindful of the recipient’s local time. Texts should occur between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.
Respect the opt-out. Do not send messages to recipients who have opted out.
Only send messages to people who have opted in with you directly. In other words, don’t buy a list or blanket an entire area code with unsolicited text messages.
Treat your subscribers with respect because it’s not your right to text them. It is your privilege to market to them via text.

Mass texting can be an easy and profitable addition to your marketing strategy.

Summary

Communicating with customers is an essential part of marketing. Marketing your business is an important part of success in business. In today’s world, digital communication is key and advancements in digital communication lead to advancements in digital marketing.

Text message marketing is popular because of its convenience. It’s popular with businesses because of the cost and immediate connection to customers. However, texting customers individually would be a daunting task for any business, big or small.

Mass texting helps you reach many customers at once. Scheduling lead follow-ups, tailoring to your customers’ interests, and marketing to their needs through text is now possible. If you follow the simple guidelines, you can instantly access your customer’s attention wherever they are with fast and measurable results.