It's tempting to think of SMS mass messaging as behind the times, but if you pour your entire marketing budget into internet-based messaging services, you'll likely miss out on a giant opportunity.
Let's discuss relevant mass text strategies and how yours can be successful and compliant.
However, first we need to understand the difference between SMS Group Texting and Mass Messaging.
SMS Group Texting
Group texting is interpersonal messaging sent simultaneously to a limited list of contacts. Most people have participated in group text on their mobile phone. Whether you're running late to meet some friends or to hold a presentation, you'd probably let everyone know via group message. Why? Because in some scenarios, the intimate context of a text message combined with its efficiency is still the best solution for timely communication, especially when it benefits from a certain level of engagement.
When group texting is extended beyond a short list of contacts, on-line group text applications can extend that list. Management of larger contact lists is essential in these commercial group text applications like GREXT from Swift SMS Gateway. For these larger business and organization group text on-line applications, the use case scenarios are typically internal company announcements and communications to staff, and/or supply chain partners.
There are select cases when a small business may be suited to an SMS Group Text application when contacting their customers for promoting a special offer, but it is not suitable for mass text broadcasting for commercial means.
Texting may not come with some of the bells and whistles messaging apps like WhatsApp offer, but it makes up for that, because SMS is the default standard in text messaging worldwide, and is pre-installed on every mobile phone. SMS text messaging has the best reach and the highest deliverability possible of any communications app. Recipients will associate your SMS message with a more intimate relationship, thus leading to higher engagement.
It is easier for recipients to respond even after a quick glance at their phone in the office.
The combination of deliverability, engagement and cost-effectiveness makes group messaging the ideal choice for many internal business communications.
SMS Mass Messaging
The limit of SMS Mass Messaging ultimately lies in your imagination. When you are doing broadcasting messaging, you are doing three fundamental things:
- Customizing SMS Templates – So that a broadcast message can be personalized to recipients.
- Automating Your Text Broadcast – So that send times can be managed by region based on area code and auto-responders can reply to incoming responses from recipients.
- Managing Opt-In/Out – So that your recipient list is kept up to date.
These things are capabilities that are impossible without SMS integration on large scale broadcasting.
Sending Product Updates
Whether you're informing software clients about a security update or announcing this year's fall collection, SMS Mass Messaging is a nice way to broadcast product updates or launches. Where a newsletter or social media post might prompt your subscribers to save the announcement for later reference, an individual message will encourage them to immediately request additional information about the product or launch dates. You could even segment your subscriber list and give early access to your brand's most ardent fans.
Running Promotional Campaigns
Tap into a large audience instantly to increase your chances of conversions as a natural part of a promotion's goals.. With the right copy, it's easy to create a sense of urgency and have clients react to seasonal offers or flash sales. Running SMS Mass Messaging text broadcasts do not prevent you from using other marketing channels, of course. So, you could easily leverage your analytics to optimize open and click-through rates across platforms for optimal results.
Making Business Announcements
When you're adjusting your opening hours, opening another branch or entering a new collaboration, SMS Mass Messaging can quickly keep your customers up to date. With clients reading and responding to your text immediately, you can ensure they're always aware of any organizational changes that may affect how they'll interact with your brand in the future. This can not only complement your other marketing efforts but save you valuable time and resources in customer support.
Conducting Customer Surveys
While surveys are invaluable for many companies, they're not always customers' favorites, mostly because they tend to disrupt other experiences, whether that's a shopping tour or watching a movie. With SMS Mass Messaging, however, you can break up the survey, thus making it easier on the recipient. That helps you get valuable information to improve your business and boosts your brand reputation because you gathered it while respecting your clients' time.
Event Reminders and Invitations
It's always exciting to buy tickets for an industry event, but when the day actually comes, schedules and floor plans can be overwhelming. SMS Mass Messaging can not only help you ease those pains for your guests, but also send timely event reminders or even have them RSVP. That way, you can give your participants the best support before, during and after the event, thus improving their overall experience and boosting your brand reputation.
