What are Sales SMS? Best Tools, Significance and Benefits

Sales SMS are the SMS (Short Message Service) sent to customers and led by a company in order to sell their products and services. Through this, you can also send them promotional messages like your recent offers, discounts, new launches, and even any other kind of communication with your customers and leads. This sales method has shown a lot of progress over the years. This is one of the most preferred methods used by companies to create brand awareness and improve their customer relationships. 

SMS Sales – Significance and Benefits 

• A super quick, easy, and convenient method to reach customers.
• Doesn’t require internet connectivity which makes it highly deliverable.
• People have mobile phones with them almost every time hence they can read messages anywhere and in their own time. 
• Sales SMS is a better mobile-driven outreach in comparison to phone calls as people may find phone calls annoying at times and through messages, they can seek their own time to read and respond to messages.
• SMS is more personal to people as its communication between two individuals hence it is more informal. This way businesses can customize and personalize messages according to segmented audiences. They can even add emojis to add more personal touch.
• The delivery time of SMSs is very less, just a few seconds. Hence SMS is the best source of communication if you have a shortage of time. You can send flash sales, limited-time period offers, etc. SMSs have an open rate of 98% making them the most effective modes of communication. Thus SMSs contribute a lot to a company’s revenue.
• SMSs are highly accessible and hence have the highest opening rates. It is more convenient than ever to answer a call.
• In order to increase your sales and expand your business you need to reach a larger audience and bulk SMS helps you to reach a larger audience effectively. And since it has the highest response rates among all other modes of communication it makes your sales grow eventually fostering your business.

Best Sales SMS Practices

• Start with opt-in and opt-out  

Before sending a promotional message to people it’s crucial to take consent from people because it’s illegal otherwise. Therefore always ask people to opt-in before sending them your promotional messages. Also, give them the option to opt-out i.e. unsubscribe as there is no point wasting time on customers who aren’t interested in your products and services at all. 

• Automate many processes

To make your Sales SMS marketing campaigns efficient and successful it’s very important to automate many processes. Users can automate the segmenting of audiences and fix a schedule in which the messages are sent automatically to the customers. Automation makes the whole process streamlined.

• Personalize and customize your messages 

According to a survey, 72% of people prefer promotional messages that are personalized according to their requirements and preferences hence it’s better to send personalized messages to your customers and leads in order to have a boost in the response rates and hence improve business customer relationships.

• A call to action is very important

The ultimate goal of Sales SMS marketing is to get responses from customers and leads. That’s why it becomes very necessary to include a call to action in your messages so that you can get the responses from people and know their feedback and accordingly improve your services. You can include voting, surveys, questionnaires, etc in order to get responses from audiences and know how they are feeling about your brand.

• Give rewards at times possible.

People love rewards. Also, people take an interest in many things if it has the ability to give them rewards. That’s why it’s better to give them rewards at all possible times. The rewards can be in the form of offers, discounts, promo codes, etc. Making rewards valid for a limited time will boost the chances of people buying even more. 

• Understand the importance of correct timing

Timing is very important in dealing with customers. Sending customers with offers and discounts at the beginning of the month will be more effective than sending them at mid or end of the month. Similarly sending them offers during the festive time or their birthdays and anniversaries will be more effective than at off-season. So be very precise in framing your content and sending them with the offers. 

• Be precise in your messages

People generally prefer reading short and precise messages rather than long ones. People generally have a tendency to avoid longer messages. Hence be very apt and precise in framing your message. And try to include relevant information only. Try to frame your messages according to the target audience.

• Understand the relevance of frequency

Don’t irritate your customers and prospects by flooding their inboxes with your messages. This will only compel them to unsubscribe as well as block you. It’s better to send them messages at the appropriate times or at certain intervals so that they don’t get overburdened by your messages. It’s best to automate your messages at fixed schedules.

• Ask for phone numbers in web forms

If you are asking for opt-ins from prospects in web forms then always give an option for their phone numbers so that you can send them SMSs.

• Use Shortcodes or Business Phone Numbers

Don’t use your personal number for texting leads instead use official phone numbers for sending messages to your prospects.

Best Software for Sales SMS

SuiteCRM SMS Campaign

This is one of the leading messaging software made by the CRM industry and it’s the perfect choice for Sales SMS. It consists of three products:

1. Live chat (Click to SMS)
2. Drip SMS (Scheduled/Triggered SMS)
3. Bulk SMS (SMS Blasting).

It is powered by Twilio SMS API which is one of the best cloud communication platforms in the world. Bulk and drip SMSs are sent by keeping all guidelines in consideration.

Features

• It has a live chat where agents and customers can chat. Agents can also interact with multiple customers at a time. You can also send emojis and add pre-built SMS templates to make conversations more appealing.
• It has Drip SMS functionality where you can create SMSs with SMS templates that are scheduled to be sent at fixed times. Based on a customer’s status can add them to the drip sequence.
• There are many pre-built SMS templates and also you can create SMS templates by using drag and drop builder. There is no restriction on the number of SMS templates you can create.
• You can also segment the audiences based on the criteria you set and create a target list audience. 
• Opting out for customers is very easy. If a customer wants to opt out then they can simply send a STOP in the message and they will get opted out. 
• There is no limitation on the number of messages that you can send.
• The agents operating it and sending SMSs to customers will have their own phone numbers and separate user accounts. Also, there is no restriction on the number of agent accounts you can create.
• It has a one-time payment for whichever tool you select.

Salesmate CRM

It is one of the leading CRM software. It helps you with streamlining your sales, customer support process, and marketing. The features offered by it are SMS automation, text scheduling, text reports, bulk text, text pilot, etc. It offers a virtual phone number based on the location so that it is more convenient in different regions. It also has a chat history feature where you can have access to every conversation. You can also get reports of your performance and track it. These features give you the best results for your campaigns. Its text messaging feature provides various options like text conversation, text templates, personalized text, etc. This makes the execution of SMS campaigns very easy. It is available on paid subscriptions.

SimpleTexting 

This is a texting application that offers a two-way texting feature to its users. It is used for business texting. Through this, you can automate your text messages, resolve customers’ queries using triggers, and schedule and send bulk messages. You can import contacts and send them messages. It improves overall productivity. It is available on paid subscriptions.

Freshworks CRM

It offers many other features apart from text messaging like you can send individual, bulk, and automated messages. Users can configure their own contact list and send SMSs accordingly. Users can also sync contacts. It helps you in automating your SMS campaigns. It is available on paid subscriptions.

Close CRM

Close CRM helps you to automate your bulk messages using API. It centralizes meaningful messages so that you can read and respond to messages without leaving your inbox. Close CRM also gives you an instant insight into your entire team’s activity which helps you in analyzing and improving your performance. It is available on paid subscriptions.

Conclusion-

In order to increase customers, conversion of leads to customers, increase brand awareness and ultimately ROIs businesses should not only rely on Email marketing they should also opt for SMS and MMS marketing. As these are on mobile which is always there with people and also these don’t require an internet connection. It has numerous advantages therefore businesses should use it for their promotional purposes.