Maybe you want to set up a forum where people feel safe asking a question anonymously, or just need a way for your audience to reach you when they need to.

Regardless of your reasons, texting enables you to answer questions quickly and easily.

Today, we’ll show you how to help people send their questions over text一and explain why setting up a text number to ask questions makes so much sense.

How To Set Up a Text Number To Ask Questions & Send Answers

It’s simple to enable event attendees to ask questions via text But first, you’ll need to make sure you’re set up with an SMS service to give you the right tools.

We’ll show you a little more about what we mean below, but once you’re set up, it’s easy. First, what phone number should you use?

1. Choose a Phone Number Type

You have three options: a toll-free number, a local number, or a dedicated short code. All of these can send and receive messages, but they differ in a few key ways.

A local number is the most versatile type of number. Along with toll-free numbers, they’re approved for mass messaging and 2-way communication. Just remember to have your local number registered or your toll-free number verified.

If you’re willing to spend a little more, a dedicated short code can also be a great option, as these short five-or-six digit numbers are easy for people to remember. 

2. Create a Keyword or Short Code

Keywords are short words or phrases that, when texted to your phone number, allow a user to sign up to receive text messages from you. If you’re hosting an event with a Q&A, a keyword can be a huge asset at the start of a presentation.

Simply let attendees know to text in the keyword followed by a question (or list of questions). You’ll have their question stored to answer either during the presentation or after.

Keywords are also a great organization tool because they sort your contacts into lists. 

Say you create a keyword named for each speaker at your event. Your contacts will be sorted into lists based on the keyword they text in. 

This makes following up a snap.

3. Create Templates For Common Questions Over Text

With SimpleTexting, you can create templates for frequently asked questions instead of having to type your answers over and over again. Simply open up a new SMS message, select the template icon, then click Add Template.

Now, whenever you need to use your template, just click the icon, select the template, and your message is already written!

4. Answer Questions with Text from The Inbox

To answer incoming questions, you’ll want to be sure you know all the tools the inbox has to offer. Here are some features to know as you get started:

• Conversation Filters: Filter messages by when you received them or how long they’ve been in your inbox. Stay on top of your messages to make sure leads don’t get left behind.
• Notes: Annotate conversations with notes only visible to you and your team. Talk through customer questions behind the scenes and make sure your team members are in the loop.
• Scheduled Messages: Schedule a future date and time for your message to send.
• File Sharing: Upload photos, PDFs, or other media and send them as links to individual contacts. Program materials, product photos—you name it, you can send it.
• Mark Texting Conversations as Closed/Open: When you’re done with a conversation, mark it as closed to hide it from your Inbox. If a customer replies, it will show as “open” again.
• Snooze Conversations: Hide conversations for a set period of time. When the snooze period ends (or if someone replies), your conversation will appear at the top of your inbox.
• Emojis: Make your messages feel more conversational and friendly by adding emojis. Never sound like a robot again.

4. Start Answering Questions Via Text

Now that you’re set up, it’s time to start answering questions! Give your audience prompts or conversation starters, whatever you can do to encourage them to send messages. 

You can then reply one-on-one through the inbox or as a bulk text. Either way, your customers will feel like they’re getting the VIP treatment from start to finish.

Why You Should Have Customers Send Questions Over Text

Q&A’s can be tough, whether in-person or over Zoom. Who do you call on? How will you handle repeats of the same question?

Texting lets you skip all that hassle by putting important questions directly in your hand. People prefer to text rather than call or email because texts are a fast, easy to organize, and comfortable way to communicate. 

We can’t think of a better way to set the tone of your next event, presentation, or conference. Want to learn more about using text marketing? Read this guide on SMS marketing for events.

The post Answer Questions with Texts appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

With a 98% open rate, text messages are one of the most effective ways to share information regularly. 

And with a text messaging service like ours, you can automate the process to avoid having to write and send your messages each day manually. 

At SimpleTexting, you can send daily reminder texts in three different ways depending on your messaging and estimated frequency. We’ll walk you through them one step at a time and include some relevant real-life examples you can use as inspiration.

• Use cases for daily text reminders
• Examples of real-life daily text messages
• Send the same reminder text daily
• Send a unique reminder text daily
• Start a daily drip campaign

But first, let’s have a look at a couple of common use cases for daily text messages.

Use cases for daily text reminders

There are endless opportunities to leverage this type of text messaging strategy. So next, we’re covering some of the most popular examples and also taking a look at unique ways to use daily text reminders with your audience.

News and trends 

Sending daily reminders ensures that your audience stays up-to-date with the latest news and trends in real time. Text messages are easily accessible on mobile devices, making it convenient for people to receive updates wherever they are without needing to actively seek out information.

Sydney McDonald is a social media coach with 165k+ followers on TikTok who uses text messaging to send TikTok trends to her subscribers every day. Every day, Sydney forwards three TikTok trends to hundreds of entrepreneurs and content creators. Once the subscription is set up, she mentioned that it only requires 10 to 15 minutes of her time daily to curate content and manage the subscription list. That’s a pretty good return on investment.

“I believe that I’ve had so much success with this because I am because I am texting my customers instead of emailing them. Honestly, I think email stresses people out, and we just get too many every single day to go through.”

Sydney McDonald

Owner, Sydney on Socials

Events

Regular event reminders help keep the event top-of-mind, increasing the likelihood of attendance as people are less likely to forget about it. You might also have to make changes in schedules, venues, or additional details. Daily reminders will allow for real-time updates, ensuring attendees have the latest information. 

But text reminders don’t end with the pre-event stage. You can use them during or after the event to engage attendees and prompt them to respond to your calls to action. 

One idea is to use daily texts before, during, and after an event you’re hosting. You can simply schedule texts to send at specific times so you don’t have to do it on the fly. Then, just monitor your Inbox for questions and replies as needed.

Forecasts

Forecasts naturally tend to change a lot, so daily reminders ensure that recipients have the most current information. Whether it’s weather forecasts or market trends, daily reminders will keep your clients and prospects prepared for potential changes or opportunities.

Cale Pallas, one of the co-owners of Pallas Seeds, a family business that sells corn and soybean seeds to local farmers reads between the lines of economic grain volatility and translates that into text messages their audience understands. 

“Our customer engagement has gone up dramatically. We’re able to disseminate information and get it to our growers very quickly. That helps us to create some greater conversations about what their specific needs are and how they can grow their operation.” – Cale Pallas

Bible verses 

We see lots of churches in our user database turning to daily text reminders to send daily Bible verses. These can provide inspiration, encouragement, and comfort to individuals, offering a moment of reflection or motivation at the start or end of the day.

Text reminders provide an easily accessible format for receiving verses, allowing people to engage with the content conveniently on their mobile devices.

Emotional support 

For mental health consultancy or small businesses, daily reminders can serve as a reminder to practice self-care or stress management techniques. 

Think of the exact ways in which your clients are expecting support. This could be a series of daily tips or updates on their progress. Alternatively, you can use daily texts to share resources, links to articles, or techniques for coping with stress, anxiety, or burnout, providing valuable information to support them.

Trivia

The focus of your business matters the most when choosing what type of text reminders to send your audience. 

Let’s take Snapple for example. This tea and juice brand was looking for an innovative way to entertain its subscribers. So they opted for daily trivia messages to offer a chance for continuous learning and knowledge expansion in a fun and bite-sized format.

Sharing trivia daily is also a great way to foster a sense of community among recipients who enjoy exchanging knowledge or competing in quizzes.

