Getting in touch with your customers and sending out marketing messages on a regular basis is critical to any successful business. After all, you need to keep in touch with people to let them know what’s going on, how they can benefit from being customers of your company, and to offer them value through consistent communication. Text message marketing, or SMS marketing is one of the most common ways to do this nowadays. SMS marketing offers flexibility, adaptability, and functionality to both businesses and consumers alike. It’s an easy form of two-way communication that is often used to send important messages. Using an auto responder, or a device that automatically responds to customer inputs, is part of running any successful text messaging campaign.
So the question remains: should you use a text Auto responder for some of your customer communication and marketing strategies? In this article, we will tell you five reasons why you should. Check it out below.
Automatic Responses To Customers
The first and foremost function of an automatic response is to, well, provide exactly that. Using SMS autoresponders helps every customer get a quick response, ultimately helping you solve issues or address pertinent questions promptly. They resemble automated chatbots and can engage to a certain extent with customers. An autoresponder always responds to an input and eliminates manual monitoring/responding on your part. Whether it’s a welcome message, thank you, a form, announcement, or product information, autoresponders essentially remove a great deal of work from your messaging campaigns while providing value to your customers in the process.
Improved Communication
Communication is a two-way street. It’s one of the most vital functions of our society, yet it can be mired in miscommunication and disinformation. You can also be annoying or frustrating to leads and current customers. That’s a problem. The last thing you want to do is isolate or alienate potentially paying customers over pushy, egregious messaging. An autoresponder can help improve communication. When you’re running a text message marketing campaign, the odds are you’re not individually responding to messages. That would be far too time consuming and an exercise and utility. Auto responders can quickly respond to customer inquiries or text messages with a menu prompt, a simple reply, or by sending them a link to the information they need. In this manner, auto responders take a lot of the guest work out of customer service and help you keep the lines of communication open with your entire customer base.
Confirmation Messages
SMS Auto responders are powerful tools for keeping the ties of communication open between your company and the consumer. They’re ideal for sending confirmation Messages, such as confirming a subscription or entry of a contest. Why? Because they allow you to automate the process and ensure that everyone who signs up receives their confirmation message in a timely manner. It’s also useful for scheduling, keeping appointments, setting up meetings with employees, and much more. It’s part of the text messaging tool that transcends marketing emotions, being largely applicable to many other aspects of running your business. A good confirmation message can make a difference making it just another useful tool in your SMS marketing toolbox.
Follow Up Messages
Text messages have a high open rate (especially in comparison to email) which puts them in a unique position to actually reach the customer. Unfortunately, there are plenty of lost opportunities here because marketers don’t always make an attempt to follow up. Follow up messages are ideal when you’re providing a service to the customer. For instance if they ask for a cheap car insurance quote, you can send a follow-up message asking if they need additional information. If they sign up for a coupon, you can send a follow-up to see if they used it. If they buy a product, you can follow up to see how they’re enjoying it. These and other creative ways of following up are facilitated by text messaging software and can help you achieve your marketing goals.
Sweepstakes
Running a sweepstakes is a fun and friendly way to get your customers excited about your business. A sweepstakes is where engagement can really drive brand awareness and get folks interested in your company. Customers can send in something for a chance to win, similar to a contest. But unlike contests it’s more of a raffle or left to blind chance. Sweepstakes are not giveaways and you’re not treated as such. Using your text messaging service, you can set up sweepstakes easily. SMS autoresponders are a great way to run sweepstakes. They allow you to automatically respond to text messages from participants, while making it easy to manage your contest. You can also reach more people along various customer lists to promote the contest more efficiently. This gets the word out more, increases engagement, and allows your customers to participate on a grander scale.
