Discovering new avenues to communicate with your customers is necessary for today’s ever-shifting marketing climate. Identifying new and effective channels can make a difference in maintaining an edge over your competitors. Studies show that 90% of SMS marketing messages are opened within three minutes, reaching 99% within 20 minutes. It’s no wonder that restaurants, retailers, and top brands like Jack In The Box, Kylie Cosmetics, and Macy’s leverage text messaging to engage their customers, provide value, and generate revenue.
This article is for you if you want to learn more about how to text your customers’ phones using an SMS marketing software provider like Tatango. In this post, we’ll explain why texting is a necessary tool to have in your modern-day marketing app toolbox. We’ll also explain how to text your customers’ phones from your computer and provide three text message marketing examples if you’re new to the topic.
What Is Text Message Marketing and Why Does It Matter?
Text message marketing is a permission-based marketing channel that brands and organizations use to communicate with subscribers who have joined their SMS program. Before receiving messages, customers need to complete an opt-in process that verifies their interest and consent to receive messages. The opt-in process occurs when a customer texts a keyword, for example, JOIN, to a short code, a five- to six-digit phone number. Once the opt-in process is confirmed, the brand can start sending messages to the subscriber’s iPhone or Android phone.
Text message marketing and email marketing are comparable. However, text message marketing subscribers have a higher level of intent because of the channel’s nature and level of opt-ins. If a customer is willing to give a brand their mobile phone number, it’s fair to assume they’re more interested in the brand than the standard customer. As a result, SMS marketing has a significantly higher open rate than other channels, reaching 99% of subscribers within 20 minutes.
Top 3 Reasons to Use Texting
As email marketing has become increasingly saturated, text message marketing has become a valuable marketing asset for many brands. Across all crucial marketing metrics, texting performs better. Whether your customer is an Android user, uses an Android text message, uses an iOS device, or even uses the iPhone messages app, your customer is texting—so why aren’t you? Here are our top three reasons why you should communicate with your customers using texting from a computer.
1. It’s Effective
As mentioned before, texting can attract and maintain customer attention more than other digital marketing methods. From open rates to ROI, SMS defeats Facebook, email, and other notifications on a smartphone. Additionally, texting acts as an “owned” marketing channel. As an owned channel, you can leverage the direct connection and eliminate distractions that customers encounter on other platforms. Instead of competing with their social feed or cluttered inbox, sending an SMS directly to your customers’ iPhone or Android phone is much more effective. This gives SMS an edge other digital marketing channels can’t compete with.
Here are a few statistics to help paint the picture:
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- A MobileSquared report confirms that SMS marketing read rates exceeded 99%.
- The average open rate for SMS messages is a phenomenal 99%.
- 77% of consumers ages 18 to 34 have positive perceptions of brands with texting.
Here’s the latest list of 2020 marketing statistics: 63 Unbelievable SMS Marketing Statistics.
2. It’s Personal
Texting is a permission-based type of marketing, so users who’ve joined your program participate more than they would in other marketing efforts. Think about it. If a customer has given you permission to text message them directly on their iPhone or mobile Android device, they’re interested in what the SMS message has to say. This translates into the ability to take subscribers to a purchase decision better than other channels, without social media distractions in the feed. According to a OneReach survey, 78% of consumers say that text messaging is the fastest way to reach them.
3. It’s Easy to Use
Tatango’s easy-to-use SMS marketing software enables marketers to build, manage, and launch a limitless variety of texting campaigns. And since our software is web-based, you can access it anywhere, anytime from a desktop app. Whether you already have a campaign or you want to create one, Tatango makes it easy to transfer SMS providers and get you up and running. Did we mention that we integrate with more than 20 CRMs? We provide an easy way to implement our SMS app with your existing marketing strategies.
How to Text From A Computer— A Checklist
Now that you understand what text messaging is and why it matters, check out our text marketing checklist if you want to text from a computer.
1. Discover Your Use Case
It’s important to understand how an SMS messaging app can help solve your problem. Typically, the best use cases are businesses that consistently generate recurring revenue every month. Why? Tatango specializes in sending bulk SMS to a large subscriber base for regularly purchased products and services. Check out the following statistics gathered by Vibes to gain a better understanding of which types of industries consumers prefer to receive transactional SMS text messages from on their devices.