Inspiration 

Send daily inspirational messages to help recipients start their day on a positive note or overcome challenges. These reminders can prompt recipients to reframe their perspectives, adopt a growth mindset, and take on new opportunities with a more optimistic outlook.

Tip: Remember to test different formats and content types by segmenting your audience. This will allow you to see what inspires your clients or prospects so you can ultimately get better engagement rates.

Action items

A fun way to get your audience to remember you is to start a challenge that will get them to interact with you on a daily basis. To do this, you need to ask them to do something.

Professional Organizer Tanisha Porter turned daily texting into a business that relies on action items. Through her virtual organization program, customers can buy a year-long subscription for her program, receiving a daily action prompt each day.

“The goal is, if you follow my prompts every day of the year, then you’ll be able to de-clutter and have an idea of what to do in order to control your spaces.

I wanted it to feel like you hired me and I’m your girlfriend who just happens to be a professional organizer, tapping you on the shoulder, helping you get a little more organized.”

Tanisha Porter

Owner, Natural Born Organizers

Daily text reminder examples

With a broader understanding of where daily text reminders can fit into your messaging strategy, let’s dig into a couple of examples brands and individuals are using. You can use these as templates to guide your own texts but remember it’s best to stay original.

Snapple Real Facts

The “Snapple Real Facts” are fun and often surprising snippets of information printed on the underside of Snapple beverage caps.

Each Snapple cap features a unique real-life fact that ranges from science, history, and world trivia so the brand decided to share these via messages too. These facts are meant to entertain and inform consumers as they enjoy their drinks. They’ve now become a trademark of the brand, adding an element of entertainment and curiosity to the brand experience.

Key takeaway: Consider what people love about your brand and double up on that.

Backcountry’s 10 Days of Deals

If you don’t want to send your audience a text message every single day but still want to stay top of mind, why not come up with a couple of creative campaigns?

Backcountry opts for regular sales campaigns where every day is dedicated to promoting a different kind of deal. No need to get extensive with these. Simply naming your product and deal like Backcountry does in these examples will work with audiences that are already familiar with your general offering.

We also love how Backcountry sent an introductory message to make sure they’ll only be sending texts to people who want to receive them. Not everyone will want to take part in your campaign, so work with your initial message to further segment your audience.

Key takeaway: Get to know your customers and their activity so you can deliver the exact content they need (and will be highly responsive to).

Smokefree.Gov’s Practice Quit daily text program

Smokefree.gov makes use of its website to get people to join their program to quit smoking. All of the instructions for joining this free program are clearly outlined on the website under a “How does it work?” section.

Whenever they’re ready for the challenge, people simply have to fill in a form with details such as their location and smoking habits. This automatically signs them up for a short five-day series of daily text messages to support them in quitting smoking.

Key takeaway: Make joining a list for daily text messages voluntary by allowing people to choose exactly what and when they’ll receive something.

How to send the same reminder text daily

You can set up a message to send automatically regularly by starting a recurring campaign.

If you plan on sending the same message every day, this is the approach for you. 

Recurring campaigns are perfect for: 

• Sending daily reminders
• Longitudinal survey questionnaires and other daily research messages 
• Sharing appointment, billing, and scheduling reminders 
• And more!

The best part about recurring campaigns is that once you set it, you can forget it! Here’s how it works. 

Setting up a daily reminder text as a recurring campaign 

1. On the left-hand side of your dashboard, select Campaigns. Then, the blue New button at the top of the window. 

2. Proceed as if you were creating a standard one-off campaign — give your campaign a name and type your message in the text message box. Then, select the audience you want to send to from the dropdown.

3. Scroll down and under Send on, select Recurring from the menu.

4. Select what date you want your campaign to start sending, then specify the time you’d like your message to go out. For example, if you wanted to send your message every day at 8 AM, you would enter 0800. 

5. Under Repeats, select Daily.

6. If you have a set time for your daily text messages to stop sending, select the Ending date button and pick a date from the calendar below. If it’s open-ended, choose Never. 

7. Select Next.

8. Review your scheduled text messages, and if everything looks good, press the blue Schedule button. You’re done!

Ending your daily recurring campaign 

If you selected Never as your daily campaign end option, you can stop the series at any time. 

1. Go back to the campaign dashboard and select Scheduled from the dropdown. 

2. Select the campaign you want to end and select the Archive icon at the top of the campaign. 

3. If you only want to cancel one campaign in the series, select Archive only this campaign. If you wish to cancel the recurring series altogether, select Archive all future campaigns.

How to send a unique reminder text daily

Alternatively, if you plan on sending different daily reminder text messages to your audience each day, you have the option to schedule them ahead of time. 

While this approach does require manual intervention, it still helps you save valuable time by allowing you to set up your messages days, weeks, and months in advance.

Scheduling a text can be done in four simple steps:

1. Navigate to Campaign, then New. Give your campaign a name, select your intended recipients, and compose your SMS message.

2. Under Send on, select Scheduled. Choose the date when you want your message to be sent and the time you’d like your message to be delivered. Then, click Next.

3. Preview your campaign and when you’re ready, click the blue Schedule button.

How to start a daily drip text campaign

Last but not least, you can create the equivalent of a text message drip campaign with our autoresponders feature. When someone joins a list, you can send them a series of automated text messages.

Here’s how to set one up:

Alternative methods to schedule daily reminder text messages

If scheduling your daily reminders directly through SimpleTexting doesn’t work for you, we still have a few tricks up our sleeves.

SimpleTexting is also integrated with Zapier. This makes it possible to integrate our texting platform with thousands of popular apps. 

For example, if you’re using a tool like Google Calendars, you can use Zapier to trigger SMS reminders each day.

Looking for fresh ways to connect with customers daily? Try our two-week SimpleTexting trial —absolutely free! No credit card is needed.

Meghan Tocci originally authored this piece. Alexandra Cote contributed on 2/12/24.

The post How to send daily text messages and reminders appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

We’ve kind of made it our life’s work to learn everything there is to know about texting. But in all of our exploration, we continually find that people are surprised with how much you can do with SMS!

There’s a lot you can do with texting, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with traditional two-way messaging. This post is all about showing you all the untapped potential of mobile messaging!

So, without any further ado, let’s get into your complete list of everything you need to know about the types of SMS and mobile messages.

1. SMS & MMS messaging

If you’re one of the billions of people who have either sent or received a text message on your cellphone, then you’re familiar with SMS. If that text contained a photo or video, then you’ve either sent or received an MMS message.

Often referred to just as “texting,” SMS and MMS are the communication protocols that make it possible to send texts over cellular networks. The main difference between the two, as demonstrated above, is that MMS enables multimedia messages in addition to pure text, as well as extended character limits.

With the help of text marketing software, you can radically expand the capabilities of traditional SMS and MMS messaging. Here are a few of the most helpful iterations of the kinds of mobile messages you can send with a bit of help.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders are a series of staggered texts automatically spaced out and sent over days, weeks, or months. These automatic messages are received by users after they have subscribed to your text message program. They can do this in a few ways, some of the most popular being keywords and web forms.

With the help of an autoresponder feature, you can create delayed messages with fun facts or coupons to bring in a steady stream of customers. Keep your customers engaged and make sure the newest additions to your list receive text messages that keep them coming back. Bonus, they can also be used along with customer segments to create drip campaigns.

Triggers

When a speedy response rate is of the essence, triggers allow you to automatically respond to FAQs and requests for information right away. For each keyword your business has, you can create an unlimited amount of triggers that, when texted to you, will reply right away with your preset answer.

For example, you can set a CONTACT trigger that will automatically reply with your business’ contact information when a contact texts that keyword to your number or short code.

