Short message service (SMS) is a tool that can help marketers connect with prospects and customers in a direct and personal way. While it’s easy for prospects and customers to create filters in their inbox to avoid marketing emails, ignoring SMS is difficult. A report, Conversational Advertising, notes that 90% of SMS texts get read in three minutes of their delivery. And according to another finding by GomoNews, a Mobile and Telecom News site, using SMS, brands successfully reach 95 percent of smartphone and non-smartphone users. These statistics reiterate the fact that SMS is a powerful tool in a marketer’s arsenal.
To make SMS marketing more compelling and engaging, marketers like you build their SMS marketing strategy around CRM data. Vtiger CRM integrates with various SMS gateways such as Clickatell, IndiaSMS, Twilio, and more . Since all customer related information is already present in Vtiger, you can use this customer information to provide exclusive offers and personalize SMS texts. And with autoresponder SMS campaigns, your customers can even send SMS replies to further specify and navigate through the content that they’re most interested in learning about.
With Vtiger and SMS gateway integration you can:
Send the right message at the right time:
Promotional SMS messages should always be sent to consenting recipients only during the business hours. For blasting a bulk SMS campaign, Vtiger lets you segment target audience based on time zone to ensure that the recipients receive the message only between 9 AM and 9 PM. Further, with Vtiger workflows, you can schedule SMS messages to be delivered on a specific day and time. This way, you can experiment with different message delivery timings to decide what time drives maximum engagement. Vtiger workflows also allow you to automatically trigger SMS messages for certain actions. For instance, as soon as a lead record is created in Vtiger, a welcome SMS message can be triggered.
Grow email list:
SMS messages have a higher open rate of 98% compared to emails which have an open rate of 22%. So, you can use this opportunity to grow the opt-in email list. For instance, in the welcome email, you could ask your customer to opt-in to email list to get exclusive discount. In the SMS message, you could share a link that that redirects to email opt-in page or ask recipients to simply reply with email address.
Build loyal customer base:
Keeping a constant touch with customers is key for building a long term relationship. And with exclusive personal messages, SMS marketing helps in boosting this relationship with customers. For instance, marketers can create a special SMS campaign to offer discount codes to most active customers. With personal welcome messages on signing up for service, thank you messages after purchase, wishes for special occasions, exclusive promotional offers, and contest invites, marketers can always keep customers engaged with the brand. This personal, quick and easy communication with customers eventually builds customer trust and loyalty for the brand.
Want to setup SMS gateway in Vtiger? Read the documentation. For any further assistance, write to us at [email protected].
