At a time when everyone heavily relies on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to promote and market their products, there are still some old school ways that may seem outdated but do actually help in engaging with many customers.
This is especially true at the moment since many young and old individuals are choosing to opt out of social platforms for two main reasons – privacy and security breaches and also because of ‘doom scrolling’ which seems to take up a large chunk of each day.
And that’s why SMS messages are still a very valid and relevant way to engage with your customers, even if your target audience is fairly young and belongs to the recent generations. In this blog, we’re going to walk you through 4 of the best and most effective ways to use SMS marketing for your business – let’s get right to it!
The most obvious reason you can use SMS messages is to send promotional offers, discounts, and other marketing messages to your customers. This can be an effective way to reach customers who may not check their email or social media as often.
Additionally, since many platforms don’t make the most of SMS marketing, they are bound to check out your message since they may not receive many other promotions.
The only main thing to keep in mind is that your messages should not look like a bot generated them – in other words, they shouldn’t end up looking like junk messages that they promptly delete.
Try to craft it in such a way that it’s as conversational and human as possible. Additionally, try not to send too many messages, and definitely avoid sending them messages every day as this can be seen as spam and it’s only a matter of time before they block you.
2. You can send them appointment reminders
The next best way to use SMS messages (that many customers have actually said they appreciate) is to send reminders about upcoming appointments or meetings. This can help reduce no-shows and improve customer satisfaction.
For example, if you run a small healthcare business then you can set up a message reminder system that will remind your customers of their upcoming appointments, health checkups, and so on. Moreover, if you are a healthcare provider, you should be using HIPAA-compliant texting for healthcare that allows you to securely text with your patients and keep all of their confidential information safe. With this system, you can also easily send appointment reminders and other notifications to your patients.
3. Use it as a way of customer support
SMS messages can be used as a quick and easy customer support channel, allowing customers to send in questions or issues and receive quick responses from a representative. This reduces the strain on the customer, where they need to search for a complaint form online or draft an entire email just to convey their issue.
Instead, they can rely on the old-school way of either directly calling customer service or at least sending them an SMS for a speedy reply.
4. Customers appreciate getting order updates
Just like with booking appointments, SMS messages can be used to provide updates on the status of an order, such as when it has shipped or is out for delivery. Most people turn off their notifications for all their shopping apps, so having this option to know the status of their order will come in handy, especially if they’re not very technically advanced and prefer to keep things as simple as possible.
5. Surveys and feedback
Finally, SMS messages can be used to send surveys or request feedback from customers. This can be a quick and easy way to gather insights and improve customer satisfaction. This is also a quick way to get good customer engagement, without having to spam their inbox with emails that are likely to end up in spam.