Polls

You could just text a question out to a group of people, wait for them to answer, count up their answers, and report back with the results. Or, with just a few minutes of setup, you could text out a poll to hundreds within seconds that does all of that for you, automatically. Not to mention, see the results of your vote roll in real time!

Birthday messages

Do you remember everyone’s birthday? It’s tough enough to even keep track of your families, let alone all of your customers and coworkers. But receiving a special birthday wish makes people feel valued and noticed.

Avoid having to take the time out of every day to check for and send these kinds of messages and instead, automate them! Birthday messages are just one of the many in-app features that some SMS marketing platforms provide to help make your life easier.

Need inspiration for your marketing texts? Try the PASTA framework — a method for choosing the types of texts that’ll keep your subscribers engaged.

2. Push notifications

You might think it’s a text message that’s lighting up on your cell’s screen, but that would be a common mistake.

Push notifications are like SMS messages, but instead of appearing in your inbox alongside your other texts, these are pop-ups that appear while you’re on your phone or on your lock screen. They can be sent (or pushed out) by a business at any time, unless a user has opted out of receiving them.

3. In-app messages

To folks with mobile smartphones, the odds are pretty high that you’ve downloaded an app before (some of the most popular being Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Subway Surfers, and so on). With every app download, there comes the potential to receive in-app messages.

Ironically, these are often mistaken for push notifications, but the main difference here is where these messages are received. In-app messages are only received when you’re actively using an application.

Common examples are popups, yes/no prompts, interstitials, etc. They’re commonly used for things like first-time user tutorials, rewards pop-ups mid-game, etc.

4. RCS

RCS, or rich communication services, is the newest form of mobile comms technology—so new it’s still partially in development. RCS is a messaging-as-a-platform (MaaP) technology that works similarly to messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, the big difference being the built-in software.

The idea is that RCS would come with any smartphone when you buy in, with no need for external app downloads. It would work almost the same as traditional text messaging, but with an app-like experience.

There are numerous possibilities for what text messaging can do, mobile marketing in general provides ample opportunity! Still looking for some more inspiration? Check out our ongoing list of copy-and-paste text templates that give you a better idea of how all of this looks in practice!

The post 4 of the most common types of mobile messages appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Even if you don’t believe such a thing as texting etiquette exists, I’m here to set the facts straight.

I’ll share some examples of professional text messages you can send to customers and employees. Then, I’ll explain when they’re appropriate and how to write your own.

8 professional text message examples

These examples demonstrate the proper tone, length, and language you should focus on in a professional text exchange. 

1. Welcome message

Welcome your customers to your texting list, setting the foundation for a long-term partnership between you and them.

Hey Nathan! Welcome aboard, and thanks for joining Wished! You’ll be the first in the know about the latest deals, new arrivals, and more from us.

Here’s a special 10% discount code for your next purchase: WISH410. Reply STOP anytime to opt out.

2. Sales message

Sales texts are ideal for sending promotions, special offers, and exclusive opportunities to your SMS contacts. You can add your brand’s personality into them without compromising professionalism.

Hi Lucy, with your lease up for renewal, we want to offer you one month’s rent free for re-signing.

Feel free to drop into the leasing office with any questions .

3. Recruiting text

Sending recruitment texts to potential new team members will help you bypass a busy email or voicemail inbox and stand out to the right candidates.

4. Payment reminder

How many times have you heard “I forgot” or “I don’t check my email often” as a reason for late payments? Cut down on confusion and delays with a to-the-point text reminder.

5. Interview message

Interview reminders are an efficient way to stay at the front of your candidate’s mind and reduce the likelihood of a no-show.

6. Confirmation text

Make sure you’re on the same page with your customers. Send them a quick text with an option to confirm their upcoming service to keep both parties in the loop.

Hi Joy. Your massage is scheduled for 4/27/21 at 12:00 PM .

Please plan to arrive 15 minutes early. Reply “Yes” to confirm.

7. Employee communication

Customers aren’t the only ones who can benefit from text messages. SMS makes coordinating with your team clear and efficient.

8. Opening times

Want to drive traffic to your newest event, whether online or in-person? Send text invites informing people and start productive conversations.

Now that we’ve seen a few examples in action, how do you go about writing a professional text from scratch?

How to write a professional text message

The recipe for a professional text message is simple: aside from the character limits, the biggest thing to consider when writing an SMS message for business texting is tone. 

Even when you’re writing something professional, your tone should be conversational. Texting is intimate, and you don’t want to sound like a robot when you’re communicating with clients or staff. Cut down on flowery language and keep it simple. 

Instead of this:

Dear Lou, thank you for connecting with me at the Vegas convention earlier today. It was so nice to meet you. When we met, we talked about freelance work and your need for a writer. I wanted to let you know I’d be happy to send you some samples for review. If you’re interested, let me know. Thanks! Jon Jenner, A&M Copywriting, jjenner@amwriting.com, 978-562-9168.

Do this: 

Hey Lou, it’s Jon! Loved connecting with you. If you’re still looking for a freelancer, let me know and we can talk next steps. Enjoy Vegas!

Also, don’t shy away from including emojis in your texts. They can help you convey emotion quickly and easily. 

With these tips in mind, let’s cover the rules you’ll need to know as you write your professional texts.

Rules for writing professional text messages

Writing your message is personal to you and your business needs. There’s no magic formula to speak of, only guidelines. Think of them like bumpers on a bowling alley.

1. Keep it short: The best part of texting is fast, easy communication. Your messages should get the point across in just a few words. A good rule of thumb is one or two sentences.
2. Get consent: If you’re sending marketing texts, you must get express written consent from someone first.
3. Pay attention to text frequency: Professional texting etiquette isn’t just about what you do, it’s also about what you don’t do. It’s okay to send a lot of messages to your friends, but not your boss or team members. You don’t want to text too frequently or outside business hours.
4. Make it easy to reply to: Keeping your texts short also means you need to keep them clear. If you’re asking your recipient a question, make it easy for them to provide a simple yes or no answer. 
5. Use short sign-offs: Your email signature should have your name, job title, credentials, and other contact information on it. Your text sign-off should not. In fact, your text sign-off should just be your name and, if necessary, your place of business. But you’re usually texting someone who you have previously conversed or developed a rapport with. So, all they really need is your name.

When to send a professional text message

A traditional text message is 160 characters. This is exactly how much content you can fit within that limit:

It’s not a lot of space, but the best professional messages are clear, concise, and action-oriented. Let’s look at a few situations where a text can be a great tool.

You might want to send a text message if you want to…

• Send time-sensitive information
• Send staff updates
• Confirm or change the details of a meeting/appointment
• Ask questions or collect opinions
• Send encouraging messages or kudos
• Send an introduction text
• Set appointment reminders
• Thank a customer or show appreciation for something
• Ask for a referral from a client

The only times a text message may not be appropriate are when:

1. An in-person conversation would make it easier to discuss sensitive topics.
2. You need to communicate private information such as medical or legal records (although there are special rules for these types of texts, too).

Start sending professional texts today

Creating clean, professional texts in under 160 characters is easy. Of course, if you need a little extra space, you can always choose to send MMS messages. 

Either way, as long as you follow these “bumpers,” you’ll be legally and successfully texting clients and colleagues alike.

Ready to get started sending professional texts of your own? Send your first message through SimpleTexting with a free 14-day trialー no credit card required.

The post Use these 8 professional text message examples to engage customers appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

If you want to stand out from your competitors and reap those sweet, sweet rewards of SMS marketing, you’re going to need to know how to use text alerts effectively.

I’ll share tips and stories from real business owners who’ve found success with text message alerts.

