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How to set up text alerts for your business
From urgent notifications to marketing updates: text alerts can be incredibly beneficial to businesses. In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to set up text alerts for your business.
What do you do when you want to share important information with many people really fast? You probably don’t start calling people one by one or sending them emails they might not have access to right away. You send a text message!
That’s true for private communication as it is for businesses. The fastest and most convenient way to reach your customers is through text alerts. But how to set up text alerts for your business? What are the best tools for this? And how can your text alerts cut through the noise? We’ll share tips, best practices, and use cases.
What are text alerts?
A short message service (SMS) alert, or text alert, is a brief message that businesses send out to customers and employees to inform them of something relevant. Unlike a push notification that is sent through a non-native smartphone app that users have to download, text alerts end up in the SMS inbox everyone already has on their mobile phone.
Some might think of a text alert mainly as an urgent notification like a bad weather alert. However, there are various use cases for businesses to use text alerts and even more benefits.
Why businesses benefit from text alerts
Broad reach
Let’s say you want to notify customers of an online flash sale. Or, you want to send out appointment reminders or shipping notification. Or, you want to get an urgent update out to your staff. All you have to do is send out one text message, and it’ll immediately goes to everyone’s phone at once. It’s also your best bet to reach people in more remote areas.
Full attention
Text alerts end up on a user’s phone, typically on their locked screen. That puts your message front and center. People also love to engage with text messages. SMS have a whooping open rate of 98% and 80.5% of Americans read their messages within five minutes of getting them. Being able to reach people on the go and on a channel they immediatly engage with offers your business a unique way to get your message across and engage customers.
Efficiency
Sending one short SMS and reaching many people simultaneously is the definition of efficient communication. For businesses, this is about as quick, easy, and cost-efficient as it gets.
Personalisation
50% of consumers say they would ignore a message if it wasn’t personalised. But how do you personalise a bulk message? With the right tool! Businesses can use professional text messaging services for SMS alerts that’ll allow you to combine the best of both worlds: scaling your messaging and personalizing the content.
Peace of mind
When sending out text alerts, the “read” receipt immediately shows you if and when someone has seen your message. Especially in urgent situations, this adds an extra layer of peace of mind. Text messaging tools also allow you to get insights on open rates, link clicks, and much more
Top use cases for SMS alerts
Text alerts can really come in handy for a variety of use cases.
Planning an online flash sales this weekend? Or maybe, you’re offering a special upgrade deal to loyal customers? Let them know about it with a text alert! If you integrate your CRM system with your SMS alerts, you can even personalize the texts and reach better conversion rates.
Appointment reminder
When customers don’t show up for an appointment, it disrupts your business. At the same time, a client might have simply made an honest mistake and mixed up the dates. Text alerts can help! They’ll remind customers of their appointments and cut down on no-shows for your business. You can also automate these reminders to be even more efficient.
Urgent updates
Unforeseen things happen. There’s a snowstorm that’s delaying your customers’ trip or you had to close your office due to a water damage? Simply send out a quick SMS alert to notify everyone.
Staff communication
If you’re looking for an efficient way to reach your employees, SMS alerts are the way to go. No matter if they work from home, on the road, or in different offices: a text message will keep them updated about the latest company news.
Want to put the power of SMS alerts to work?
We’ll show you how to get the most out of SMS alerts with Sinch MessageMedia.
How to set up text alerts for your business: Defining goals
As effective as text alerts are, it’s important to take a moment to define a strategy before you start mass texting your customers. Assess your needs and goals and set up a plan for your alerts.
- Map out your business goals. Define what you want achieve by sending out alerts and track results.
- Clarify what type of text alert you want to send out. Don’t try to do too much at once! Start with your main use case, test it, and scale from there.
- Define your target audience and cater the content accordingly.
- Think about how often and when do you want to send alerts and? Run tests to see what time and frequency works best for your audience.
How to set up text alerts for your business: Choosing the right text alert system
Choosing the right text alert system goes hand in hand with defining your goals. Once you know what you want to achieve with your text alerts, you can look for a system that offers the right features. Here are some ideas what to look for:
- Automation: Can you schedule text alerts or even automate responses (appointment reminders, abandoned cart reminders, etc.)?
- Two-way conversations: Mass messaging customers is only the first step. But what happens if customers reply? You want to make sure your text alert system also supports conversational messaging via two-way conversations.
- Integrations: If you’re already using CRM or messaging tools such as Zoho or Hubspot for your customer communication, double-check if your text solution can be easily integrated into existing systems.
- Scalability: Does the system allow you to easily scale your messaging? You might be surprised, but customers love to interact with businesses through texts, so you’re likely to look for ways to scale your messaging soon once you get started.
- Reporting: Does the tool give you insights into user behavior? Can you see delivery rates, click-through-rates, or conversion rates? Especially if you’re considering using SMS for marketing, these are must-haves in a tool!
- Ease of use: How fast can you get started? How intuitive is the user experience on the platform? Do you have templates available that let you get started right away?
- Support: How is the customer support for the text alert tool? Especially when you send out alerts to many people, you always want to make sure that you can turn to someone in case something goes wrong.
How to set up a text alerts for your business in five steps
With Sinch MessageMedia, sending text alerts is as easy as it can get.
Simply follow these five steps:
- Sign up for an account
- Once logged in, select ‘New Campaign’ from the menu
- Add phone numbers by exporting a spreadsheet or uploading a contact list
- Write your text notification in the Message Contact field
- Include an unsubsribe option
- Hit send
That’s it!
How to get started with text alerts for your business: Best practices for getting your message across
When you send out notifications to customers, the last thing you want is for people to ignore it. Follow these tips when sending updates to make sure every message is seen.
Introduce yourself
Show your customers you’re legit with a number they can recognize or an alpha tag. Or, clearly state who you are in the text itself.
Keep it concise
Texts alerts should be short and to the point, especially if they’re relaying urgent information. That said, it’s a fine balance — you don’t want to be so succinct that you leave out any important details. The best length also depends on your audience. An alert you send to a business partner can be longer than an e-commerce alert for shoppers.
Use shortened URLs
If you can’t fit all the information into a text, add a link that sends people to a website where they can find out more. This could help reduce the burden on your call center — which can get overwhelmed during times of crisis.
Don’t be a spammer
Avoid any behavior or messaging that could be construed as spammy. In other words, respect your customers’ preferences and only mark something as “urgent” if it is. Ensure that the alerts you send are wanted (always gather opt-ins first!) and add value for your customers.
Follow the rules
Keen to avoid costly fines? Brush up on the rules around sending text messages to customers.
Test, measure, repeat
And finally, don’t be afraid to try things out. What’s the best time to send alerts? What links convert best? What content gets read? You won’t know until you try it out. Make sure to measure and track your results to see how you can improve.
