Who hasn’t heard of SMS? SMS stands for “Short Message Service” and is defined as “a service for sending short messages of up to 160 characters to mobile devices, including cellular phones, smartphones, and PDAs.” It's most often referred to "Text Messages".
Although the first thing that comes to your mind when thinking about SMS is exchanging messages between friends, this communication means is also widely used by businesses to keep in touch with clients and provide better service.
Not sure if you should try SMS? Consider this statistic: about 95% of text messages get opened compared to 25% of emails. Not to mention that sending a message costs just a few pennies – you achieve great impact with little resources.
Here are some ways you can use SMS to grow your business:
Sending updates
Your newsletter has a poor open-rate? Try SMS instead and communicate bite-sized news and updates about your business. Make sure to include a link to your website as well!
Announcing promotions
Include a unique discount code in your text messages and tailor special offers to individual preferences of each customer.
Providing customer service
A good solution for offering problem resolutions is sending text messages about order statuses, package tracking, or any other aspect specific to your business.
Contests
Text-to-win contests can easily be instrumented via SMS. Make sure you inform all customers about the resolution of each contest if you want to keep them interested.
Running customer surveys
Since most customers don’t have enough patience to go through long survey forms, you will achieve higher response rates by asking concise questions via SMS.
Delivering appointment reminders
If you are a service-related business you can use SMS to remind your clients they have an appointment. Studies have shown that fewer clients miss their appointments when businesses use this type of reminder.
Targeting customers at prime times
SMS is particularly useful in the restaurant industry – you can contact people at decision-making times, such as when choosing where to go for lunch or what to eat after work.
Announcing new items on your e-commerce website
Use bulk text messages to announce subscribers about new products or services featured on your website.
Keeping in touch with employees
If your employees are found in different locations or are travelling, you can keep your team united and informed by using SMS.
At least one of these ideas applies to your business – it’s high-time you used this affordable and efficient strategy to attract more customers and increase your revenue!
Not sure how to get started with SMS? Go to http://itextmyclients.com to learn more!