In the United States, the short message service (SMS) marketing industry is growing rapidly and is predicted to reach a value of $37.45 billion by 2031. Given this communication channel’s widespread use and promising future, SMS is an effective tool that can drive results for small businesses. If you want to start using SMS, there are various ways to use this platform to grow your business and engage your audience.
The Benefits of SMS for Small Businesses
As a small business owner, you likely know the unique challenges that come with this role. Effectively communicating with your audience can take considerable effort, especially on top of your other responsibilities.
Luckily, SMS messages can allow you to easily reach your customers. Here are all the benefits of using texting for small businesses:
- Simplicity: Rather than a high-tech phone or downloading an app, your customers or clients only need a basic phone to receive SMS messages. As a result, there are little to no barriers to receiving text messages.
- Ease of use: While some customers may not be familiar with all smartphone features, most will be familiar with texting—SMS can allow your business to reach a broad audience. SMS is also easy for businesses to manage, as many of Red Oxygen’s solutions integrate with existing infrastructure, such as Gmail.
- Cost-effectiveness: SMS marketing enables businesses to connect with more people at a lower cost, making it a budget-friendly option.
- High open and click-through rates: In a Statista survey, 53.5% of business owners and marketing managers said they use SMS marketing because it offers higher open and click-through rates than other channels.
- Better engagement: In the same Statista survey, 60.5% of respondents said they use this channel because it allows them to achieve increased levels of customer engagement.
- Opportunities for personalization: Sending personalized communications to your audience, such as including their names or offering relevant deals, can help build deeper relationships. Tailored content can make customers or clients feel special, strengthening brand loyalty.
5 SMS Uses for Small Businesses
How can your business use SMS to facilitate customer success? Learn about five key strategies below:
1. Customer Acquisition
For your business to grow, you need more customers. Texting can help, as you can encourage leads to join your SMS marketing list by offering them a discount when they subscribe. This way, you can increase your contact list while possibly facilitating a sale. You can also use SMS to quickly respond to leads generated from online forms.
2. Customer Retention
Retaining customers is also vital for your small business. After all, repeat purchases and customers are the backbone of many successful companies.
SMS can help improve customer retention and encourage repeat business. This channel is permission-based, so your most eager customers have chosen to receive your communications. You can keep them interested and incentivize purchases by offering exclusive discounts or loyalty points via text. You can also use behavioral triggers to send automated messages based on specific behaviors, such as a gentle reminder for a forgotten cart.
3. Marketing
Many small businesses need more resources and time, so the ability to create highly targeted and personalized marketing campaigns may be challenging for some. Texting is an affordable yet powerful tool you can use to develop relevant campaigns and share marketing and sales messages. You can send more targeted communications to boost sales by segmenting your contact lists.
As most people know how to send a text message, setting up these campaigns is relatively simple and requires little to no training. With the help of automation features, you can also pre-schedule emails to save time.
4. Customer Feedback
Reviews can help your business gain trust and attract new customers. In fact, 70% of online shoppers read up to six reviews before purchasing. You can use SMS to receive customer feedback and reviews through text surveys and review requests. Another option is to send follow-up texts to your clients or customers after a transaction or an appointment.
5. Customer Service
Small businesses can use text messages to simplify and improve their customer service efforts. With SMS, you can offer support directly through your customers’ phones.
SMS can accomplish the following customer support tasks:
- Shipping and delivery notifications: You can share real-time updates about customers’ orders and information about when they can expect to receive their delivery.
- Confirmation details: Once your customers have made a purchase or placed a reservation, sending an SMS is a great way to confirm the details.
- Time-sensitive notifications: SMS can allow you to share timely notifications with your customers, whether you’re sending an exclusive deal or a reminder about an upcoming appointment.
- Automated responses: You can save time by setting up automated responses for frequently asked questions, allowing customers to easily find the information they need when they need it.
- Troubleshooting: SMS offers two-way messaging capabilities, so you can collaborate with customers to solve product or technical problems.
SMS Best Practices for Small Businesses
While SMS can be used to overcome various challenges and achieve your goals, you should follow best practices to help make the most out of this versatile tool.
Here are some nonnegotiables for optimizing text for small businesses:
- Stay compliant: Small businesses must comply with various regulations when using SMS. For example, those in the U.S. must adhere to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act standards, state regulations and guidelines from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. Noncompliance can lead to mobile carriers flagging your messages as spam, which means they won’t be delivered to your contacts.
- Provide opt-in and opt-out instructions: Before sending SMS messages to customers or clients, they must opt in to receive communications from your business. You should also clearly explain how your customers can opt out if they ever want to.
- Limit your sending frequency: A general guideline is to only send SMS messages once weekly, especially if you share marketing or promotional communications. Bombarding your customers with messages can cause them to unsubscribe.
- Time messages well: Send out texts when people are more likely to see them, such as during the afternoon when they are awake and with their phones.
- Keep it short and sweet: Your messages must be clear, concise and written with reader-friendly language so your customers can quickly process the necessary information. You should also craft messages under 160 characters, as many carriers will split messages that exceed this number.
- Get personal: By targeting specific segments of your customer base and offering personalized content, you can make your customers feel valued and give your communications a human touch.
- Manage your responses: If you use two-way messages where your customers can send and receive replies, always do your best to respond in a timely manner, resolve any problems and nurture positive relationships.
How to Use SMS as a Small Business
If you’re ready to use SMS for your small business, there are only a few simple steps to take to get started:
- Develop your strategy: Decide on what you will use SMS messages for, identify who your audience is and outline your goals.
- Choose a provider: SMS solution providers, such as Red Oxygen, can help you send text messages to your customers. These companies provide the required infrastructure and technology to send SMS communications quickly and securely.
- Build your contact list: As mentioned earlier, you must get your customers’ consent before contacting them via SMS. You can grow your subscriber list in various ways, including opt-in forms.
- Write your messages: Start from scratch or use a pre-written template. Regardless of your choice, always follow best practices, proofread the text and include a call to action.
- Press “Send”: Now, it’s time to experience the power of this tool—send your SMS messages to your contacts.
Leverage SMS With Red Oxygen
At Red Oxygen, we make sending SMS messages quick, easy and effective so that you can see results faster. Our wide range of turnkey solutions allows you to send messages from a computer to any mobile device, with features that allow you to personalize your communications and help ensure your texts are compliant and reach their recipients.
