Starting a small business is one thing and making sure that it succeeds is another. The former is relatively easy to accomplish when you have sufficient funds. However, the success of your business doesn’t solely rely on your finances, which is why achieving this goal is tougher.

SMS marketing is a powerful tool that can help entrepreneurs stand out from the competition, earn more revenues, and gain customers. Short message service or SMS marketing is one form of marketing that uses text messages to send promotions and connect with prospects and existing customers. SMS marketing is fast and gets higher response rates than other marketing channels.

Here’s how you can elevate your small business using SMS marketing:

1.  Provide SMS Customer Support

Gone were the days when customer support was a one-way street in the business industry. Today, customers are expecting businesses to provide more interactive and engaging customer support. 85% of customers who receive SMS from businesses want to have the ability to reply to or engage in a conversation with the brand.

Providing SMS customer support is one of the best ways to elevate your small business using the channel. You can provide this service to your customers by harnessing live chat. Is your customer asking about the availability of your products? Compose a personalized text message with their name and give them details. Are they asking for shipping fees? Inquire about their location and the product they’re eyeing to buy so you can send a ballpark figure.

Being able to respond to your customers via SMS is convenient, which can help improve customer satisfaction. This can also positively influence customers’ purchasing decisions.

2. Send Promotional Broadcasts

Is your business having a sale soon? Are you going to offer discounts and freebies to customers? Invite your audience to patronize your upcoming promotions by sending an SMS. Research shows that more than 90% of recipients will read messages sent through SMS, but only 25% will read emails.

The key to succeeding in sending promotional SMS is writing clear and short messages. Since SMS has limited characters, make sure that your message is straight to the point. Don’t forget to include the link to your online store in the SMS, so recipients can easily click it to buy.

3. Send Date-Triggered Campaigns

Date-triggered campaigns are those meant to be sent when customers are primed to buy. Think about Cyber Monday, birthdays, and anniversary sale reminders. Sending these messages helps your brand connect with your audience at a more personal level and fosters brand loyalty.

Investing resources in creating and sending date-triggered campaigns will surely benefit your small business because 40% of consumers say that they’ll become loyal to a brand that consistently offers personalized shopping experiences.

4. Send Cross-Selling Promotional Messages

For your small business to achieve success in the industry, don’t stop when someone buys from you once. Continue to engage with that customer to encourage them to buy from you again. As an entrepreneur, you should strive to foster brand loyalty among your existing customers.

Sending cross-selling promotional messages is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that your customers remain loyal to your brand. To execute this strategy, identify the last purchase made by your customers and then select at least one product from your store that complements what that customer ordered before. Once you have this information sorted out, create an SMS to promote those complementary products.

For instance, if you’re selling pet products and a customer recently purchased food for puppies, send them an SMS informing them about the availability of puppy milk on your online store. If the customer bought a pair of sneakers from your store, inform them through SMS about your store’s selection of colorful, printed socks.

5. Send Valuable Product or Service Tips

Because fostering brand loyalty requires time, prioritize engaging with your customers after they bought a product or service from your small business. This is something you can do when you use SMS marketing.

Let’s say your small business sells an air fryer. You can set up an SMS marketing campaign to send a message daily for the next three days, starting on the day a customer paid for the product. These messages can include a link to an article discussing all of the meals they can prepare using the air fryer. You can also send messages on how customers can properly clean and store the appliances.

Sending valuable products or service tips via SMS enables your business to provide an excellent after-sales service to your customers. This will surely encourage them to buy from your small business again.

6. Recover Abandoned Carts

You won’t be able to make the most out of your business’s website if most users don’t check out their carts. Abandoned carts can hurt your business’s revenues, which can snowball into bigger problems in the long run.

Another way to elevate your small business using SMS marketing is to use the platform to recover abandoned carts. Encourage shoppers who failed to check out their carts by sending them a text message reminding them about it. Provide details about the products they left on the cart, as this will entice them to continue shopping.

7. Ask for Feedback and Reviews

It’ll be challenging for your small business to grow if you don’t have any idea which strategies are working or not. Without this information, you’ll end up wasting resources on strategies that don’t bring any benefit to your business.

Maximize your SMS marketing campaign by asking for feedback and reviews from your customers. For example, if a customer recently purchased one of your products online, send them an SMS asking about their experience with your shop. Using simple polling with numbers will give a better idea of which areas your small business should improve.

Use SMS Marketing ASAP

SMS marketing can do wonders for your small business, but only if you know how to create and implement a robust marketing strategy. Using a poorly planned SMS marketing campaign for your small business will only put your resources down the drain.

Ensure that your small business enjoys the most benefits from SMS marketing by following all of the tips mentioned here. Knowing how to elevate your small business using SMS marketing can be the key to your business’s long-term success in the industry!