Mobile text marketing does more than allow you to tap into the massive popularity of smartphones among consumers, it allows a company to extend its reach through a valuable communications medium. However, in order to fully leverage this channel, businesses need to consider doing more than sending bulk SMS messages to consumers about deals. For starters, open the lines of communication up in both directions.
The ability to use mobile marketing efforts to enhance consumer communications can drive significant value of mobile for any company. Here are a few tips for expanding its use in customer relationship management.
Auto-responders – Even something as basic as using auto-responders to acknowledge messages sent by consumers can be a major step toward expanding the use of mobile. When anyone receives a text that engages them, the natural reaction is to respond. Many companies don't acknowledge texts they receive however, but this could provide valuable insight into their customers.
Mobile surveys – You can also further engage customers using text message marketing by submitting surveys to them. Even just asking the customer's opinion about recent marketing efforts can add significant value to the mobile channel.
Voting – One highly untapped method of communicating with consumers via mobile is the use of voting. Allowing customers to vote on what they want the next discounts to be or their favorite products from the brand can open up serious dialog and provide large amounts of data for developing better marketing campaigns in the future.
There are just a few of the ways a firm can expand the potential of mobile SMS marketing through creating a dialog with their customers. However, any business needs to ensure it has the appropriate SMS gateway in place first.