Looking for information about emergency text notifications? See how to send warnings and important notification texts in our emergency text alert guide.

Table of contents

• Why businesses send text alerts
• 35 ways to use text alerts for business
• Text alert laws and guidelines
• Automating SMS alerts
• How to choose the right text alert system

Why businesses send text alerts

The SMS marketing survey I mentioned earlier also found that 67% of businesses have increased their SMS marketing budgets in the last year. This increase in SMS marketing budget highlights the fact that texting convenient and profitable. 

Text alerts help business owners:

1. Reach their audience faster

Over 30% of consumers check their text notifications within 60 seconds, according to our 2023 SMS Marketing Survey. Whether you’re sending out an alert or scheduling a promotion for later in the week, you’ll get quick responses on your mass texts. 

2. Send highly-targeted campaigns

Want to send text alerts that your audience actually wants to open? 

Send them to specific groups within your audience using contact segments. They allow you to target your contacts based on data that’s imported from your CRM or information you collect via text message. 

Our platform even lets you send automated text messages based on whether your subscribers clicked a link in your campaign. These recipients are already interested in what you have to say and may be more likely to respond to future texts.

3. Measure the impact of special offers

Text alert services like SimpleTexting use link tracking to help you measure which offers resonate with your contacts. This helps protect your bottom line by reducing the number of unnecessary discounts and deals you send.

35 ways to use text alerts for business

Want to see how other businesses use text alerts? Get inspired with these 35 SMS marketing examples.

Car dealerships text alerts

• Special promotions on new car models
• Limited-time discounts on vehicle purchases
• Service reminders for oil changes and maintenance
• New inventory updates and arrivals
• Test drive invitations

Business spotlight: Nissan of Columbus texts customers when special order car parts are in stock. Customers told parts manager Todd Spangler that these alerts are more convenient than a phone call and help them feel more informed about their car’s maintenance.

E-commerce text alerts

• Exclusive discounts and coupon codes
• New product releases
• Flash sales and limited-time offers
• Abandoned cart reminders
• Order status and shipping updates
• Restock alerts

Business spotlight: The multi-location tanning salon Year Round Brown increased its revenue by 20% with SMS sale alerts.

Event text alerts

• Ticket sale announcements
• Event reminders
• Schedule updates and changes
• Speaker or performer announcements

Business spotlight: With just three text messages, Austin’s Euphoria Fest sold 230 event tickets and saw a conversion rate 10 times higher than email.

Fitness text alerts

• Class schedules and updates
• Special fitness challenges or programs
• Membership renewal reminders
• Personalized workout tips and motivation
• Special discounts on fitness equipment or apparel

Business spotlight: Boutique fitness center Loggerhead Fitness uses text alerts to announce group class schedule updates and promote new services to its 2,000+ members.

Healthcare text alerts

• Appointment reminders and confirmations
• Prescription refill reminders
• Wellness tips and advice
• Health awareness campaigns
• Test result notifications

Business spotlight: Lighthouse Dental Centre spends less time chasing missed-appointments since setting up appointment reminder text alerts.

Real estate text alerts

• New property listings
• Open house announcements
• Price reductions and special offers
• Mortgage rate updates
• Real estate market trends and insights

Business spotlight: Real estate broker Josh Barker generates leads for his team with SMS keywords and text alerts for each of his property listings.

Restaurant text alerts

• Daily or weekly specials
• New menu item announcements
• Exclusive discounts for loyalty program members
• Reservation confirmations
• Event or live entertainment notifications
• Curbside delivery/ to-go order ready alerts

Business spotlight: College Station restaurant Blue Baker experiences a 162% higher coupon redemption rate from text alerts than email campaigns.

Text alert laws and guidelines

You probably already have a list of customers you want to text. Before you do, make sure you get their express written consent first. 

In North America, texting laws protect help consumers from spam and fraud. They require you to get explicit permission to text your audience, even if customers have already given you their phone number (like on an order form or while registering for a new service).

The way you ask for permission is known as an opt-in method. Popular methods include:

• Sending a keyword to your number.
• Entering their phone number into an online web form.
• Selecting a checkbox during the checkout process.

No matter which opt-in method you choose, you need to include information about you and your texting program on your form or wherever you promote your keyword. 

Your disclaimer should include:

• Your company’s name
• Your contact information
• What kind of texts contacts can expect to receive
• How they can unsubscribe

Confused about getting people’s permission to text them? Read our SMS compliance guide to get a breakdown of these texting rules.

Automating SMS alerts to save time

I can’t add hours more hours to your day, but I can help you reclaim some of your time with automated text alerts. 

You can trigger texts with:

• Scheduled text campaigns
• Autoresponders
• Software integrations

Scheduled text alerts

If you have a specific time and day in mind for your text alert, you can easily schedule it with a texting platform.

How to set up scheduled text alerts in SimpleTexting:

1. In the Campaigns tab of your dashboard, click on “New” to create a new mass text alert.

2. After naming your campaign and selecting the contact list you want to send to, enter your text alert in the message field. You can include media as well by selecting “MMS” messaging.

3. At the bottom of your screen, select “Scheduled” or “Recurring” and enter the timing details of your text alert.

4. Confirm the details on the Campaign summary page, and hit “Schedule” if everything looks correct.

Autoresponder text alerts

Let’s say you want to send text alerts to welcome new subscribers or send a series of messages once someone joins your list. 

Autoresponders can help you deliver these alerts at the right time, and the set-up process is similar to scheduling texts.

How to set up autoresponders in SimpleTexting:

1. From the Autoresponders tab in your dashboard, click “New autoresponder.” 

2. After naming your autoresponder and selecting your contact list, enter your text alert in the message field. 

3. Select whether you want the autoresponder to send immediately after a contact joins your list or after a delay. In the example above, I’ve set my text alert to send one week after someone joins my list. 

4. Click “Save autoresponder.”

Text alerts from integrations

Another way to automate text alerts is to integrate your texting platform with other business and marketing tools.

For instance, you may want to trigger a text alert when a customer’s curbside delivery order is ready for pickup or when a sales lead takes a specific action.

You can set up automated texts like these by connecting SimpleTexting to Zapier. Zapier is an automation tool that helps software work together, and our customers use it to save time and make their text alerts more relevant to their contacts.

Integrating other tools with SimpleTexting via Zapier only takes a few minutes, but our integrations team can also build advanced automations for you and help you maintain them as an add-on to our paid plans. 

How to choose the right text alert system

We’ve covered how to send text alerts for your business, but what if you don’t have an SMS marketing platform yet?

Look for these features to help you scale your texting strategy:

• Mass texting
• Automated text messaging
• Scheduled texts
• Two-way messaging
• SMS Keywords
• Analytics
• Customer support seven days a week

Mass text alerts

If you run a business and want to send messages to a large group of people, you need mass texting. It lets you send one message to many contacts all at the same time promotions, announcements, and time-sensitive notifications.

Let’s say you’re an online store marketer. You could use a mass texting app to message to all of your VIP customers about an exclusive sale just for them.

Automated text alerts

SMS automation lets you send messages based on certain words or what people do. 

For example, you can set up autoresponders that welcome new contacts to your list when they send a specific keyword to your number. You can even answer common questions automatically, even if you’re not at your computer or phone.

Scheduled text alerts

With scheduled texting, you can choose a specific time and date to send your messages. 

This way, your contacts get the right message at the right time without you having to do it manually for each campaign. It’s a win-win situation.

Not sure what the right time is to text your audience? Read our guide on finding the best time to send text alerts.

