How would you like to contact huge volumes of customers simultaneously without spending a fortune?
Well, you can achieve this objective using a mass or bulk texting service.
This process might feel overwhelming if you’ve never attempted this scale of advertising or communication before. Luckily, the ease of implementation means the scale of the venture is no cause for concern.
We’re also aware you probably have lots of questions.
How do you send mass text messages?
How long does it take to get up and running with mass text messaging?
How can you make your campaigns as efficient as possible without spending a fortune on advertising creative?
Most importantly, what’s in it for you and your business?
Today, we’ll address all these issues. We’ll start with a basic definition of mass text messaging.
What Is Mass Text Messaging?
If you want to send a unified message to your customers, your employees, or any other group of people with whom you communicate, you can send them all an SMS at the same time.
Mass or bulk texting saves a tremendous amount of time and money.
Whether you need to communicate an emergency announcement to all staff or have a killer offer to send your audience, capitalise on the power of text messaging and benefit from the economy of scale.
Why Use Mass Text for Business?
- You’re communicating with a captive audience: Think about how often you let your phone out of your sight. Almost never, right? People typically have their phone within easy reach and respond rapidly to messages. Whereas people often ignore email, who doesn’t read their SMS
- Cuts down on time and labour: You won’t need to spend much time or effort creating marketing messages or laboriously sending messages. You don’t need to know how to send a mass text. Use an automated mass texting service to do all the hard work for you.
- Generates unbeatable open rates: With open rates up to 98% and read rates of 90% within three minutes, mass texting effectively disseminates your messages and makes sure they get read.
- Low-cost marketing strategy: Given the incredible engagement, it’s surprising that mass texting remains such a low-cost marketing strategy. Jump on board and make the most of this affordable method of marketing.
- Keep connected with employees: Mass texting is beneficial for communicating with employees as well as customers.
- Grow your sales: By throwing out special offers and links to your online store, you can use mass texting for swelling your bottom line.
- Optimise attendance: Use mass texting to streamline attendance logistics at any kind of team event.
5 Ways to Use Mass or Bulk Texting Effectively
You can see why you should use a mass texting service. Here’s how to start benefiting from permission-based text marketing in five easy steps.
- Determine your goals and objectives
- Create a keyword and get your virtual number
- Simplicity beats complexity
- Hone your strategy
- Use mass texting software
1 Determine your Goals and Objectives
First thing’s first, be clear about what you intend to accomplish with mass texting. Remember,
- Do you want more leads?
- Are you hoping to boost traffic to your website?
- Is increasing your sales your primary objective?
- Would you like to reduce no-shows?
- Do you intend to use mass texting to improve employee communication?
By firming up your objective, you can then consider your audience. Who will you message?
You’ll need to have the phone numbers of the contacts you want to text along with their permission. Check out our guide on building an opt-in list to achieve this.
Respect your audience and value their time. Think about what you will offer and make sure it’s worthwhile. From coupons and vouchers to time-sensitive deals, give them something special.
The same applies if you’re sending them information. Less is more. Limit messages to laser-targeted and useful content.
Tracking is vital, so ensure you have the ability to measure the success of your promotions.
2 Create a Keyword and Get Your Virtual Number
When you want to generate leads and more subscribers for your marketing list, You should use a virtual number and keywords.
Think of the type of ads you see daily: “Text KILLER DEAL to 0412345678 for 30% off.”
The keyword here is “killer deal” while the Virtual Number is “0412345678.”
Engage customers further and gamify the process. If you have a coffee shop, ask customers to use their favourite beverage with “tea,” “coffee,” and “juice” supplied as keywords.
Inputting one of these codes results in that customer joining a segment of your list that you can promote accordingly.
Target tea drinkers and coffee drinkers separately. Streamline your promotions. By targeting your promotions more closely, you’ll cut down on unsubscribers and save money at the same time by sending out fewer wasted messages.
3 Simplicity Beats Complexity
When you’re SMS marketing, you should focus on creating a lean and simple campaign.
For your first campaign, don’t hold back. Serve up an unbeatable offer your customers would be mad not to snap up. Whether that’s a discount, a free gift, or a two-for-one deal, make this initial promotion count.
Acquiring a customer’s phone number is the first stage. To keep them engaged and subscribed, respect their time, and limit your content to powerful messages that deliver them value in some important way.
That might be information, entry to a competition or an invitation to a special offer. Whatever the content of your message, keep it relevant and useful.
Take full advantage of your mass texting service to automate as much of your campaign as possible. Schedule as many messages as possible, so you cut down on the work you need to do in real-time.
Make certain to include a concise call-to-action (CTA). Do not overlook this. Here are some examples of a CTA for your SMS:
- Link to a specific webpage
- Giving customers a coupon or voucher
- Inviting customers to an event
- Offering customers a ticket
- Requesting payment from a customer
Be explicit. Keep it simple. Tell your customer exactly what they need to do next every time you close.
4 Hone Your Strategy
You likely won’t launch a perfect campaign the first time. That doesn’t matter.
If you’ve set yourself a goal for this promotion, maybe you’re still short.
Perhaps you’ve done quite well, but you’re looking to improve that response rate further.
Here’s where the fun starts. Look closely at the various elements of your campaign and test small differences.
Try adding new ways for your customers to engage. See our guide to building a list for help with this.
Tighten up those CTAs.
Hire a copywriter to take a look at your campaign and offer a breakdown of any elements you could improve.
5 Use Mass or Bulk Texting Software
Mass texting is something best executed by a professional service specialising in this form of communication.
Having a general understanding of what you want to achieve through mass texting will enable you to work smoothly with a provider to achieve your goals.
From setting up keywords and capture forms to creating text campaigns and sending the messages, automating this strand of your marketing mix can deliver a phenomenal ROI.
Examples of Mass or Bulk Texting
Here are some concrete examples of how you can utilise mass texting to reach as much of your audience as possible without spending a fortune.
- Do you want to increase sales? Include a special offer and a link to your store in your mass text.
- Do you want customer feedback so you can improve your service? Include a link to your website reviews page or Facebook business page. Drop a link to a poll you created.
Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback in your mass text campaigns.
- Do you want to initiate a dialogue with your customers? Keep your messaging personal without being overfamiliar. Directly ask them to contact you by text and establish more communication. This tactic works especially well with small local businesses.
- Do you want more visitors to your store? Don’t skimp on the quality of your offer. Make great offers that are only valid when redeemed in-store. Don’t be afraid of losing trade by honing your offer like this. Stick to your objective and get more foot traffic into your place of business through simple mass texting.
- Do you want to stay connected with your workforce? Mass texts are a neat alternative to emails for transmitting company-wide messages your workers are almost certain to read.
What to Do Next
If a mass texting service seems right for your business, call us today at +61 2 9518 7455. If you’re calling within Australia, reach us at 1300 794 419.
Start thinking about creating a superb offer and let us take care of the rest at touchSMS.