As a coach, consultant, or business owner, text message marketing can be one of the most overlooked and underutilized marketing strategies. Most people are unsure of how to incorporate text messaging in their business, or how to use it effectively, so they don’t include it in their marketing mix.
In this blog post I will show you how to best leverage text message marketing for your business. Here are a few examples of how you can use text message marketing effectively in your business:
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Client Notifications
If your clients schedule appointments for your services, then utilizing an appointment system that also includes text message capabilities is a super smart thing to do. When individuals schedule appointments with me, they use my online scheduling system, ScheduleOnce. ScheduleOnce allows you to use text messaging (SMS) to send confirmations, reminders, and follow-up notifications to your clients. In fact, with ScheduleOnce your SMS notifications are completely customizable and you can include static as well as dynamic text. Having these text messages alleviates no shows for appointments, and helps to make your business look organized and professional.
Generate Leads
If you are using speaking as one of your marketing strategies, then text message marketing is a great way to generate leads before, during or after your speaking engagement. You can inform your audience that there is no need to take notes because if they would like to receive the slides, presentation or additional information they can simply text you and they will receive the information. This is a great way to build up your text message marketing list. Most Text Message Marketing services will provide you with a short code (a five or six digit number that can be used for your text message marketing), and you can create a special keyword (a word that individuals will text to the short code). Whether you have in person speaking engagements at conference, seminars, workshops, etc. or other speaking engagements such as webinars, podcasts or teleseminars, you can use text message marketing to generate leads for your business.
Increase Sales
On occasion, when you have a special sale or promotion, you can reach out to your text message marketing list to inform them of the promotion. It’s a great way to reach a large audience in a short amount of time with close to a 94% read rate. This rate is by far one of the best when it comes to mobile or online marketing avenues, so if you want to make sure your promotional or sales message is received and reviewed within minutes, then text message marketing is the way to go.
Build Brand Loyalty
Staying top of mind is important to building brand loyalty, so how do you effectively stay top of mind with your clients and prospects? Consistently sending out text message campaigns can be the key to staying top of mind. The key is to be consistent, but not annoying, setting up the expectations of how many text messages you will be sending in a month can be helpful to make sure you are not crossing that line.
Are you using text message marketing in your business? Are you thinking about using text message marketing in 2017? Be sure to leave a comment below.
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