Not Using SMS? You’re Missing Out on Views and Engagement
If you’re like most businesses, you probably use SMS to send one-way communications, such as notifications and one-time passwords (OTPs), to your customers. But have you ever considered the potential of SMS as a proactive marketing and engagement channel?
This may surprise you, but the benefits of using SMS for marketing are manyfold. Not only is it one of the most popular communication channels that is independent of the internet, SMS open rates are also extraordinarily high at 98%. Compare that to the 21.5% open rate of eDMs (which also have clickthrough rates that are approximately seven times lower), and it’s easy to see where you should be focusing your efforts.
As for customer engagement, it only takes 90 seconds for customers to respond, as opposed to an average of 90 minutes over email. Far from being outdated, texting remains one of the most personal direct-to-consumer channels that can make a difference in customer engagement and experiences. But as with any other tool, SMS is only as effective as the hand that wields it. So read on if you’d like to find out best practices that will help you get the most out of SMS marketing.
Use two-way SMS to level up campaigns
Technology has evolved to streamline workflows and scale up communications without compromising on personalization. For example, 8×8’s SMS API solution allows businesses to schedule and send bulk messages with customisable fields, as well as monitor key metrics on an analytics dashboard to track and optimise campaigns. Some of the ways that marketers can use SMS include:
- Conduct customer surveys: Get clear direction on which products your customers are gravitating towards and how you can support their needs better through surveys, feedback forms, and reviews. SMS Engage gives you accurate insights through higher response rates using interactive and customisable content-rich web forms.
- Send SMS-exclusive offers: Incentivise customers to consent to SMS marketing messages by sending offers not available elsewhere or giving them first dibs on promotions and discounts. You could also increase the engagement rate for these offers by sending QR codes and vouchers through SMS messages that customers can access directly. If you’re interested in generating QR codes, you can utilize a reliable tool or service to create a QR code easily.
- Up-sell and cross-sell: It’s important to create a genuine relationship with each customer to glean insights into their thought process, which can be done through two-way SMS conversations. From there, your customer service agents will be able to refer your customers to product verticals and promotions that are most relevant to them.
- Provide customer support: Make your services more accessible and inclusive to rural communities that do not have smooth internet connectivity round the clock. Plus, by shifting smaller ticket items onto SMS, your customers will also enjoy shorter wait times and receive greater attention from customer service agents who now have the bandwidth to deal with more complex cases.
Show customers you care by keeping data privacy at the top of your agenda
But before you get too excited and start flooding your customers’ phones with text messages, keep in mind that SMS marketing can be a double-edged sword—message too often and your messages may end up in the spam folder. Worse still, SMS has become associated with scams in recent years, so businesses have to overcome the barrier of scepticism before they can sell effectively. 8×8’s SMS API helps brands prove that they are legit with custom branded links and a branded sender ID that reflects the company name.
It’s important to realise that SMS engagement should only be reserved for time-sensitive and highly personalised messages. The rest of your messages can be reserved for other channels, such as email. Fake claims of scarcity or overly generic, repetitive, or irrelevant messages are surefire ways to annoy audiences and cause campaigns to backfire, so be strategic and thoughtful about how SMS is used for customer engagement.
Most importantly, it’s crucial to obtain clear consent from customers before conducting any marketing activities over SMS. The option to unsubscribe whenever they wish should also be presented to them to comply with data privacy regulations within various jurisdictions. This could be as simple as allowing customers to reply with a short code such as “stop” or “opt-out.” More of such self-service functions can be easily enabled through interactive menus generated by the 8×8 Connect Automation Builder. With a built-in, no-code, drag and drop solution, anyone can create an interactive SMS message.
Optimize conversations and drive conversions with SMS Marketing
Your SMS messages can be the ones that customers pay attention to, or the ones that get lost in the flurry. Use the right tools and tactics to maximise your engagement through SMS marketing.
8×8’s SMS APIs offer detailed analytics that give you valuable insights, so that every message you send will improve conversions and boost loyalty by virtue of being relevant, timely, and memorable.
Schedule a demo today or find out more about 8×8 SMS APIs to achieve next-level marketing and customer engagement.
