Use Of Bulk SMS

When speaking to new and potential customers at Text Republic we are often asked what are the benefits of using a bulk SMS service as opposed to the many other forms of marketing that exist. Until now we always stated the benefits as we perceived them and they were generally along the lines of cost effectiveness and speed. However we recently decided to perform a poll, on a sample of our existing customers, to get it straight from them what they felt were the main benefits. Here are the results in no particular order.

1 Marketing Texts

This is the one that most people think of when they think of bulk SMS. Marketing texts can be any notification to your customer base or segment of your customer base with new product information, specials or anything else that you believe will add value for them and prompt them to purchase from you again. Marketing texts are most effective at getting customers to repeat purchase at a very low cost, once they have opted-in to your contacts list. 

2 Notifications

Notification SMS messages tell your customers when they are required to carry out an action. This can be anything from the time to return a book to the library to you being low on credit for your parking account. These can be automated to run in the background and can ensure that you make additional sales or additional savings. All with a quick setup and very small running costs.

3 Automated Reminders

Automated reminders are scheduled to prompt customers to carry out regular activities at a set time each day/week/month/year. These will ensure your customers don’t forget. Without them many businesses would lose out on the revenue from this activity time after time.

4 Vouchers / Loyalty Programmers

With the proliferation of customer options today, customer loyalty is key.

By sending relevant targeted vouchers to customers at key times, such as when they haven’t purchased in x days, you can turn a customer into a life time brand advocate. SMS can offer businesses of all sizes an effective loyalty scheme with no start-up costs. Here’s our infographic on how this might work in practise for a boutique

5 Appointments

Any business that deals with appointments, from doctors to sports coaches, knows of the lost revenue from missed appointments. They miss out on the revenue from the missed person and don’t have enough time to fill the slot again. Especially if the booking is made long in advance, we all know that appointments are easy to forget. Appointments can be made via SMS, then automatic reminders can be sent to the customer beforehand so they won’t forget, and if they can’t make it then you’ll know and can reschedule.

6 Security Authorisation

SMS is a highly effective method of completing quick security checks. Businesses can quickly ensure that they are the owner of the handset or are aware of a potential security threat. This is important for many companies to prevent fraud.

7 Debt Collection

Yet another revenue gaining use of automated Bulk SMS that is separate from marketing text messages. SMS reminders of outstanding bills are the low cost option for many businesses to collect debts. With a 98% open rate, debt text messages will almost always be read. It cannot be filtered on their phone and it carries more weight by text as it is more direct and personal than email. Even small outstanding amounts are viable with SMS as the send cost is so low and customers can be encouraged to pay straight away with a click to call number or a link to the payment website.

8 Enquiry Handling

SMS is a two way channel, so both the customer and your business can communicate with each other. It has proved a quick, direct and hassle-free method for customers seeking information or the resolution of issues. Crucially, it is popular with customers and can prevent them from taking their complaints to social media.

9 Premium SMS Payments

Premium Bulk SMS Service is a quick and well established method of collecting small payments (usually below €3) directly from users phone bills. Typical examples of uses for this are: Competition entries; voting payments; charity donations (remember the ice bucket challenge?); paid alerts; ringtone purchases; mobile game purchases and chat payments.