Two-way text messaging

You can build good relationships with your contacts by having two-way conversations through text messages. You can answer their questions and help them make the right choices in real time, all via text.

SMS keywords

To make it easy for people to join your text list, use SMS keywords. They’re words or phrases that people can send to your number to sign up. 

For example, a coffee shop might have a keyword like VIPBREWS to encourage people to join their special customer list. If you like this feature, look for SMS marketing apps that let you have unlimited keywords with any paid plan.

Analytics

It’s important to see which of your text alerts are getting the most link click-throughs and responses so you can build on those campaigns. 

That’s where features like analytics dashboards and performance charts come in handy. If you can’t see how many people clicked on your links or how many people unsubscribed, you might be wasting time and money on the wrong tactics.

Daily customer support

When picking a platform to use, make sure they have a customer support team that’s responsive seven days a week. That way, you’ll have someone to guide you through the platform, even if you’re launching a campaign on the weekend.

To find out what current customers think about a software company’s customer service, you can read reviews from other people on sites like G2, TrustRadius, and Capterra.

SimpleTexting’s text alert platform has all of these features (and then some). Test drive it today by signing up for our free 14-day trial — no credit card needed. 

This article was written by Meghan Tocci on November 30, 2018 and updated on August 21, 2023, by Dani Henion. Nathan Ellering contributed to this piece.

The post How to set up text alerts for your business appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Fortunately, there’s a way to respond to all incoming texts in seconds without needing to hire additional staff: auto-reply text messages. 

These automated text messages not only serve as response placeholders until you’re back in the office, but they can also be:

• A first line of contact for customer service requests
• A promotional channel for your content
• A way to set expectations and prevent customer frustration

Automating text messages is as simple to set up as a pre-recorded voicemail prompt or an out-of-office email reply. I’ll show you how it’s done and share some ideas for how you can leverage the power of automation. 

What are auto-reply texts?

Short for automatic reply text, auto-replies are texts sent without the need for manual intervention. They’re also almost always sent in response to a triggering action.

There are two main types of automatic text message replies:

1. Away messages: A pre-written out-of-office response that can be turned on and off.

2. Autoresponders: An auto-response that’s sent when a contact takes a particular action, like when a text-to-join keyword is texted to your number. 

I’ll show you how to set both types of auto-replies up and provide examples that you can copy for your own texting strategy.

How to set up an auto-reply text

As I mentioned, you can set up automated away messages and autoresponders as part of your SMS strategy. I’ll walk you through the easy setup processes in SimpleTexting.

If you want to follow along, sign up for a free 14-day trial of our automated text messaging software.

To set up an away text message:

1. In your inbox, click on the robot icon next to your phone number near the top left corner.
2. Next, choose the option called “Away settings”.

3. Now, write the message you want to use for your away status.
4. Decide when you want your message to be sent: all the time (24/7), only outside of office hours, or never.

5. If you prefer to send your message only during specific times, select the option “Only send outside of office hours” and set your office hours in the window that appears. Remember to click “Save hours”
6. Once you’re done, click on “Save & close”.

To set up an autoresponder text message:

1. Start by clicking on “Autoresponders” in the left-hand panel.
2. Then, click on “New autoresponder”.

3. Give your autoresponder a name. This name is only for your own reference, and your subscribers won’t see it. For example, you can name it “VIP deals”.
4. Now, choose the list to which your autoresponder should be sent.

Note: Only new contacts added to the list will receive your autoresponders. 

5. Decide if your autoresponder should be sent as an SMS or MMS.
6. Type the message you want to include in your autoresponder.
7. Next, select the delay for sending the autoresponder. You can choose to send it minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months after someone subscribes to your list.

Alternatively, you can add a delivery window. This allows you to set limits on when the text can be sent, like specifying how early or late it can be delivered and on which days of the week.

8. Click on “Save autoresponder”.

19 auto-reply text message examples for your business

From the familiar to the more unexpected, check out these use cases for automated text replies. 

1. Catch-all auto reply text
2. FAQ auto reply text
3. Customer service auto reply
4. Automated sales text
5. High volume automated response text
6. Out of office auto reply
7. Welcome text
8. Marketing department inquiry
9. Missed message auto reply
10. Staffing or recruiting auto reply text
11. After business hours text
12. For more information auto reply
13. Holiday closure auto reply
14. Vacation notification text
15. Lead generation auto reply
16. Networking text
17. Re-direct auto reply
18. Service upgrade notification
19. Survey or feedback auto reply

1. Catch-all auto-reply text

Need to set up a generic away message for times you’re away from the phone or need to refocus your attention? Simply throw this template up for a few hours to buy yourself some time.

“Thank you for contacting Lulu’s, you’ve reached Anne. I’m out of the office currently, but I will respond to your message by 3 PM. Thank you for your patience!”

2. FAQ auto-reply text

Save time and direct folks to a page with answers to frequently asked questions in an autoresponse to help sort and prioritize customer service inquiries. 

“Thanks for reaching Simple Shop! While you wait for a customer support rep, let’s see if we can answer your question here: [LINK].”

3. Customer service auto-reply

If you receive a high volume of customer service texts, you may want an auto-response in place that acknowledges a customer query has been received. This can help buy you some time while attempting to reach as many people as you can. 

“Hello! We received your inquiry and our support team is on it. We’ll get back to you in 20–30 minutes. Thank you for your patience!”

4. Automated sales text

Use your auto-response as an opportunity to connect your customers with a sales opportunity!

“Hey there, thanks for shopping Patagonia! We’ll respond to your message ASAP. While you wait, have you checked out our semi-annual sale? [LINK]”

5. High-volume automated response text

If you’re experiencing a higher text volume than normal, be sure to have a volume auto-text on hand to help buffer the traffic.  

“Thanks for your message! We’re experiencing a higher volume of texts than usual. You can expect a reply within 12 hours.”

6. Out-of-office auto-reply

Don’t leave messages that come in outside of business hours hanging. Instead, let them know when they can expect a response. 

“You’ve reached Maggie at HealthCorps. Our business hours are 8-5 EST, and I am currently OOO. I will get back to you within the next business day, thanks!”

7. Welcome text

If a customer is new to your text program, be sure to send them an automated welcome message upon signing up.

“Welcome to Barracuda Resorts VIP club! My name is Joy, your personal concierge. If you need anything during your stay, please let me know!”

8. Marketing department inquiry

Perhaps someone reached out to your marketing department regarding a press inquiry, guest post pitch, etc. You’ll want to be sure you’re ready with a response.

“Thanks for reaching out to NAPA marketing, someone will be in touch with you shortly. What can we help you with?”

9. Missed message auto-reply

Just like a voicemail inbox, your texts can also take down messages for follow-up as well!

“Sorry we missed you! Please reply with a brief message and someone from the Skipper team will get back to you later today.”

10. Staffing or recruiting auto-reply text

If you have a job opening it can be difficult to get in touch with everyone who applies. To help you stay organized and let candidates know their application was received, consider a staffing automatic text reply. 

“Thanks for your interest in joining the ABC team. You can check your application status on our employee portal anytime: [LINK]”

11. After business hours text

Does your business operate outside typical working hours? Let people know with a message. 

“Thanks for your message! Craig’s is an Australian-based company, therefore you can reach us during our business hours 6 pm–2 am EST.”

12. For more information auto-reply

Provide customers with some quick information to help them get started with your brand or business. 

“Howdy! Thanks for requesting more info on Hank’s Ranch Membership. Here are some articles that should help get you started! [LINK]”

13. Holiday closure auto-reply

If you’ll be away for a portion of time observing a holiday, create a cheerful auto-reply in your absence.

