Unlocking the Power of Text Message Marketing: The Ultimate Guide to SMS Marketing for Small Businesses in 2023
The majority of your clients have smartphones, and they almost certainly check them for messages as soon as they get out of bed. You do not?
Text message marketing is crucial for small businesses because of this. SMS text messaging, which has an open rate of 82%, can help you connect with your target audience where and when they are most active—on their phones.
Use text message marketing for small business to connect with your captive consumer base and take use of this cost-effective resource.
What is Text Message Marketing?
Using text messages to communicate with your customers is known as text message marketing. You can give your consumers a variety of texts that are sent directly to their phones by using a short messaging service (SMS).
With text message marketing, you may communicate with your audience more rapidly and increase the likelihood that they will read what you have to say. That in and of itself justifies making it your primary method of communication. For an omnichannel strategy, SMS marketing can be used in addition to email marketing.
Is it worthwhile for a small firm to use text message marketing?
Customers said they wanted to get messages from businesses in 2022 in 75% of cases. In fact, 30% of consumers will buy anything as a result of receiving a text message.
Texting your customers with SMS might help you stand out from the competition in your market. Customers that prefer to get news, deals, offers, appointment reminders, and other notifications through text might also be attracted.
By giving clients immediate access to coupons and other deals, text message marketing can help you increase the size of your email list by enhancing the value of everyone who chooses to opt in. You can start sending marketing texts to your contact list once you’ve established a strong foundation for it to increase sales.
You can engage with your clients more easily using SMS marketing for small businesses. By letting clients know you value their business, personalized SMS assist you in fostering a sense of trust. Additionally, 54% of customers prefer to hear from your company by text. You can be losing out on a significant chunk of your market if you aren’t already sending them.
Your capacity to sell can be increased by including text message marketing into your communication strategy. By using an omnichannel strategy, marketers can increase a customer’s lifetime value by 30%.
Text message marketing should be used by small firms to:
Establish connections with clients. People check their phones once every four minutes on average. SMS marketing takes use of this significant window of opportunity, keeping your brand in the spotlight and allowing you to craft customized messages that they’ll see while checking their phone.
Increase consumer involvement. Text messages can be used for a variety of purposes, including directing clients to your website or social network feeds. Increased engagement with your brand and with other customers is a result of this kind of contact.
Deliver immediate assistance to clients. By incorporating a chatbot into your SMS marketing service, you can respond to consumer inquiries whenever they come up, not just during regular business hours. You may develop a strong relationship with your clients thanks to this high standard of service.
Can I market to my customers using text messages?
In many businesses, text message marketing is a great tool. Anyone can utilize it to engage with customers; notable examples include retail establishments, eateries, real estate agents, nonprofit organizations, and service-oriented businesses.
Here’s how you may engage your consumers with business Text Message Marketing.
Restaurants
For consumers to manage reservations or takeaway and delivery orders directly on their phones, several restaurants use text messaging. Customers don’t need to sift through a mountain of emails to discover a reservation or order confirmation, thanks to texts’ serious ability to streamline these procedures.
Reservation management is made simple with SMS.
Interested in what else SMS can offer the food service industry? Sending the following kind of text messages will help you establish a relationship with both current and prospective diners:
Cart abandonment notices
Special deals
coupon codes
Giveaway announcements
customized offers for clients who haven’t purchased in a while
Notifications of specific events
One of the strongest sectors for SMS marketing is retail. The majority of customers—nearly 50%—believe that smartphones are necessary for shopping. Customers can use retail apps to store coupons, look up local retailers, and browse inventory.
It’s reasonable to suppose that a significant portion of your consumers will be using their phones as they shop. If you have a physical location, send these consumers coupons they can use there and special deal alerts that encourage them to stop by while they’re out and about.
Text message marketing for small businesses is another option for online retailers. It can be utilized to send out daily messages telling your clients of new inventory, special events, and discounts, as well as to automate cart abandonment messages.
Get consumers interested in visiting your physical store or online store by:
fostering connections with visitors to your website who don’t make a purchase
sending customized greetings, such as gifts for birthdays and anniversaries
interacting with loyalty program participants
Real estate agents and brokers
What texting capabilities do real estate professionals have? Scheduling and managing showings without awaiting email responses is one of many best practices.
Scheduling apps frequently interface with text messaging providers. You can better manage your schedule because your clients can simply manage their showings by clicking through a text message. To avoid being left in the lurch on the day of the showing, use text messages to remind your clients to come in.