Special Offers
We already mentioned promotional campaigns earlier, but many businesses don't look beyond the first text message campaigns. Once you've engaged with multiple people a couple of times and learned about their preferences and purchase patterns, it's easy to segment your list further and automate personalized offers and announcements based on that information, thus further driving engagement and future business.
Is SMS Mass Messaging Legal?
A number of factors will influence whether your texting strategies follow current regulations, and depending on your business model, location and industry, compliance will translate to diverse practices. For instance, an internal group chat for your employees will naturally require different opt-in mechanisms than a group for your customers, and those requirements will change again based on their location.
Two key factors in determining the difference between Group Texting and Mass Messaging are this:
- If your texting is sent to internal or supply chain stakeholders of your business or organization, it falls within Group Texting.
- If your texting is promotional, or transactional in nature on a mass scale, then it is Mass Messaging.
As a rule, obtaining consent from your recipients and offering opt-out options to follow the Telephone Consumer Protection Act is best. In addition to general laws applying to the communication form, you may have to consider additional laws regulating text messages' content.
The CAN-SPAM Act may apply if you're using group messaging for fundraising or commercial purposes. Similarly, the Federal Election Commission will regulate the content of mass texting for political campaigns, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or the General Data Protection Regulation may affect how you can include a group member's personal or protected health information.
No matter how those industry-specific conditions will change from case to case, one rule will impact every company in mass broadcasting: That is the need to register your campaign in the first place. If you fail to do so and decide to mass-text people from an unregistered number, carriers and The Campaign Registry can end up charging you, thus defeating the competitive edge SMS marketing originally provided.
From Segmentation To Timing: How To Text Customers Effectively
A few ingredients can ensure that both your clients and you will get the most out of your SMS campaigns. We already know that text messages are a great way to split up surveys, and the same is true for collecting personal information. If lengthy online forms let every site visitor rightfully hesitate, SMS allows you to gather that information while building rapport with your customers.
That information can then inform future campaigns. You could send product recommendations tailored to past purchases, birthday greetings with special discounts, location- or even engagement-based promotions.
Nobody likes to be an anonymous number, but your clients also want to see value in sharing their private information. Make sure you regularly revisit your list and think of ways the data you already have can help you segment your contacts, or even unsubscribe unresponsive recipients.
You could use past surveys to re-engage unhappy clients, segment recipients by job or persona and use your list for cross-channel promotions on social media or your newsletter. Besides those regular maintenance practices, you should craft engaging messages. If you're not a marketing specialist yourself, invest some of your budget in a professional copywriter to improve your messaging and engagement.
Also, you should be aware that recipients tend to expect a different frequency and timing in SMS broadcasting than with general announcements, and that changes again when you look at group messages for the workplace. This is when your segments become the most valuable because they'll inform your schedule. Your die-hard fans may prefer an alert about your latest offer right when it comes out, whereas that time may not be appropriate for customers who just joined your list. Equally, your messaging frequency and timing can be determined by recipients' time zones, occupations, past engagements or interest in live events.
You'll fine-tune your voice and strategy as you move along, but it's important not to get carried away early on so you don't annoy recipients with too frequent messages. At the same time, you don't want to let your list grow cold by ignoring recipients for too long. Try to work out a balance based on customer personas, business interests and segments, and follow the data to continuously improve your strategy.
Get Started With SMS Mass Messaging Now
SMS Mass Messaging will bring you unparalleled efficiency, engagement and immediacy for effective communication across various use cases. However, it's imperative to prioritize legal compliance through appropriate consent mechanisms and content standards.
By knowing when it is appropriate to use SMS Group Texting and Mass Messaging with responsible and compliant practices, your business can expand its internal communications and external marketing efforts respectfully, leading to effective and timely business communications for your organization. .
If you're anxious to start texting your customers now, get in touch with our expert team for a free demo.
