When was the last time you looked at your phone? It won’t have been that long ago, since mobile phones have become a daily part of our lives and a necessity to communicate with our family and friends. So what better way for a business to directly communicate with their customers than by sending them a text message?
In this blog, we walk you through why SMS is useful, 4 benefits of adopting a software that sends out text messages to your customers and who we’ve joined forces with to do just that!
Why SMS?
SMS (Short Messaging Service) is a text-based communication channel between phone users that’s still relevant and useful for a business, and often overlooked. The use of SMS in a business can help you engage with your team, clients and customers for an amazing all-round experience.
An SMS service allows businesses to curate personalised content, provide 24/7 responses, and collect all the data to automate a response with value for their customers. With SMS platforms, businesses can send messages to their customers' mobile phones with the intention of delivering a brief, simple message to them.
While SMS may seem outdated, almost everyone has a mobile phone and this communication channel cuts through all the disruptive noise. In fact, 90% of SMS are read within 90 seconds, which shows just how effective it is to deliver a message to your customers. With an SMS software offering a simplified and automated messaging channel to promote quick communication, businesses can boost their ROI by up to 120 times.
To further understand why businesses should use SMS to communicate with their customers, we caught up with Message Media's Partnerships Manager, Aj Gajelli, to get his thoughts on the topic.
"With emails not performing the way it has in the past, you can't solely rely on that channel to talk to your customers. SMS cuts through the noise and delivers the message to the end customer in a timely manner, providing you with multiple touch points to communicate with them."
4 Benefits of Using SMS in Your Business
1. SMS Can Be Used For a Number of Cases
Businesses can use texting as a means of communication with their customers, with anything from click & collect alerts, security authentication, bulk SMS marketing campaigns, running sales promotions, to sending out appointment reminders and booking confirmations. The various use cases of SMS helps you cater to the different needs of your target audience and lets you communicate with them in a timely manner.
2. Quick and Effective Communication Channel With Your Customers
Sending out bulk SMS can be more effective than engaging with your customers across other digital communication channels. With SMS having 98% open rates as opposed to the 20% open rates from emails, texting is a great way for businesses to cut through all the noise in the world, and directly engage with their customers.
3. Higher Customer Retention Rate & Brand Loyalty
Adopting an SMS communication channel gives you the flexibility to connect with your customers anytime and anywhere. Texting operates on a phone network, so lack of internet is not an issue for whether your text messages will reach your customers. How many of you wake up and instantly check your phone? It’s the majority of us! So with people spending loads of time on their phones, businesses can engage with them at any time and expect to receive a positive response. Through your strong customer service presence, you can attract new customers, engage existing ones and build a solid relationship with them.
4. Simple Implementation, Management and Tracking To Improve Sales/ROI
Text messages are permission-based, so customers have to provide their contact information and opt in to receive communications from you. With most vendors typically offering their SMS software as an API that integrates seamlessly with the current tools you use, you won’t have to worry about having data on disparate systems. You’ll be able to gather data from your SMS platform and view it within your CRM to analyse and make improvements to your customer service and your overall business. This data lets you gauge when the best time is to send out text messages to your customers to receive the best engagement, allowing you to make improvements which can boost your ROI.
Why Have We Partnered With Message Media
"On the subject of why businesses should use SMS, we’re stoked to be partnered up with Message Media to do just that! We’ve had lots of requests from our clients to bring forward an SMS software that integrates with HubSpot, and Message Media being the leading provider in Australia and NZ, was a match made from the start.
Their plug & play integration with HubSpot is tight and slick, and allows our clients to send and receive SMS messages through their CRM. Message Media has a best-in-class platform with distributed data centres globally that gives them a robust platform and a 99.99% uptime. We caught up with Aj for chat on what sets Message Media apart from other SMS providers and why businesses should choose them, and here's what he had to share:
With a range of use cases, 20 years of experience in the industry, over 65,000 customers in just Australia and New Zealand, our team possess the proven and trusted expertise to understand and solve your SMS communication needs.
If you’re looking to add an SMS service to your business’ communication channels, Message Media is your go-to solution! With their seamless integration with HubSpot, you’ll be able to automate personalised responses and have access to all the data to show you the best time to communicate with your customers and ways to improve your business.
So if this all sounds like the direction you want to take, get in touch with us today and we can get you set up with Message Media!