Use SMS messaging to share new listings as they become available with clients if you’re helping them acquire a new house or commercial property. A text message is probably opened by your customers more quickly than an email. Additionally, you may take advantage of opportunities more quickly than you would if you had to wait for a response to an email or voicemail.
Here are some tips for using SMS marketing to expand your real estate business:
- Notify potential buyers about the open house
- Monitoring website leads
- Dispatch images of vacant properties to potential buyers
- Invite past attendees to events
- While hosting an open house, generate leads
Nonprofits
Donations are essential for the success of charitable organizations. It might be difficult to keep fans enthused throughout the year, but text message marketing can assist. It enables you to stay in touch with both ardent supporters and passing admirers of your business.
Sending out requests for donations can be done with SMS text message marketing for small enterprises. To make it simple and quick for fans to donate, just include a link to your contribution gateway or landing page.
To be clear, nonprofit text message marketing entails more than just obtaining financial support. Additionally, be sure to use it to remind your volunteers when they’ve signed up for events and to stay in touch with them.
Text messaging fosters better interactions with everyone on your list, from current contributors to potential donors. It also applies to those who have shown an interest in your mission. The following are some ways SMS texting can help you recruit more people to your cause:
announcing forthcoming events
expanding your contact list
fostering a passion for your mission
coordinating and arranging for volunteers
Motivating your fans in between major fundraising campaigns
It’s well worth your time to use text message marketing for small businesses. It’s cost-effective and you’re also reaching more people where they want to be discovered.
What aspects of a text message marketing app are most crucial?
There are many apps to choose from in the market. Obviously, your needs will differ depending on your sector, but be sure the platform you choose to employ offers these characteristics.
Simple to use editor
The speed of text message marketing makes it appealing. You’re missing time crafting texts that connect with your readers if you can’t figure out the editor. You should have the ability to simply construct an opt-out phrase, customise messages, and have a dedicated “from” phone line with your editor.
Find a platform that makes it simple to maintain your client database if you intend to send bulk communications to numerous customers at once. You ought to have the choice to make lists and market categories.
A decent editor will have an intuitive dashboard with distinct titles for each component. Use a program that provides templates for different message types to compose your texts quickly and with wording that will be more persuasive. Writing automated answers is another excellent use for these templates.
Unique telephone number
You might be tempted to utilize your personal or company cell phone number to send and receive SMS messages in order to save time and money. But once you start sending out communications in mass, this makes it more difficult to handle.
For a text message marketing provider, look for one that offers both local and toll-free phone lines. With these services, you can manage all of your texts from the same dashboard where you create them.
Contact administration
You may send bulk messages, segment your contacts, and customise your communications more easily with a contact management tool. You can input each member’s birthday into the system and create an automatic message, for instance, if you want to send an automated happy birthday coupon to members of your loyalty program via SMS messages.
If you’ve segmented your list, a contact management tool’s reports can show you which categories are the most profitable. You can reach out to your MVPs with exclusive deals once you’ve determined who they are. Alternately, you might experiment with different messages for failing segments to determine what engages them.
Automation
Any reliable text messaging provider will enable you to build and send automated messages, speaking of which.
Create a welcome series of automated messages at the very least, thanking users for signing up for your text message service. Any person who chooses to accept texts from you will start receiving these messages.
By providing a one-time discount or offer to customers who sign up for your messages, you can immediately add value to your list.
Personalized advertisements that are sent in conjunction with holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries are among the other automated text messages.
Create messages using the automatic message option to alert visitors who have been browsing your website without making a purchase. When a patron starts making a reservation or a takeaway order but doesn’t finish it, you can also utilize the “abandon cart” approach at a restaurant.
Integrations
Your SMS marketing platform will provide a variety of integrations, depending on your business. If you’re a nonprofit, you might link your SMS service to your contribution software so that individuals can text a code or click a link to make a quick donation.
When someone texts you to schedule an appointment, SMS systems can interact with scheduling and conferencing apps, updating your calendar in real-time. This helps your clients choose a time that works for them and prevents you from inadvertently double booking.
To keep track of various interactions with each customer, find a tool that connects with your preferred customer relationship management (CRM) program.
Reporting
Analyze each communication channel’s analytics to see how effective it is. Find a program that can generate information on how many visitors read your text and, if they clicked on the link, how long they spent on your landing page.
You may also check out other metrics like the number of people that unsubscribed following each campaign, the number of new subscribers in a certain time frame, and how your subscribers found you. Some platforms allow you to calculate the financial performance of a campaign by tracking the revenue that can be linked to promotional offers while using a particular landing page.