“Happy holidays! I will be out of office until Jan. 3, and I’ll reply within 24 hours of my return.”

14. Vacation notification text

Out of office on vacation? Set and forget a message in seconds!

“I’m leaving on a jet plane! The Stern Firm will be out of the office until 3/4 on a company-wide retreat. We will respond to all messages promptly upon return.”

15. Lead generation auto-reply

Just because it’s an automated message doesn’t mean you can’t seize the opportunity to collect leads. Provide the opportunity to collect an email or address within your text response. 

“Thanks for reaching out to Motts & Co. We’ll get back to you shortly. In the meantime, have you subscribed to our weekly investor newsletter? [LINK]”

16. Networking text 

If you’re an events-based business, use your out-of-office auto-reply as a way to promote your upcoming conferences, sessions, and speakers!

“Jason here, thanks for reaching out to ThinkTank! I’m currently at a speaking event in Chicago. Find out if I’ll be coming to your city here: [LINK]”

17. Redirect auto-reply

Just because your business is text-enabled, it doesn’t mean you have to be a two-way communication platform. You can create an auto-reply message to all incoming messages letting them know the inbox they’ve reached isn’t monitored, and direct them elsewhere for contact.

“Thanks for your response! Please note that this inbox is not monitored. To reach someone with a question or feedback, please email hello@delias.com.”

18. Service upgrade notification

Anticipating some downtime on your site due to maintenance? Get ahead of any frustrated “is your site down” messages with an auto-text.

“Thanks for reaching out! Please note that we currently have some site delays due to the ongoing upgrade of our network. Delays should cease at 8 am tomorrow.”

19. Survey or feedback auto-reply

Integrate your customer survey software with SimpleTexting to thank people for their feedback. You can connect the two platforms with Zapier and trigger a thank-you text after you receive a form submission.

“Thank you for submitting your feedback! Your opinion means so much to us and helps us better serve you in the future.”

5 best practices for automated text responses

No matter what you’re using your SMS autoresponder for, there are a few pieces of best practice you should keep in mind when crafting an automated text message. 

1. Always include a thank you: It’s both polite and inviting to begin your away message with a thank you. This lets customers know you’ve acknowledged their inquiry and helps to assure them a response will come soon.
2. Identify yourself: After your thank you, you want to establish a more personal connection with the customer. A great way to do this is by identifying yourself as an individual. Now, the customer has a point person to reference for their support and they feel one step closer to resolution. 
3. Provide a time frame for follow up: If your automated message is a placeholder for a response, be sure to let your customer know when they should expect to hear back from you. Will it be minutes, hours, days? Help them set the expectation to avoid friction caused by the non-response. 
4. Provide next steps: Finally, if the situation allows, give your customers insight into what they can do in the meantime while they wait for a response. Is there someone else they can contact in your absence? A blog post or article that may have the information they need? Whenever possible, give them the tools to continue autonomously. 
5. Integrate with other tools: Connect SimpleTexting to other apps you use for your business to trigger auto-responses in real time. For instance, you can automate an onboarding text message after someone purchases an online course from your Kajabi store.

Feeling ready to set up some automated text message replies on your own? 

Before we leave you to your own devices, we have some sample messages featuring different ways you can automate text replies to serve your business. 

This article was written on October 8, 2020, by Meghan Tocci and updated on August 1, 2023, by Dani Henion.

The post 19 auto-reply text message examples and how to set them up appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

For candidates looking to create a personal relationship with voters without coming across like a telemarketer, texting is the ideal middle ground. Even with all of texting’s benefits, though, it’s possible to mismanage your messaging strategy and annoy your supporters. 

To help prevent this, I’ll share some rules and guidelines to keep in mind as you plan your political SMS strategy.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Are Political Texts Illegal?
• US Organizations That Oversee Political Texting Rules
• Canada Political Text Message Regulations
• How to Keep Supporters Engaged With Bulk SMS for Election Campaigns

Are political texts illegal?

Political campaign text messages are legal, but there are certain actions that can make your texts illegal. 

It all comes down to the basic guidelines of permission. Our SMS compliance guide will tell you everything you need to know about getting express written consent to text your contacts, but here are the highlights:

• You cannot purchase a list of random phone numbers to text.
• Promotional messages that are sent from an automated system are illegal unless the recipient gives their prior express consent.
• You must clearly state the identity of the business, individual, or other entity sending the text at the beginning of the message.

Disclaimer: Please note that this advice is for informational purposes only and is neither intended as nor should be substituted for consultation with appropriate legal counsel and/or your organization’s regulatory compliance team.

U.S. organizations that oversee political texting rules

In the U.S., there are two primary organizations that help regulate political text messages. These groups ensure fair practices that protect recipients from unsolicited or misleading messages.

Violating texting compliance rules can lead to fines and even legal consequences.

Organizations that regulate U.S. political text messages:

• The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
• The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA)
• Campaign Verify

At a high level, you need to:

• Register your organization with Campaign Verify if you have a non-profit EIN and want to use a 10DLC number.
• Ask people for explicit permission to text them.
• Include a disclosure about the nature of your text messages (see the sections below about the FCC and CTIA for more information about what to include).
• Send a confirmation message after a contact joins your texting list that tells them they’ll receive recurring messages and how to opt out.

An example of a political organization’s invitation to join their SMS list.

Let’s take a closer look at the FCC and the CTIA.

FCC regulations for political bulk SMS

The FCC is the regulatory body that oversees media and phone communications in the United States. They’re responsible for enforcing legislation called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that governs the telecommunications industry.

Since 1991, the TCPA has provided rules for:

• Telemarketing calls
• Auto-dialed calls (also called robocalls)
• Prerecorded/artificial voice calls
• Text messages (though the law doesn’t mention them by name)
• Unsolicited faxes
• The national Do Not Call registry

The text messages that fall under the TCPA specifically are those sent from an application to a personal phone (known as A2P messaging). If you’re sending texts from an SMS service provider like SimpleTexting, you’re sending A2P messages.

TCPA text message regulations:

• Organizations must obtain express consent from individuals before sending them automated text messages.
• Express written consent should include a clear and conspicuous disclosure that the person is agreeing to receive marketing messages sent by an autodialer and that consent is not a condition of purchase.

Learn about compliant opt-in methods to collect permission to text your supporters.

Some political organizations get around the TCPA’s rules for sending unsolicited texts by having volunteers send messages from their personal phones. While not (yet) illegal, sending texts without permission from a personal phone is a sure way to annoy your supporters.

Are political text messages exempt from the Do Not Call Registry?

Technically, political texts are exempt from the Do Not Call registry, which is a list of citizens who have opted out of telemarketing calls. But they are regulated by the TCPA.

CTIA guidelines for political bulk SMS

The CTIA is an industry organization that represents the interests of the telecommunications industry, like fighting spam text messages. 

Though it’s not a government agency, the CTIA creates guidelines to help organizations maintain good standing with wireless carriers and oversees short codes (5- or 6-digit numbers, which are common for political campaigns).

According to the CTIA, your invitation to join your texting list (or “call-to-action”) should clearly list:

• Your organization’s name
• Your phone number or short code that the messages will come from
• The name of the organization or individual being represented in the initial message
• Any associated fees or charges (eg. “message and data rates may apply”)
• Other applicable terms and conditions, like how to opt-out, how to get in touch for more information, and any applicable privacy policy

After a contact opts into your texting list, you’ll need to send a confirmation message that includes:

• Your organization’s name
• How to get in touch if they have questions
• How to opt out of the texting list
• A disclosure that the messages are recurring and the frequency of the messaging (usually expressed in the number of messages per week or month)
• Any associated fees or charges for sending and receiving messages

Campaign Verify regulations for political bulk SMS

Campaign Verify is a non-partisan, nonprofit service that helps validate the identity of political campaigns, parties, and PACs in the U.S. Its mission is to rebuild Americans’ trust in the electoral process, specifically by regulating political text messages and other communications.

