In 2022, if you’re not using SMS in small business communications, you might be falling behind. According to recent statistics, 58% of people say texting is the ideal way for businesses to reach them. (ZipWhip)
To help small businesses effectively use SMS, we asked business leaders and marketing professionals this question for their best insights. From keeping customers informed to sending out surveys, there are several tips that may help you determine how to use SMS campaigns in your small business. Avoid common mistakes when it comes to using SMS in small business and learn some new customer engagement strategies.
Here are eleven examples of SMS used in small businesses:
- Keep Customers Informed
- Send Customer Reminders
- Share Special Offers and Discounts
- Use Push Notifications
- Remind Clients of Their Dues
- Send OTP for Additional Security
- Provide Legal Tips
- Increase Subscriber Growth
- Show Email Previews
- Communication and Appointment Reminders
- Send Surveys
[ctt template=”5″ link=”9Tyx3″ via=”yes” ]58% of people say texting is the ideal way for businesses to reach them. Here are 11 ways to use SMS in small business effectively.[/ctt]
Keep Customers Informed with SMS in Small Business Communications
As a customer service tool, SMS in small business is an unobtrusive and effective way of communication. And so, we use it as often as we can. Keeping customers informed on the status of their dentures is one main way we make use of it, and we also use SMS to quickly confirm or change patients’ appointments. Measuring success is easy, as we also send out surveys via SMS to gather people’s thoughts about it!
Henry Babichenko, European Denture Center
Send Customer Reminders
SMS marketing is an effective tool we’ve come to utilize to remind customers to come back and visit us. We don’t want to be obtrusive, so we keep it to a minimum. I’d like to think that keeping our customers in the loop with SMS is a great way to build trust and brand loyalty. No one feels like they are missing out on sales or new styles.
Peter Babichenko, Sahara Case
Share Special Offers and Discounts
We mostly use SMS for special offers and discounts, but you can also use it to keep track of shipped products can be a hassle. SMS in small business is a useful way to keep customers informed. They can get updates sent straight to their phones, saving them the time to look up the info themselves. It also works for local pickup, as well. When a customer’s order is ready, it’s easy to just shoot them over an SMS letting them know.
Vanessa Molica, The Lash Professional
Use Push Notifications
We use Push Notifications. We don’t use SMS Push Notifications for every article for fear of looking spammy. Push Notifications has a large unsubscribe rate. Instead, we use the Push Notifications for our content that gains the most traction. We measure the success by looking at the analytics the SMS Push Notification Service provides. We hope to increase the number of clicks with each campaign.
Janice Wald, Mostly Blogging
Remind Clients of Their Dues
For our business SMS, we primarily use automated notification texts to remind our clients of their dues. Many of our clients prefer this system over a phone call reminder. Its automated features also make it more efficient for our employees, and they can focus on other crucial tasks instead of tending to a phone call. Its success comes from our clients having a favorable response to this system through our regular feedback surveys.
Nunzio Ross, Majesty Coffee
Send OTP for Additional Security
The function of SMS in small business is essential as it provides a second layer of security to protect customer information from unauthorized access. We often have customers calling in to update their billing details or change their security PIN. These transactions are highly confidential because they involve customers’ primary information that could compromise all other sensitive data, especially if given to the wrong hands. SMS plays a vital role in preventing this situation from happening. An SMS-generated OTP can help minimize the number of potential fraud cases perpetrated by bad actors who often take advantage of most companies’ weak security measures.
Jake Smith, Absolute Reg
Provide Legal Tips
My law firm uses SMS to provide helpful tidbits of legal tips to our clients. It is our way of keeping our connection with our clients while at the same time providing them with a simple service that can be useful for them. This is a way businesses can utilize SMS successfully without bombarding customers with irrelevant and annoying SMS notifications.
Michael Conley, Michael Conley Laywers
Use SMS in Small Business Communications to Increase Subscriber Growth
Growing our list of subscribers shows how effectively we use SMS to attract prospects. We have done that by giving them VIP access to our offerings through sending special offers and discounts and being available to them in real-time to respond to queries. By improving our subscribers’ list, we could expand our audience, reach our market and interact with potential customers. Some subscribers can opt out, though. That’s why it’s best to proactively grow your subscribers’ list by exploring other techniques and keeping it at a healthy size.
Abe Breuer, VIP To Go
Show Email Previews
Smartphones have become an essential part of everyday life and people carry them wherever they go. It’s faster to get text messages than to check your email every few hours. So it makes sense to use SMS in small business operations daily. For example, we send out a text message to our contacts to let them know that we have sent them an email as a welcome message. This is especially true if your email includes a report that your audience would like to receive as quickly as possible, such as testing results, updates to a scheduled event, or a contest that requires participation.
Sumit Bansal, TrumpExcel
Communication and Appointment Reminders
Because text messages have an open rate of 98% as compared to emails, which only have 20%, it’s a no-brainer to use SMS for communicating with our clients. Engagement is easy via their mobile numbers, plus interacting with clients regularly via SMS improves the overall impression on our business. Text messages also come in very handy when it comes to confirming and reminding clients of their appointments. It’s convenient and it keeps the cancellation rates to a minimum.
Kris Lippi, I Sold My House
[ctt template=”5″ link=”L2gaw” via=”yes” ]Text messages have an open rate of 98% as compared to emails, which only have 20%. Use SMS communication in small business operations to boost engagement and secure leads. [/ctt]
Send Surveys
One effective use of SMS for small business is sending out surveys. We do quick, fun surveys and find out what our consumers value and what more they need. It’s fantastic!
When we roll out surveys, we always wonder what the response will be but our consumers seem to like our fun surveys. Questions are phrased in a friendly way and we use big buttons so it’s easy to see on a mobile device.
Jennifer Pieniazek, Resume Now
Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.
