SELECT THE WORDS & LEVEL
Long-time marketing experts have likely developed their own workflows when it comes to marketing using proprietary web technologies. Text broadcasting is different because it relies on a standard that most customers are already comfortable with. By blasting information out over the simple message service, you can build relationships with leads you might never have had a chance to reach otherwise.
Divvying Up Your List into Customer Segments
Probably the most basic way to divvy up a list of potential leads is by the types of products and services they’re looking for, but text message broadcasting gives you the opportunity to sort through vital metadata segments that can provide deeper marketing insights. For instance, if you already know their phone number then you probably know their geographical area. Cellular phones can be issued to people well outside of a certain area code, but even just looking at the first three digits of their number is a good way to learn more about them.
Depending on the type of agreement you have with your clients, you might be able to glean some other bits of useful information from what they’ve provided you with. Even something as simple as their field of work can help you figure out what category to place them in. Once you’ve checked out every single listing your organization has collected, you’ll be in a good position to start tailoring messages to each one.
The SMS equivalent of conventional mail merge software can go a long way toward building a good customer relationship with those you plan on working with. A majority of consumers no longer really trust messages that just address them generically, so having their name or titles in any material you send them can help to increase the chances they’ll actually respond to it.
Crafting Actionable SMS Broadcast Messages
To some degree, text promotion is a form of art that requires you to balance the needs of your clients with those of your organization as a whole. Never send out more messages than you need to since consumers can quickly become jaded and start to ignore what you send them. Look at your broadcasts as an information-dense medium where you say quite a bit without using too many words.
While it might seem like a cliche at this point, you’ll want to include some kind of call to action with every message you send. This could be shipping details or an instruction to wait for a certain date if you’re sending out updates to your clients. In other cases, it might be an instruction to head over to a certain part of your eCommerce site in order to enjoy a special deal.
Technical Aspects of Customer Relationships
No matter what sort of action you want your customers to take, it’s a good idea to shorten any links before sending them out. Complicated uniform resource locators look quite sloppy. Standard URL shortener applications will take a long hyperlink and replace it with something that’s only a few characters in length.
Exercise caution, because there might be web security issues associated with these applications. Nevertheless, they’re a good idea for those who have to regularly post complicated dynamic links back to their own sites. You’ll also want to make sure that all your customer data is stored in a convenient database for later recall.
Choosing Broadcast Targets with a Database
Once you have a large number of contacts stored in a single place, you’ll be able to recall their details with just a couple of keystrokes. Though you might think of SMS texting as something you do from a smartphone, sophisticated broadcasting software is actually designed to run on a PC interface so you can take advantage of automation tools tied to that platform.
Consider working with something like Python or even regular shell scripting, so you can take all of the guesswork out of sending messages. By timing everything correctly, you can be sure that your leads will actually read what you send them and respond to it. Eventually, they might even want to contact you in person.
As long as you make sure to send the right kinds of messages, SMS broadcasting should help you to build relationships faster than you ever could otherwise. Considering that it takes so little infrastructure to work with, it’s also perhaps the most cost-effective way to do so.
