Do you want to increase the variety of channels you use as a marketer? Businesses that aim for effective and efficient communication with their audience have found that using enterprise-grade SMS messaging is a very successful way to accomplish their marketing objectives.
Here are some intriguing statistics that support this:
- Text messages are becoming a major marketing medium because of how common SMS messaging is in people’s everyday lives.
- The average open rate of an SMS is 98%, which is a great benefit for companies.
- In 90% of cases, users read messages within three minutes of receiving them.
- SMS marketing is not only incredibly cost-effective but also achieves great conversion rates.
- Many businesses have witnessed that sales per text message are higher than those per email.
- SMS marketing, on average, generates three times the revenue of a similar email campaign.
- Compared to other marketing services, you will have a higher rate of customer engagement with your brand or actions on promotions delivered via SMS.
Sending promotions or general informational messages to your audience can be accomplished with a timely and high-quality enterprise-grade SMS messaging approach.
However, in order to protect your clients’ data and preserve the integrity and reputation of your business, SMS implementation must be done in tandem with best practices.
Best Practices for Enterprise-Grade SMS Messaging
The “State of Marketing” study from Salesforce claims that marketers are still growing across digital platforms. In particular, the adoption rate of SMS rose 31% between 2018 and 2020, to 69%.
Leading companies in each sector are aware that using best practices is the only way to maintain SMS as a viable communication channel. Let’s go over some of the key aspects of enterprise-grade SMS campaigns that actually work.
Transparency
Your audience should be aware of what they’re getting into when they sign up for an SMS marketing list. As a result, you want to give a thorough explanation of what participants in your program might expect.
This might be incorporated into the opt-in text or the response that appears automatically once a user has chosen to participate. Subscribers should be aware of the program’s objective: Which discounts, incentives, promotions, or event alerts are you incorporating? More people will participate if you outline all the advantages a subscription would include.
Permissions
Sending text messages to individuals without their explicit authorization is illegal. Building trust with your subscribers is achieved by having them opt in and provide their appropriate legal consent. Additionally, they ought to have the option to stop getting SMS messages whenever they want. To prevent sending messages to individuals who have unsubscribed, your company should maintain a list of all current subscribers.
Every subscriber must also understand that they have the option to opt out, even if they sign up and decide right away they aren’t interested. Many text systems include this option by default as a secondary message (e.g., “Reply STOP to opt out at any time”) after sending the initial SMS marketing message in order to allow this.
Make sure your call to action makes it apparent that customers must provide written consent before they can receive automated marketing texts. Let them know that signing up for SMS is not a prerequisite for buying anything from you.
Warnings
The ideal enterprise-grade SMS messaging plan clearly outlines the rules of the SMS program by including all disclaimers. SMS customers must receive marketing texts that provide specified information, such as “message and data rates may apply.” This is because, depending on their cell service plan, a subscriber may or may not incur additional SMS fees as a result of your program.
Quantity
It is extremely unpleasant and detrimental to any successful enterprise-grade SMS campaign to send out an excessive number of SMS messages each month. Overwhelming your audience with texts will most likely be counterproductive. Sending two to five texts each month is a good way to keep customers interested without bothering them. Going one step further, you can let them know in advance how many texts they can expect.
Value
When someone takes the time to read a text, they should always receive something of value in return. Sending pertinent, instructional, or helpful SMS messages to your recipients will keep them interested and stop them from opting out in the future.
Language
When writing, stay away from employing slang and acronyms that could confuse or mislead your readers. Because SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, they must be clear, succinct, and pertinent to the intended audience. Always verify your grammar and spelling, and make sure your message is loud and clear.
Hours
Sending SMS messages is most effective when done during regular work hours, when subscribers are probably looking at their phones. Most people do not want to receive messages after hours or be disturbed in the wee hours of the morning by texts unless it is really necessary. In order to encourage subscribers to take action, your company should ideally get in touch with them during specified peak hours.
10 Things to look for in an SMS messaging solution partner
If you’re considering doing it manually and alone, putting these SMS messaging best practices into effect could seem challenging. But by locating a top business SMS messaging partner, you can acquire a strong platform with capabilities to maximize messaging for your business that is simple to set up.
Here’s your 10-item checklist to help you find the best SMS provider:
Short and long codes: Verify that your provider can assist you in integrating long-code and short-code messages into a single thread. Improved team collaboration, quicker customer issue resolution, and greater customer satisfaction are all results of having greater visibility into conversations.
Productivity platform: To increase productivity, find out if the SMS messaging platform permits multiple agents to use the same messaging thread simultaneously.
Features: Examine every feature that is offered. Numerous pre-built, practical features, like team-to-one texting, bulk SMS messaging, call center messaging, SMS surveys, automated coupon codes, SMS scheduling, multi-channel texting, and more, will be available from a comprehensive enterprise-grade SMS provider.
Integrations: Inquire about how to integrate texting with your leading CRM systems like Salesforce, Hubspot, and more.
Scalability: Verify that the business offers robust features at a fair price to many enterprise customers.
Monitoring and analytics: Make sure the solution’s reporting and analytics tools are strong. You should monitor read rates and response times, set multiple access levels, monitor click-throughs, message delivery, and performance over time.
Voice: Find out if you can utilize call forwarding, call routing, click-to-call capabilities, and other voice features.
Mobility: Confirm that your call center agents can use brand messages and apps to manage customer accounts while on the go, directly from their mobile devices, thanks to the enterprise-grade SMS platform.
Track record: Evaluate the references provided by your provider as well as their performance history in terms of compliance, data security, rating, uptime, and carrier partnerships.
Pricing: Finally, but just as importantly, consider the pricing structure of your SMS partner and make sure that the options they provide meet your present and future requirements.
The above items and more are covered by GirikSMS’s SMS solution, a 100% native SMS for Salesforce platform. GirikSMS offers text messaging services to connect with over 900 operators across 130+ countries worldwide, thanks to its direct partnerships with the majority of mobile carriers.
Use long codes and short codes easily for business SMS messaging with a native Salesforce SMS messaging solution. In just a few minutes, you can start your first SMS campaign utilizing cloud-based technology. Sign up now to get started on your enterprise-grade SMS plan.
