If you are the owner of a mobile phone, you won’t need us to tell you that text messaging is on the rise. For most of us, we don’t even like to answer our phone to calls anymore! So, if you are a small business owner, it is important that you start to invest in bulk SMS texting.
Studies carried out just last year show that a massive 63% of smartphone owners keep it near them around 93% of the time that they are awake. It has also been found that people will read an incoming text message within three minutes of receiving it, 90% of the time. As you can see, this provides you with a huge opportunity to tap into markets and potential clients with businesses SMS texting.
Every type of business can use text messaging to grow their business and bring in more customers. Using bulk SMS is easy, effective and this type of marketing will ensure that your business is always on the mind of the consumer. Using a service such as Sakari would be ideal as they have a free trial which you can try to see if it’s right for you. Their platform has numerous features such as scheduled messages, contact grouping and unlimited contacts which makes it one of the best on the market.
Here, we are taking you through some examples of different industries that can benefit from SMS marketing.
SMS Marketing for Restaurants
Did you know that restaurants and retail shops who send out coupons via text message are ten times more likely to have those coupons redeemed in their business than if they had sent the coupon on paper. This shows that SMS marketing is the perfect way to introduce customers to your business and, more importantly, keep them there. We would recommend going for a campaign that offers a freebie such as a free dessert, or buy one get one free. These are used all the time in the big chain restaurants, proving that these tactics really do work.
For example, let’s take the huge American restaurant chain Dunkin Donuts. This chain experimented with an SMS marketing campaign with brilliants results. They found that text messaging combined with radio advertisements brought an increase of store traffic of 21% while 17% of people also forwarded the text message onto a friend. Finally, a massive 35% of people said that they would be more inclined to buy coffee from the chain.
SMS Marketing for Retail
Everyone loves a bargain and coupons provide shoppers with the very deals so they can purchase the products that they love. Bulk texting services can be used to draw in customers in a variety of different ways. This includes sweepstakes, competitions, giveaway, updates and exclusive promotions.
SMS Marketing for the Service Industry
While SMS marketing is fantastic for a whole host of different industries, it is particularly great for the service industry. In the service industry, one of the most common issues that businesses face is people not showing up to their appointment. There are a number of reasons as to why this can happen from a medical emergency to the appointment simply slipping someone’s mind. However, if you are in the service industry then this will definitely be something that you will have experience at least a few times.
SMS messaging works fantastically here as you can have a business texting service send out a message to remind people that they have an appointment schedule in. It is normally a good idea to have this scheduled in for at least 24 hours in advance. This text message won’t be buried amongst lots of other distractions and you can ensure that your business keeps missed appointments to a minimum.
Applied Clinical Trials recently published a case study on this issue of text messaging and the correlation with missed appointments. They found that there was a positive correlation here and that those who received an SMS message reminding them of their appointment were far more likely to attend it. ON average, roughly 175 text message sent in one day resulted in an average 10% rise of increased attendance.
SMS messaging is not only great for reminding people of missed appointments, it is also great if you are trying to fill the last minute cancellation too, as you can send out a text with the available time slot to see if any other customers would like to fill it. This means you don’t have to miss out on that cash for your business.
As you can see, SMS marketing is definitely a great service to implement within your small business and these tried and tested methods show that they are extremely effective. In an age where nearly everyone prefers texting to calling, this is a missed opportunity for your business and something that you won’t want to miss out on implementing today.