Choosing the best platform for text message marketing
You may focus on choosing your preferred text messaging platform once you’ve thought about which features are most crucial. To make your decision, respond to these questions.
How will you use it, specifically?
For diverse enterprises including restaurants, organizations, and the health and wellness industry, there are several text messaging platforms. Find a platform with the proper characteristics for this job if you believe your business will use it for specific purposes like fundraising.
Every consumer on your list might receive weekly text messages from you informing them of new inventory, weekly offers, and other updates that motivate them to visit your website.
You might utilize text messaging to manage online orders and bookings if you own a restaurant. However, you could also use it to deliver coupons to your most devoted clients or special offers at typically slow times.
Choose a platform that has all the functionality you require for your unique text message marketing objectives.
How frequently are you going to utilize it?
Many platforms base their cost on how many contacts you have overall and how many messages you send each month. If you’re sending a lot of messages to a large list, a more capable platform with different pricing tiers might be what you need.
A platform with numerous templates for automated messages, landing pages, and other things would also be helpful. Consider a platform with fewer capabilities to save money if you only use it to deliver personalized messages and manage appointments.
What about conformity?
Will the platform make sure you comply without having to think about it?
Make certain that the SMS text marketing platform you are considering:
requires opt-in from receivers
has predetermined quiet times
requires a simple opt-out option for each SMS message
Can I obtain assistance when and if I need it?
SMS can be used to convey messages at the right time. Therefore, you don’t want to have to email assistance and then wait a day or more for a reply. When timing is crucial, you must assistance immediately.
Make sure you have access to the assistance you require immediately and in a variety of ways. At the very least, a decent SMS text messaging service should provide:
Support for telephones via chat
Consider using text message marketing in your communication plan.
An inexpensive and simple approach to stay in touch with your customers is through text message marketing. A SMS message, according to more than 50% of customers, would encourage them to think about doing business with a company. If you’re still ignoring SMS marketing, you can be losing out on a sizable segment of potential clients.
SMS marketing can be advantageous to companies across a variety of industries. It can be used for a variety of things, like making appointments and reservations, managing volunteers, personalizing coupons and other messaging for your customers, and enlisting their support for your nonprofit’s cause.
Find a text message marketing solution for small businesses that offers lots of options to take the guesswork out of texting if you’re ready to take the plunge. Your platform should have a simple user interface, a navigable dashboard, and a dedicated phone number so clients can call you from one location.
To save time on message composing, look for a platform that supports automation, including templates. Target different contact list segments with tailored messaging. Search for a software that has the appropriate reports for your company among the customer service and lead management systems you can integrate with your platform.
Conclusion
Text message marketing is no longer an option but a necessity for small businesses. It offers a direct, efficient, and cost-effective way to engage with your audience. By integrating it into your marketing strategy, you can ensure better engagement, higher conversion rates, and a significant boost in ROI.
In today’s rapidly evolving digital era, standing out amidst the vast sea of competitors is no small feat. At the forefront of this digital revolution is Bonelli Systems, a beacon of innovation and expertise in the digital marketing realm. With a rich history of pioneering advanced marketing strategies, Bonelli Systems has firmly established itself as a leader in the industry.
Our comprehensive suite of services is a testament to our versatility and dedication. Whether it’s the intricacies of text message marketing, the dynamism of social media marketing, the precision of search engine optimization, or the efficiency of business automation, we have honed our skills to deliver unparalleled results. But what truly distinguishes Bonelli Systems from the rest is not just our wide array of services but our unwavering commitment to our esteemed clientele. We pride ourselves on offering white-glove support, ensuring that every client feels valued and heard.
At Bonelli Systems, we don’t just view our clients as mere customers; they are our partners. This philosophy is rooted in our belief in a symbiotic relationship. As our clients reach new heights and achieve their business objectives, our growth trajectory mirrors theirs. It’s a mutual journey of progress and success.
But there’s more to discover about us than just our services. We invite you to delve deeper into our world and see firsthand how we can be the catalyst for your business’s exponential growth.
Moreover, the digital world is vast, and we believe in staying connected. Join our ever-growing community on You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Messenger and LinkedIn. Dive into our engaging and informative content on TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Snapchat. By staying in the loop with Bonelli Systems, you’re not just following a company; you’re becoming a part of a digital revolution.
Ready to leverage the power of SMS marketing? Bonelli Systems is here to guide you every step of the way!