Mobile Marketing Consumer Preference Statistics
Percent of consumers who want to receive banking text message alerts: 67%.
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- Think account-based text messages informing customers when a transaction occurs or when their bank balance is too low, or confirming purchases to prevent bank fraud.
Percent of consumers who want text message alerts from retail stores: 64%.
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- Think text message alerts such as purchase confirmations, shipping notices, and in-store product location information.
Percent of consumers who want text message alerts from restaurants: 55%.
- Think text message alerts to confirm that your order has been received or is on the way, or to let you know your table is ready.
Percent of consumers who want travel-related text message alerts: 55%.
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- Think text message alerts about flight changes and delays and hotel check-out reminders.
Tip: If you’re struggling to discover whether your use case is suitable for SMS, ask yourself this:
“Would my customers want to receive weekly text messages from me?”
2. Contact Us
If your use case doesn’t fall within these industries, don’t worry. Text marketing is still an emerging marketing channel, and new use cases excite us. Don’t hesitate to contact our sales team. We’re here to help with short code provisioning, explaining options for pricing, scheduling software app demos, or connecting you with helpful resources. We bring a team of seasoned text message marketing experts located in Seattle. With more than 13 years of experience providing SMS marketing solutions, Tatango helps marketers solve their text message marketing challenges, no matter how difficult.
3. Create An Account With Tatango and Complete User Training
After you’ve contacted us and we determine a good fit, the next step is to create an account with Tatango and complete the user training on your computer. The user training covers all the essential functionalities of our software and brings you up to speed on other aspects. We also provide an account manager who works with you on industry and text messaging best practices
4. Build and Deploy Your Text Messaging Campaign
After you’ve completed the required steps, you can now build and deploy your text message marketing campaign. This is the fun part. Since Tatango complies with industry rules and regulations established by the wireless carriers, we never recommend text messaging customers who haven’t opted into your text message program. Because of this, most programs start from scratch. We recommend advertising your keyword and short code across many forms of marketing: social media, in-store, online, via a QR code, and more. It’s also important to consider how your customers will receive these messages in the iMessage app and Android messages formats.
3 Text Message Marketing Examples
Text messaging is a versatile marketing channel. Craft messages from your computer to promote deals, incentivize dollar spend, and even reward customer purchases. Below, we provide several iPhone text messages examples for each message category. These examples will look the same on an Android phone.
Looking for more examples? Check out SMS Archives! It’s a powerful resource for text message marketers. You can filter your search by message type and more.
Use SMS or MMS Messages to Promote Deals
Use SMS to Incentivize Dollar Spend
Use SMS to Reward Purchases
Tatango—The SMS Marketing Solution For Computer Texting
If you want to text your customers from a Mac computer or Windows PC, consider Tatango’s SMS marketing software. When you work with Tatango, we help you through the onboarding process and establish an SMS gateway with the wireless carriers so you don’t have to. Our computer software app allows you to craft and preview messages in Apple’s iMessage app or in the Android message format so you’ll know exactly what the message looks like before sending them.
A Few of Our Key Capabilities
Below are just a few of our SMS marketing software features and functionality.
- Messaging Workflows: Create virtually any type of text message marketing workflow you can conceive, no coding required.
- Subscriber Segmentation: Subscriber segmentation allows you to send the right text message to exactly the right mobile subscribers.
- Subscriber Analytics: Tatango’s easy-to-use, responsive, and web-based subscriber graphing tools allow you to easily track subscriber trends.
- Subscriber Profiles: With extensive mobile subscriber profiles, Tatango provides essential insights about each text message subscriber.
Get Started with Tatango Today
Ready to get started texting your subscribers? Contact Tatango today to talk through your options. We’re here to help with short code provisioning, explaining options for pricing, scheduling software app demos, or connecting you with helpful resources. We bring a team of seasoned text message marketing experts with more than 13 years of experience providing SMS marketing solutions.
