Text message marketing offers a new and effective way to engage customers and bring in more business. Customers trust marketing text messages, and they’re far more likely to open and read them than they are other types of marketing messages, like email. Ninety-eight percent of marketing test messages are opened, and 90 percent are read within three seconds! There’s simply no excuse not to implement this effective, popular means of marketing to existing and new customers. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits text message marketing can bring to your business.
1) Connect with Loyal Customers
The FCC has rules against sending unsolicited marketing text messages to cell phone users — namely, the CAN-SPAM Act, which applies to all commercial messaging services, not just email. Provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) also govern how businesses can market to consumers via text.
Basically, you have to get consent from customers in order to be able to market to them via SMS or MMS. Customers appreciate this — it’s a big part of the reason why they’re so willing to open, read, and act on marketing text messages. And while it means you can’t just buy lists of phone numbers off the dark web and start firing off text marketing campaigns willy nilly, it also means you’ll be working to further your relationships with already loyal customers, which can really pay off in the long run.
2) Attract New Customers
Many of your prospective customers are just looking for an opportunity to try your brand, and they’re interested in getting insider discounts and earning loyal customer incentives. By incentivizing new sign-ups to your text messaging program, you can attract new customers with exclusive offers, access to insider information, contests, surveys, and polls. Advertise your text message marketing campaigns in your physical storefront, in your email newsletters, on your social media accounts, and via your traditional marketing campaigns.
3) Easily Integrate SMS Marketing into Other Channels
A text message service for business makes it easy to integrate SMS and MMS marketing with other channels, including email marketing, event marketing, customer relationship management, and more. You can connect your email marketing lists and your text message marketing lists to integrate customer data and outreach across channels. It’s also easy to sync event management software and customer relationship management software with your text message marketing platform so you can coordinate campaigns that take into account the history of each customer relationship as well as any upcoming events you may want to promote. 
4) Boost Customer Engagement
Everyone has a smartphone these days, and we’re all addicted to them — one study found that users touch their phones a whopping 2,617 times a day. So it’s no surprise that text message marketing can boost engagement. It reaches customers where they are — on their phones. And most people like getting marketing texts, because they’ve signed up for them, so they’re ready and willing to engage with those messages and take advantage of the offers they contain. Even if you’re just sending out insider information, or taking a customer survey, customers like getting something special and exclusive out of their text program subscription, and they want to engage with you about their likes, dislikes, and preferences.
5) Save Money on Marketing
When you own a business, you’re always looking for ways to cut costs. Text message marketing is much more effective than email marketing, or even traditional marketing channels like print media and TV. You can get a much better return on your investment for the same amount of money as you might spend on another, less effective marketing channel. It costs just pennies per message to launch a text message marketing campaign, and you’ll see much higher redemption rates as most customers prefer to communicate with companies via text, even when they’re not getting a discount or a promotional offer out of it.
From restaurants to collection agencies, businesses of all kinds are getting great results from text message marketing. Your company can also experience an exciting new growth spurt with the help of a few well-timed and well-written marketing text messages. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much your customers will love receiving texts from you.
