According to Nielsen, text messaging is the most common data service in the world.
In fact, 22 million texts are sent a day! Which isn’t so surprising when you think of the millions of mobile phones in the world. Couple that with the statistic that 60% of Google searches happen via mobile and you have plenty of reasons to incorporate text messaging into your marketing mix.
You can imagine your customer searching for a business like yours, seeing yours pop up and clicking the button to text you a question. You can also imagine that if your business doesn’t offer a texting option, but your competitor does, that your potential customer may text them instead.
In today’s world, texting is a competitive advantage. It makes sense. People don’t have to be connected to the internet to receive texts and unlike email that can get hung up in spam filters, they will receive your text messages. It’s fast too, in fact, 93% of texts are opened within 3 minutes of receiving them.
Now, you know the benefits of texting and you may wonder how your small business can use SMS (texting) as a lead generation tool? Here are 5 ideas for you.
5 Ways to Boost Your Lead Generation via Text in 2018
1- Make sure your customers can find your text number easily. Include your text number in your Google My Business listing, Yelp, Facebook, any web platform where you have a presence should include your number and an invitation to text. This way, if they have a question, they can message you right there and receive a quick response via text.
2—Encourage people to sign up for your texting program to receive special deals or events. This works great for bars and restaurants as you can text specials of the day and other special promotions. You’ve probably seen those table toppers that invite you to send “special” to a # for a discount, that’s sms texting in action.
It also works for service-based businesses. Imagine that you’re an insurance broker specializing in local businesses, you invite prospects to text you to receive a custom quote or a guide to the questions every local business person should ask prior to buying insurance. Once they do that, you can send the information along and put them into a lead nurturing sequence.
3- Ask for reviews – You already know that online reviews like Google, Yelp, Trip Advisor, Facebook and more can drive business. Why not send a text to your customers and invite them to leave a review? That “social proof” combined with the ease of sending a text, can make it easy for your future customers to start a conversation.
4- Immediacy – Studies show that 93% of texts are opened within 3 minutes which means that if your response is as prompt, you can develop a great reputation for customer service. Besides, people want an immediate response, and when you deliver it, you create trust and likeability.
5—Integrated marketing – You already know that your prospects usually have to see your message at least 7 times before they’re ready to buy. SMS texting is a great way to engage your prospects and integrate your message with Facebook and other digital channels at an affordable rate.
Texting is perfect for sending confirmations, passwords, special offers, and much more. It also has an advantage over other communication channels in that it’s still relatively “clean.” Most people don’t receive dozens of business-related texts per day so those who do, stand out. Plus, people are more likely to respond to texts vs. emails or phone calls.
It simply makes sense to incorporate SMS texting into your lead generation strategy. Why not get started today?