In a world cluttered with endless streams of media, what gets your attention quickly and elicits a response? Online advertisements? Email messages? Physical letters in your mailbox? What about text messages? Text messaging (SMS) seems to be the preferred form of communication by consumers today, often read within 5 minutes of receipt.
“When it comes to direct marketing, no channel is more immediate or impactful than SMS marketing. 68% of people say checking, sending, and answering text messages is the activity that they’re most engaged with on their phones throughout the day. In addition, 82% of consumers say they open every text message they receive.”
– Jim Marous, The Untapped Power of SMS Marketing in Banking, The Financial Brand
Reach Customers in the Medium of Their Choice
If you’re using SMS to reach customers today, what is their experience? Is it a one-way communication where you are driving respondents to another (and potentially less convenient) media like the phone or a web page?
In SimpleTexting’s 2020 Text Messaging Marketing Report, 45% of respondents said that they value two-way conversations and think that the capability of texting back a company is valuable. Additionally, 41% of respondents said that they would opt-in to receive text messages from financial institutions.
“[B]usinesses see 98% open rates and 36% click-through rates, because consumers enjoy when good deals come to them directly through text, rather than sifting through websites, emails, and social media for the best sales.”
– 2020 Text Messaging Marketing Report
When customers receive notifications and marketing messages that they are not able to immediately respond to via text, it is the equivalent of the “do not reply to this email, replies are not monitored” message. Is that the experience you want them to have? You don’t have to be the “do not reply to this email” company in your SMS outreach.
Stand Out From the Crowd
Studies show that conversational campaigns have a 5x conversion rate and customers appreciate timely, personalized communications. SMS doesn’t have to be a one-way communication with your customers. Using Glia’s SMS Gateway, you can offer customers text alerts and campaigns they can respond to, reducing the friction of engagement. Clients can respond to text alerts seamlessly and interact with a chatbot powered by Glia’s AI Management, or with one of your operators to quickly get questions answered before buying or resolve customer service issues.
The opportunities to engage your customers via SMS are endless! Whether you’re sending proactive, personalized account notifications or you’re up-selling products and services, you can be sure that the message is getting into the palm of your customers’ hands and customers can seamlessly engage with you. Stop sending “dead end” SMS messages and start the customer conversation today.
