Lots of businesses send bulk text messages online as a core part of their marketing plan – it’s a low-cost way to send deals and special offers directly to your customers’ phones. However, direct marketing is just one use for group text messaging. There are a variety of other uses for text messaging that can be help to keep your customers or members informed and help your business to run more efficiently.

Operational News & Information

You may need to send out operational information e.g. opening/closing times, class locations, enrollment info etc. It’s always a good idea to keep your customers in the loop regarding any changes to your business operations that may affect them.

Last Minute or Urgent Notices

No matter how well you plan, there can sometimes be circumstances out of your control that will throw a spanner in the works. Maybe a speaker at your event has dropped out? Perhaps you are a golf club and you need to inform your members the course will be closed due to bad weather. You may run a fitness club and need to rearrange a training session. Whatever the case, texting your customers or members is a great way to instantly inform your contacts of last minute or urgent changes.

Reminders

The modern world is an increasingly busy place with a multitude of distractions. If your business works on a booking basis, it’s always a good idea to send an SMS reminder to your customers for their appointment or booking. Usually a text the day before is the best idea, to allow them time to reorganise things to make sure they can make their booking. You can ask your customer to let you know in advance if they can’t make their booking and also offer them an easy way to book a different time. Then you can free up the slot for another customer and limit the potential loss of a no-show.

Fixtures & Results

If you run a sports club, it’s a nice idea to send fixture information and recent results out periodically to keep your members in the loop and reinforce the community atmosphere at your club.

Two Way Texting & Competitions

Another great way to communicate with your customers is to use a keyword – a short word unique to your business that your customers can text to send messages to you e.g. if you run a car repair shop called Top Motor, you could choose the keyword TOPMOTOR. Every Message Hero account comes with one free keyword. To send you a message, your customers simply need to text your keyword + their message text to 51772 e.g. TOPMOTOR Answer to 51772. This allows you to interact in two-way texting with your customers. You could also run mobile competitions where your customers can enter via text – all texts will be viewable in your Message Hero Inbox so you can choose a winner from the correct entrants. You can set an auto-reply message for your keyword and if you would like multiple SMS keywords, this can be arranged, please get in touch.

Hopefully this article will give you more ideas for how you can use online text messages to interact in different ways with your customers and boost your business as a result!