Brian Mikes — February 21, 2017 Follow @betwextBulk Text Messages Promote Small Business: A quick introduction to text message marketing.
If you run a small business, I’m sure the idea about sending a bulk text to your customers has crossed your mind. Everyone is texting these days… and it’s one of the hottest methods to communicate with customers.
I think every business needs to start using bulk text messages, right now.
Why?
Because bulk texts work! They get read. They promote engagement. And, best of all, they drive sales!
But that’s not all.
Today, I’m going to share with you THREE reasons Bulk Text messages are critical to any small business marketing plan.
Then I’m going to walk you through, step by step, the EASY way to run a bulk text marketing plan… there are three steps to finding great success with bulk texts and I’m going to describe in detail each step.
But don’t worry, it won’t be hard to do, or too complex.
So, let’s jump right in.
Why Use Bulk Text to Promote Your Small Business?
If you run a small business you have a few problems. First, you don’t have enough time in the day to do everything – and that includes marketing…
Because you don’t spend as much time on marketing as you should, your prospect list is smaller than it should be.
With fewer prospects, you make fewer sales…
And fewer sales means less profits…
When profits are thin, it adds stress to your life, your marriage, and everything you do.
So, what can you do?
The number one thing to change the situation is start using bulk texts to promote your business.
Why?
Let me share with you three important bits of info.
- There are 232 million cell phones in the US… almost one for every adult in the country
- The average smartphone user looks at their phone 150 times a day… assume you’re asleep for 8 hours a night, that’s every 7 minutes!
- Finally, 94% of text messages are read within 10 minutes of being received.
So, let me tie this together for you…
Almost every adult in the US has a phone, and they look at the thing on average every 7 minutes. And when they get a text message 94% of the time it’s read within 10 minutes.
So, why aren’t you sending your customers and prospects text messages?
It’s better than reaching out on the internet, television, radio, social media, via email, or … GASP… calling!
I know what you’re thinking it’s too complicated… You’re too busy. It takes too much time.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
The Three Steps To A Perfect Bulk Text Message Campaign
Sending out bulk text messages to your prospects and customers is simple and easy. There’s a number of software companies in the cloud that offer the technology for very affordable rates. Betwext.com is one of them.
Once you have the software in place, there’s three simple steps.
- You get names on your list
- You send them bulk text messages
- You respond and engage, if needed.
Then you see results!
Seriously, it’s that simple. Three steps.
What I’m going to do next is break down the three steps one by one. I’m going to give you the easy, streamlined version of how to find success with each step. Then we’ll finish with a success story or two!
The first step is…
Get Contacts On Your Bulk Text List
Alright, this step is often the easiest to do. But, it’s the step most business owners struggle with.
Here’s the easy way to get people on your list…
Start with people already following you.
For example, if you have people on your email list… tell them to join your bulk text list. If they are on your facebook page, ask them to join your mobile list… if they are on twitter, get them to give you a phone number. Have people walking into your store, ask them in person. Have your cashier ask people to join when they check out.
See, simple.
Why start with this easy step?
Because when you want to market to your business, the more touch points you have for a customer, the better the response rate. Consider facebook… when you do a post, did you know less than 7% of the people who liked your page will see it.
Why? Because facebook has so much content they screen what people see.
So your ad for a sale, only gets to 7% of your followers…
Email isn’t much better with a 20% open rate… and twitter… it’s a horrible 1%.
So start right now and start collecting people’s phone numbers.
Want to add people to your list more quickly?
Start offering them a reason to join…
Give them a personal invitation… send them a gift… give them a coupon… give them something… anything. Looking for ideas? In the marketing world, this giveaway is called a lead magnet.
Google the term “lead magnet” and you’ll get thousands of ideas. I know one guy who uses a list as a lead magnet… it’s a list of his favorite tools.
Crazy right… but it works!
Now here’s an advanced tip…
If you want to get advanced, segment your lists. As you add people simply put prospects on one list, customers on another, and VIPs on yet another. Why? You’ll see in step 2!
So, now you have people on your list.
The Second Step is…
Send Your Prospects and Customers a Bulk Text Message
This is where the rubber hits the road.
Start sending your list bulk texts.
But this is important… don’t just send them anything… send them usefull information and valuable stuff.
Remember, when you send out a text, you are interrupting their day. You are interrupting their life… so limit your sends to only important messages.
A good rule of thumb is to send messages only once a week.
It’s enough for people to remember you, but not enough to make them hate you for filling their phone up with useless crap!
Looking for ideas on what to send people?
I put together a blog post on planning out your mobile marketing strategy in just 11 minutes. Check out this post: Here’s Your 11 Minute, 2017 Text Message Marketing Plan!
If that doesn’t give you some great ideas on what to text your clients… I can’t help you!
Now here’s an advanced tip…
Remember those segmented lists? Now’s when they shine. As you write your messages, you can often send the same message to the same people… but sometimes you should send different lists different messages.
For example launching a new product?
Offer it to your VIP people first. Give them a sneak peak… or do something special just for them.
Want to get prospects to take an action? Offer them a short term deep discount to pull out that credit card and buy… just don’t send the same message to your current users.
Remember each group in in a different part of their journey with your business… treat them accordingly!
Now that you have people on a list… and you’re sending them messages…
The Third step is …
Respond And Engage With Your Bulk Text Lists.
This third step is the easiest of the bunch, and you may not need to do much work here… but monitor your accounts for engagement. If someone responds to your Text messages, reply. If they have a question, answer back.
If they need something help them.
Don’t be afraid to ask your customers to respond with their thoughts, ideas and questions. It’s a fantastic way to engage prospects, customers, and VIPs.
Individual responses are a critical way to turn bulk text messages into personal communications.
Want to take it to the next level?
Here’s an advanced technique…
Reach out to your bulk text list, and ask them to reply with their biggest problem (related to your business) then offer to work on their problems…
For example, I sent a simple message to a handful of customers on our bulk text list and we had an amazing response!
You’ll never know what your customers are thinking until you hear from them and engage!
At the end of all this work, you can see measurable levels of success…
Success From Sending Bulk Texts
I want you to decide right now… what do you consider success?
What really makes mobile marketing a must have piece of the puzzle for your marketing efforts.
- Is it better customer engagement?
- Is it moving prospects to become customers?
- Is it making customers buy more product from you?
- Is it getting more people “in the door”?
- Or is it saving yourself hours of tough work, and making things simple?
Whatever your goal is, businesses using bulk text messages are seeing all of these results and more!
Do you want this for your business?
How Small Business Thrive With Bulk Text Messaging…
If you’re thinking of getting started with bulk text message marketing, I wrote a special report just for you… “The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Marketing”
Remember text message marketing is much more powerful than social media marketing or email marketing… and it’s a tool that anyone can use to grow their business!
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