Did you know that 90 percent of American adults own a cell phone? For adults between the ages of 18 and 29, this number reaches an astounding 98 percent.
Out of all cell phone owners, 81 percent of them use their cell phone to send or receive texts. This is why SMS marketing is essential to include in your marketing strategy.
However, texting all of your clients manually would be a very time-consuming task. This is why SMS automation is an important tool for you to use.
But, how do you use it?
With SMS automation, there are several different things you can do. You can use SMS automation to gain consent to receive messages, send out mass messages, and even set up shortcodes to trigger certain response messages.
Let's start with gaining consent.
First off, you can't send people messages unless they have indicated that you are allowed to. You can typically do this via a form, but you can also use a mobile signup with SMS opt-in.
An SMS opt-in means getting a keyword. SimplyCast's SMS application allows you to request keywords easily through the application. Once you have the keyword, you need to set up your "join" and "help" messages. These messages are mandatory because they provide information the user needs such as how to get in touch with you and how to opt out of the messages. Again, the SimplyCast platform makes this easy by providing templates of how to format these messages.
Now that your keyword is all set up, you can promote it to your customers. When customers text you with the keyword, they will be added to your opted-in list and you can send them text messages.
Now onto mass messages.
Most text messages are opened within three minutes of being received. This makes SMS the perfect avenue for messages you want your customers to read right away.
So, let's say you have a big sale coming up next week and you want to let your customers know. Since you now have the opted-in list, you can send the message to them automatically. Set up an automated campaign and write the content you want to appear in the message. Now, select when you want the SMS campaign to send. The texts will send at that day and time and your customers will be informed.
But, what about when customers text you?
After a customer has completed the opt-in process, you can still continue to use your keyword to communicate with them. You can set up automated responses to send to customers who text you for information. For example, if you a customer wanted to know what hours you were open, you could set up a shortcode keyword for that.
You could still use your original keyword but also add the word "HOURS."
Set up an SMS campaign to respond with your hours of operation when a customer text you "KEYWORD" + "HOURS." You can do triggers like this for any other information you think your customers may want.
Interested?
If you're interested in seeing how SMS automation can work for you, sign up for a free 14-day trial!