If you want to send political messages from a 10DLC number and your organization has a non-profit EIN, you must first register directly with Campaign Verify and obtain an Authorization Token (which carries a one-time fee of $95 per two-year election cycle).

If you don’t want to register your organization or don’t have a non-profit EIN, you can choose to text from a toll-free number instead.

Canada’s political text message regulations

In Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is the group that sets rules for unsolicited telecommunications. Like the FCC in the U.S., the CRTC is focused on protecting citizens from spam and scam calls. 

Under Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), political organizations and candidates must adhere to a set of regulations when sending electronic messages, depending on the nature of their messages. 

If your texts promote a political organization or candidate, you need to:

1. Obtain consent
2. Provide identification information
3. Provide an unsubscribe mechanism

If your texts solicit a financial donation or non-monetary contribution, you don’t need to obtain express consent to send messages.

How to keep supporters engaged with bulk SMS for election campaigns

In the run-up to an election, most people receive dozens of political text messages—many of which they never signed up to receive. 

Here are a few best practices to help you build a list of engaged SMS contacts who look forward to your texts.

Best practices for political bulk SMS

1. Keep your message frequency reasonable.
2. Personalize your messages whenever possible.
3. Be specific about what actions you want them to take.
4. Focus your content on your contacts’ interests.

Keep your message frequency reasonable

Since every campaign and organization has different goals and supporter demographics, I can’t give you a specific message frequency. But a general guideline is to only send texts when you have something valuable or noteworthy to share. 

You can look in your SMS platform’s analytics dashboard to see if people are clicking on links in your texts and whether people are unsubscribing. Decreasing click-through rates and increasing unsubscribe rates are signs that your message frequency (and possibly the contents of your messages) aren’t working for your contacts.

Personalize your messages whenever possible

Want to connect with your supporters and inspire them to take action? Personalize your texts with custom fields. Something as simple as seeing their name could drive someone to open or click where they otherwise might not have.

Be specific about what actions you want supporters to take

Include an explicit call to action in your texts to encourage people to show their support. 

Example political text calls-to-action:

• Register to vote
• Vote for me on [date] 
• Pledge your support
• Volunteer at this event
• Donate to the cause

Focus your content on your contacts’ interests and demographics

Keep your contacts engaged and responsive to your messages by collecting information about their interests and demographics. 

For example, you can use our Data Collection feature to ask contacts about what political issues they care about and where they live. Then you can segment your contacts and send targeted messages, like information about how your candidate is supporting certain causes and when they’ll be visiting specific locations.

Ready to start building your political campaign’s SMS list? Sign up for a free 14-day trial of our text messaging platform today.

This piece was originally published March 30, 2020. It was refreshed May 23, 2023. Meghan Tocci and Dani Henion contributed to this piece.

The post Political texting rules for bulk SMS that you can’t ignore appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

In fact, American businesses lose around $35.3B every year due to customer churn from avoidable customer experience issues. Mapping out your customer journey helps you figure out the high points of your business communications and the gaps where you’re at risk of losing customers. 

Here at SimpleTexting, we’ve seen a lot of e-commerce brands revamp their customer experience and see major boosts in retention, revenue, and efficiency (check some of their stories out if you’re curious). I’ll break the process down step-by-step for you here.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What Is the Ecommerce Customer Journey?
• Before the Sale
• Your Pre Sale Ecommerce Customer Journey Checklist
• After the Sale
• Your Post Purchase Ecommerce Customer Journey Checklist

What is the e-commerce customer journey?

The e-commerce customer journey is all of your customers’ steps as they engage with your business, from first look to final sale. 

In general, the customer journey can be broken down into five steps.

• Awareness – This is where customers are just discovering your brand and doing their research.
• Consideration – You’ve caught the consumer’s interest in this stage, but they haven’t made the decision to buy.
• Acquisition – Now your customer has decided to make their purchase, and the key is to help them follow through with it.
• Retention – Maximize each existing customer’s value in this stage by helping them decide to stick around.
• Advocacy – At this point, you want to encourage your customers to evangelize your brand to others and help draw more consumers to your store.

It’s important to take a close look at all of those steps and be intentional about what they are so each customer has exactly the experience you want them to have as they shop with you.

You’ll need to know how your customers are finding you, what marketing messages they’re seeing as they browse your store, what products they’re looking for, and how you can help them buy.

Before the sale: awareness, consideration, and acquisition

To attract more customers to your online store, you’ll need to consider ways to increase Awareness. 

Know who you’re talking to

First things first: Before you start setting up ads and posting on social media, you should know who you’re trying to reach within the vast worldwide consumer base. 

Don’t overthink this step. The biggest thing to consider is this: Who would benefit most from the products you’re selling? If you sell home improvement products, the hobby chefs out there probably aren’t buying from you, and so on. 

Figure out where you can reach your target audience 

Once you have a good idea of who you’re trying to reach, the next step is to decide on the best place to get their attention. 

This could be:

• On your social media or via influencer marketing
• With targeted ads on websites or search consoles
• Physical ads posted on similar businesses or community spots
• Through organic searches
  

Or anywhere else where you’ve noticed your intended audience gathering. 

Show people why you’re different

In the Consideration phase, you’re working to snag consumers who know what they’re looking for and have a few different options in mind for where to get it.

At this point, your focus should be on advertising your brand’s value and anything that makes you stand out among your competitors. 

Look at your competitors’ websites and customer reviews to see where they fall short and which gaps you can fill. Then structure your messaging and any retargeting ads you set up to address those shortcomings.

Make sure your brand voice shines through. Let potential customers know that they can trust you, that you offer the best version of the product that they’re looking for, and that you can give it to them for the best price.

Fine-tune your purchase flow

You guessed it, we’re moving on to the Acquisition phase. 

It’s important to make sure any customers who do decide to buy have a smooth, convenient experience placing their order.

That means minimizing pop-ups on your checkout page and excessive fields for the customer to fill out, setting up fast, easy-to-access customer service options, and providing clear instructions to help your customers through the process.

Side note: It’s also worth investigating any abandoned carts you’ve encountered in the past to figure out why the customer left items in their cart and fix those touchpoints. You may be able to prevent lost revenue by addressing these reasons shoppers abandon their carts. 

Your pre-sale e-commerce customer journey checklist

With those steps of the customer journey in mind, here’s your checklist to bring customers to your store during the awareness and consideration phases.

• Clearly define your brand voice so it’s consistent on and off your website.
• Build out detailed descriptions of the customers you want to reach so you know who you’re marketing to.
• Place ads or posts on the social media platforms where your audience spends the most time, and optimize your site for people who are searching for your products online
• Identify your competitors’ weaknesses so you know which value propositions to highlight in your messaging.
• Set up retargeted ads to bring shoppers back to your store.
• Build and optimize your checkout flow to reduce touchpoints that may confuse or frustrate potential customers.

After the sale: retention and advocacy

You’ve done it! Customers are pouring in and sales are soaring. The e-commerce customer journey doesn’t end there, though. 

On to the Retention stage. Now that you’ve got customers buying from you, your goal is to keep them coming back and encourage them to help spread the word about your products.

Continue to engage past customers

Once your customers have found something in your store they love, stay in touch with them. 

Send out emails or SMS (or both) with related products they might be interested in and special deals or coupons.

