Business Text Messaging: A Complete Guide

Why does this matter?

It matters because you can use a text message marketing platform to reach your target market – whether you are sending text blasts or equiping your sales and marketing team to have one-on-one, direct conversations.

There’s no doubt that text messaging is the number 1 way to communicate and it’s a gold mine of an opportunity for your business to communicate with your target market.

But how do you go about doing that?

• How do you communicate with your target market without being intrusive?
• What’s the best strategy to use with a text messaging service?
• How do you get started?
• What features do you need?
• How do you measure success?

If you’ve got any questions like these – this is the guide for you.

Getting Started

Before jumping into sending business text messages, it’s important to consider everything text messaging can offer. Of course, you don’t have to. You could just jump right into business text messaging with a platform like TextSpot. Sometimes that’s the best way to get started – just by doing it!

If you want a more strategic approach, keep reading to learn more about all the different uses of text message marketing for businesses.

Here are some of the general uses for business text messaging:

• Schedule events
• Send reminders
• Send deals and exclusive offers
• Customer support
• Generating sales
• Automating confirmations

For more information on business text messaging, visit our industries page where you can learn more about the benefits and ways to use text messages in your industry.

Example of Business Text Message Marketing

Redbox, the movie and gaming rental company, offers opt-in texting so their customers can receive alerts whenever there’s a new movie or a promotion going on.

If you have a business and want to receive messages, consider short code texting. This is when you create a simple and short message and send it to thousands of recipients.

So, if you want to send a promotion to thousands of people on your contact list, using a short code text method can be effective.

With business text messaging being more personalized, it’s the perfect way to get started in your business. It can be a highly effective way of sending a message to your target market and knowing they will receive and view it.

People check their phone at least 50 times a day – so your message is highly unlikely to be missed.

But what do you need to get started?

What You’ll Need To Send Texts

What you need to get started is:

• A platform application for managing SMS marketing.
• A plan and strategy for using the application.
• A list of contacts.
• And a budget.

When it comes to your budget, you need to consider a text messaging service that offers multiple options. You want a system that scales with your needs, both in regards to price and features.

You can also look at pay as you go options, which can be helpful until you develop a consistent strategy and you know how many text messages you’ll be needing per month.

You can also consider customized plans that help you select something that’s unique for your business.

If you choose TextSpot, you’ll discover that there are plans that can meet your business needs.

Beyond having a strategy and a budget, you also need to know a bit about your target market. You’ll need to have access to recipients’ phone number.

The research will be needed on who your target market is and what they are looking for when it comes to promotions. This will guide your strategy and give you an idea of how many text messages you need to send out.

How to Use Text Messaging for Your Business

Now that you have different pricing packages and what you’ll need to get started, it’s important to look at how to use text messaging for your business.

You’ll need to know how to market with text messages, how to send reminders, and how it can work with customer service.

Marketing With Text Messages

There are a lot of ways to market with text messages, but the first and most important is to understand your market.

• Marketing tip #1: know your target market.

You want to know everything about them when it comes to their problems and their interests.

The more you know about your target market, the more you know how to help them. The more you know what they are looking for in your business.

• Marketing tip #2: the text message is clear and to the point

Make sure every message you send counts. You want to give people a reason to stay on your list.

Consider hiring an SMS team to create a powerful text that is concise and drive home a certain point.

• Marketing tip #3: create text messages with different CTAs (call to actions)

Different CTAs help you see what produces the best results.

With any SMS strategy, you want to make sure that you are sending a message at the right time. If you are sending a message in the middle of the night, it’s more likely to irritate someone and make them want to opt-out.

Sending Reminders

Around 70% of businesses said that there was improved perception from their customers when they added text messages as part of their service.

• Consider every use of text messaging as a service, especially as reminders

If you have a dental office, a gym, or some sort of business where you schedule appointments with clients, it’s important to have reminders.

You need reminders to help clients remember that they have an appointment with you. It’s more effective than sending a reminder via email.

A text message reminder is a sure way for someone to see that they have an upcoming dental or some other appointment with your business. When you do send these text messages, you can also have the option for the participant to confirm the appointment to ensure that they are still available.

Customer Service

Another powerful way to use text messaging as a service is with customer service.

• Communicate with consumers who may be having a difficult time on your website, processing an order, or changing an appointment

When you offer customer service through SMS, it allows you to have chatbots as well as human interaction. You can respond quickly to a customer who needs help with something.

Another way you can use SMS is by improving your customer service and understanding your customers better. You can send surveys to the consumers and ask them if their problems were resolved, collect more data on them, etc.

This helps you improve your customer service so it’s better the next time you interact with the customer.

Rules and Regulations

It’s important to be aware the rules and regulations for businesses to send text messages. Sending messages shouldn’t be treated as casually as texting your buddy to go out for drinks.

You don’t want to break any laws that could damage your reputation as a business, or worse, put you out of business.

The most important rule you need to remember is that you can’t text people if they didn’t opt-in to your service. It’s similar to stealing emails that you didn’t collect.

When you send a text message to people who didn’t opt-in, it becomes illegal and intrusive. The CAN-SPAM Act regulates commercial texts to ensure that people aren’t sent spam messages without their permission.

When someone does opt-in to your business text service, you want to make sure that you make them aware of what they signed up for. You can send a confirmation message that informs the recipient what they signed up for

In addition, when you do confirm someone’s opt-in, you want to make sure that they know what your business is, how frequently you’ll send messages, and the terms and conditions.

The more transparent you are, the more the consumer is going to trust you that won’t spam them, but rather you’ll send them insightful information.

Start Sending Business Text Messages Today

Get started with the TextSpot to start communicating more effectively to your audience today.