Why Texting Your Prospects/Customers is Easier (and More Effective) Than You Think

You’re sitting at work or in line at the drive thru or lying in bed reading and you hear a text alert from your phone. What do you do?

If you’re like most people, you don’t ignore it. You might pick up your phone to look at the notification and see who it’s from. You might open it and read it. You might respond. The chances are small that you’ll ignore it completely.

That being the case, why aren’t you texting your prospects and customers?

It might be that you think it will take too much time or be too expensive to be worth your while. Or you might think that people will just ignore your texts. 

We’re here to tell you that text message marketing is easy, effective, and affordable. Here’s what you need to know.

Text Message Marketing Stats You Should Know

One of the best ways to tell if a marketing method is effective is to look at the numbers – and the numbers for text (SMS) marketing are staggering. Here are some highlights.

• Five billion people worldwide can send and receive text messages
• 75% of consumers are comfortable receiving text messages from businesses after they opt in
• 90% of text messages are opened within three minutes of delivery
• The overall open rate for text messages is 98%
• Text messages have a response rate that’s 209% higher than email, Facebook, or telephone marketing
• Consumers are ten times as likely to redeem SMS-delivered coupons than any other type of coupon

If you’re not impressed by those statistics, then you should be. If you give people the opportunity to opt in to receive SMS messages from your company, it’s a virtual certainty that they will read the messages and take advantage of any offers you send them.

How Expensive is Text Message Marketing?

One of the best things about text message marketing is how affordable it is. Even companies with small customer bases and a limited number of prospects can afford to incorporate SMS marketing into their marketing strategy.

While prices vary among text marketing services, they are all within a limited range that should be quite affordable for most business owners.

A quick review of some of the most recommended text marketing services in 2021 shows a range of prices from about $0.015 per text message to about $0.05 per text message. That means that even with the most expensive service, you could send 20 texts for a dollar or less.

As you might expect, the pricing per text message gets lower as plan prices increase. If you only need to send 500 text messages per month, you’ll pay more per message than you would if you sent 10,000 text messages per month. You should keep in mind that MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is more expensive than regular SMS marketing but offers the option of sending videos and other attachments with your text messages.

When you consider the sky-high open and read rates for text message marketing, it makes sense to put at least some of your budget into sending conversational texts to your customers.

What to Look for When Researching Text Marketing Services

If you want to send text messages to your existing customers and prospects, you will need to contract with a text marketing service. Here are some of the things that should factor into your decision.

1. Choose a company with experience in SMS marketing who understands what small businesses need to create and send effective text messages.
2. Look for integration with your CRM software. You don’t want to be forced to use multiple systems, so find a provider whose system integrates with the software you’re already using.
3. Ease of use should be a priority. Can you text from your mobile device or from a computer? Can you send MMS messages if you want to?
4. Two-way text capability is a must. You want your customers and prospects to be able to reply to your text messages as needed. One-way communication is okay for some text messages but it’s not ideal for lead nurturing or customer support.
5. The text marketing service provider you choose should have excellent customer support that will enable you to get the help you need when you need it.
6. The ability to create text templates that you can reuse is helpful and can save you a lot of time. A lot of companies use the same format whenever they text a coupon, for example.
7. The pricing structure should be reasonable and fair. As a small business owner, you probably don’t have a lot of fat in your budget. You need a plan that will enable you to stay in touch without overspending.
8. Not every text messaging service offers this option, but it can be useful to text enable your landline so you can receive text messages that are sent to that number.

We recommend reviewing the features and pricing for each text messaging company you consider and learning as much as you can before you decide. It may be helpful to read customer reviews and testimonials, too.

About Umbrella Local’s Text Messaging Service

Umbrella Local offers conversational texting to our business clients. Our system integrates fully with two of the most popular CRMs, Zapier and API. We can also provide you with a “Click to Text” embedded button on your website.

We can help you to text enable your main business phone number. We offer our clients access to an array of attractive and professional text message templates that they can use to create appealing text messages that are easy to read and easy to click.

Best of all, you can text (and receive responses) on your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. Our system is designed to make it easy and effective to communicate with customers and prospects wherever they are.

Our conversational texting plans start at just $50 per month. Click here to learn more and get a free quote for your business.