Set up a rewards or loyalty program

Take the previous tip one step further and incentivize repeat purchases with an ongoing loyalty or rewards program. 

Offer rolling discounts at different purchase milestones or a free gift/free shipping after a certain number of orders.

Gather post-purchase feedback 

You can also boost your brand reputation, engage your customers, and figure out how to improve your services and product offerings all at once by asking your buyers for feedback using a survey.

Alternatively, you can send customers a link to your favorite review site and ask them to post about their experience with your store. To sweeten the deal, you can even offer a small discount once they’ve posted their review.

Use social proof in future posts and ads

Last but not least, let’s address the Advocacy point of the customer journey. 

Once you’ve got feedback and rave reviews coming up about your store, use them to your advantage by quoting your best reviews in future social media posts and ads.

While you’re at it, ask your repeat customers to film a short video testimonial that you can use to draw in more customers. Social proof is powerful because, these days, personal recommendations stand out above the marketing noise consumers constantly see.

Your post-purchase e-commerce customer journey checklist

Once the sales start rolling in, follow these steps to create an efficient retention and advocacy flow that will keep current customers engaged and new ones interested. 

• Design email or SMS campaigns to re-engage past customers.
• Set up and advertise your loyalty program.
• Send out review requests and surveys to customers.
• Gather testimonials and reviews and include them in your posts and ads.

E-commerce customer journey success from A-Z

It may sound overwhelming to think about all the moving parts involved in getting and keeping e-commerce customers. 

If you’ve taken anything away from this advice, I hope it’s that designing an effective customer journey for your e-commerce store isn’t as intimidating or as technical as it sounds.

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Since COVID, contactless delivery options have become more important than ever. 

The convenience of offering delivery is an investment in overall customer experience—and out of 1,920 business professionals surveyed, customer experience was voted their number one priority for at least the next five years. 

This doesn’t come as a large surprise given that 1 in 4 customers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.

And whether waiting for food or a parcel, when it comes to delivery, nothing provides a gold star experience to your customers more than timely communications.

Types of SMS delivery notifications

There are at least five communication touchpoints for every kind of delivery:

1. Order confirmation
   This notification lets the customer know you’ve received their order.
   
   
   Hi Alice! Thank you for ordering with Papa’s Pizza, your order is now with the kitchen and we will let you know when it’s on the way!
   
   
2. Shipping notification
   When the order has left the restaurant or warehouse, the customer should receive a follow-up shipping text message so they know there has been movement on their order.

3. En route updates
   Whether it’s confirmation of a delivery time or a notification about delays, SMS enables you to integrate with your point-of-service tool to keep your customer updated in real time. 

4. Delivery confirmation
   It’s important to let your customers know their parcel or food has been delivered on your end, so that the customer knows they should have received it.
   
   
   Hooray! Your Papa’s Pizza has just been delivered. We hope you enjoy your pizza today! For any delivery issues, please head to:https://txt.st/PQBLPE
   
   
5. Return confirmation
   If a customer has chosen to return something, using SMS is a quick and efficient way to let them know it’s been received. As their money is at stake, customers are usually anxious to ensure returns have been processed correctly.
   
   We’ve got your return! Order #121420 has been successfully returned to our warehouse. Please wait 7-10 business days for a full refund to credit your account.
   
   

Automate Your SMS Delivery Notifications

For larger-scale operations, you could also set up your delivery SMS to send automatically.

Through Zapier, you could trigger a text message when an order is placed on:

• Shopify
• ShipStation
• Shippo
• Shipclou
• Easyship
• BigCommerce
• WooCommerce
• And more!

Optional: Monitor Your Inbox For Replies

Earlier, we mentioned our 2020 Text Marketing report revealed customers want to receive delivery notifications by SMS. 

Our 2022 report also found that the majority of respondents (over 61%) value two-way conversations, and want to have the capability to text businesses back.

If you’d like your customer service to stand out, you can let recipients know that they can reply to your texts if they have any questions. 

With SimpleTexting, all incoming SMS messages are free. Replies will appear in your SMS inbox, where you can sort, snooze, and manage conversations.

Take a look at this on-demand demo. At 2:34, we cover how to message your customers back.

Final thoughts on sending delivery notifications by text

As customers continue to demand higher levels of interaction with retail and e-commerce businesses, texting provides a win-win solution for everyone. 

You save countless hours through automation, and customers receive the real-time updates they crave. SMS is truly the future of good customer communications.

The post The benefits of sending delivery service text messages appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Unfortunately, savvy pirate programmers around the globe have found ways to send phishing text messages to defraud vulnerable folks. 

And just when you think it could never happen to you, think again. At least 68% of people have reported receiving text message spam at least once. 

Thankfully, these scams are not the norm thanks to the tight industry regulations. So the threat of receiving one of the messages shouldn’t discourage you from sharing your number with your favorite brands and businesses. 

But to ensure you’re prepared, we’ll share the hallmark signs of a phishing scam and exactly what you can do to keep your information safe. 

What Is a Phishing Text Message?

A phishing or scam message is a text sent with the intent to trick you into sharing your personal or financial information.

A successful text scam would result in sharing something like your private passwords or account/social security numbers. From there, things like your email, bank, and other personal accounts can be compromised. 

The scammers who send these messages may attempt to chat with you directly. Asking you to share personal information to unlock an account or win a prize. Another approach includes sending a mass message with a link to a spoofed website. Any information you enter via that link can then be compromised and stolen. 

The most severe phishing scams can download dangerous malware onto your phone that mines your data without your knowledge.

Thankfully, you can take your own protective measures.

How Do You Spot a Phishing Text Message?

All of this sounds extremely scary, but there’s a silver lining. As long as these messages are deleted, your information won’t be compromised. All you need to do is spot the signs of a scam before you click or reply. 

To begin, we’ll start with one crucial piece of information. Any business, legitimate or fraudulent, can not send you a text message if you haven’t given your express permission to receive them. 

So if you ever receive a message that has no signs of fraud but is not something you subscribed to, you can always report it and reply with STOP to end the messages. But more on that in the next section. 

To identify a fraudulent text off the cuff, there are a few things you should look out for:

• Promises of free prizes and cash 
• Offers for credit cards or loans. (Especially low-interest ones.) These are illegal to send even if they’re from a reputable financial company. 
• Government-related rebates
• Fake invoices
• Random links to complete a payment 
• Alerts regarding suspicious account activity that ask you to confirm or share personal information
• Package delivery alerts that ask you to set preferences

These messages are always going to be fraudulent (or should not be trusted) as they’re content areas prohibited by law to send.

What Do You Do If You Receive a Phishing Text Message?

There are plenty of resources for text-related issues. And we highly encourage anyone who receives text spam to report it to the proper authorities.

But there are a few things you should do first to make sure your information is protected. 

1. Slow down: Oftentimes, acting too quickly when you receive phishing text messages can result in an error. The scammers want you to feel confused and rushed. So remember to slow down and don’t fall into the trap of providing an immediate response.

2. Don’t click: Never ever (ever) click on an in-message link if you suspect it’s spam.

3. Delete the message: Don’t risk accidentally replying to or saving that content on your phone. If you are reporting the message, feel free to take a screenshot for posterity. But then delete it.

4. Report the spam: You can report any suspected text spam directly to your carrier or the FTC through their complaint assistant.

Information is power, and with it, you have what you need to fight phishing. 

If you want to expand your knowledge and you’re interested in learning more about text message regulations, feel free to explore our SMS compliance guide. It explains the far more common, legal world of text marketing.

The post Here’s How to Spot a Phishing Text Message appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.