July 8, 2019

Use Cases of Bulk Texting for Small Businesses in 2019

Today, businesses are having a hard time standing out as more and more businesses are using email marketing, ads on social media and search engine marketing to promo themselves. However, one way through which both small and huge companies are managing to stand out and independently connect with their audiences is with Bulk Texting. SMS was thought to be forgotten but it still remains the most effective channel of communication till today even with the emergence of different communication and social innovations.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the many ways you can use SMS to improve efficiency in communication, make operations faster and easier for your customer and expand your audiences.

1. Sales Promotions

SMS has a 99 percent open rate which makes it extremely attractive and cost-effective. Plus, 90 percent of recipients open their messages within a couple of minutes. For promotions, this makes SMS the obvious choice of communication channel. Emails on the other hand have an open rate less than 50 percent and usually after an average of 6 hours. Even when time isn’t a factor, SMS still triumphs over emails.

2. Marketing Campaigns

If you work in marketing, you should have definitely heard of the “rule of seven”. This rule suggests that you need to reach prospects in several different ways and places before you can turn them into paying customers. There is no specific number of touches you need to take however; successful campaigns need to be as integrated as possible and SMS marketing aims to aid customers do this effectively.

3. Digital Receipts

Transactional messages have become a global hit since the introduction of SMS API. Ecommerce stores, restaurants and delivery services use text messages to provide digital receipts from purchase of products or service. These digital receipts are sent out in the form of text messages shortly after the transaction is made. It is estimated that by 2030, all receipts will be digital as part of a green initiative.

4. Know Your Customer (KYC)

For Websites and software applications, “Know Your Customer” is a security process of verifying the identity of users or clients and assessing their suitability, along with the potential risks of illegal intentions towards the business relationship. This is why businesses integrate their system with a texting service to verify the information of their users.

5. Appointments/Reminders

One of the biggest issues for appointment-based businesses and professionals like hair salons, doctors, dentists and therapists is no-shows and timing issues. Calling customers manually or sending emails about these appointments can reduce this but we already know, this is very time intensive. This is where SMS comes in using which you can set up appointment reminders to handle customers without any hectic issues. Besides, texting is a smart way to reach customers as they might not have the time to pick up a call or check their email but they can spare a few seconds to check and respond to a text.

 6. Notifications and Alerts

SMS APIs are not the only innovations in the world of texting. Now you can also send emails in the form of SMS after just a little tweaking. This is particularly useful if you do not have access to the internet and are running the clock. Moreover, real-time alerts via SMS are responded to almost instantly especially in emergency and security situations. Finally, businesses can send notifications regarding their business which include timing updates, holiday wishes and updates due to weather, etc.

7. Customer Support

We live in an age where consumers want to interact with brands to get as much information as they can about a product or service. We cannot think of better channel which is as brief and precise as SMS. Customer support and service is now as important as your product or service itself. Text messages had recently been about personal and informal communication so it may take some time before people pay it the respect they give to email or phone calls but we have seen some massive changes in consumer trends recently and texting is still here.