Due to the changes that we have had to implement during the COVID-19 crisis, communication has quickly evolved. Schools are using Business Texting Services to communicate efficiently with families and keep records of conversations. Since many schools have been faced with having to temporarily close schools and end the academic year early, they have been faced with changing the venue in which they conduct classes to a virtual environment.

In the last few months, the traditional classroom setup has shifted to online lessons and virtual learning. The current situation has paved the way for remote teaching, which may sound convenient to some. However, many educators are left unprepared and haven’t been able to cope with the sudden changes. They are still looking for the best venues where they can meet their students and conduct their lessons effectively.

Although virtual classrooms are not something new, it can take some time to familiarize their features. Of course, there is a wide range of impressive online communication channels to choose from, but you have to learn how to use them in creating an engaging virtual classroom experience. With that, here are seven ways to help you create interactive online learning for your students.

Partnering with a company that offers business texting services is the way to go to digitize communication and have the ability to schedule when messages are sent to ensure that parents and students are aware of all updates.

Let’s go over 7 Ways to Use Business Texting Services for Virtual Classrooms.

1. Establish the Online Communication Channels to Use

The number of available online communication venues can be overwhelming. So before starting your formal classes, you first need to choose which platforms work best for you and your students. For example, you can use Google Meet for class discussions, Hangouts and business texting services for daily SMS messaging, and Google Classroom where you can post assignments, schoolwork, announcements and updates.

The students need to know the purpose of every platform you use to avoid confusion. You are using more than one channel, which means it can get messy if you are not properly organized. You also need to establish a schedule for your meetings, deadlines of assignments and projects, and your availability for consultations. Additionally, you have to set guidelines when you are inside the virtual classrooms.

2. Plan Your Virtual Classes with Business Texting Services

Just like in conventional classroom learning, you have to make a plan for your online classes. It involves the lessons that students need to learn every week, related activities that students should do after the online class, test dates, and other activities for learning enrichment. You can create a schedule board and post it on the online learning platform where everyone can see it. Sending text messages with your business texting services to remind students and parents of scheduled online classes and assignments is the best way to ensure that instructions are clear to all. Sending updates and reminders regarding attendance and submitted tasks will also help you keep track of your students’ performance.

3. Take Advantage of Online Educational Tools

At first glance, virtual classrooms can look intimidating. But once you know how they work, you’ll be grateful for their innovations. One thing that makes them helpful is the availability of interactive tools. You can include presentations, graphs, slide shows, videos, and games in your virtual classes for a more engaging learning experience for the students.

Aside from that, you are free to experiment on other features to increase the engagement between you and the students. You can do them through your class discussions, group works, and individual activities.

4. Create a Backup Plan

Technical issues in virtual classrooms can happen from time to time, and sometimes, you have no way of fixing them. It’s for that reason why a backup plan is necessary. They can cause trouble unexpectedly, which messes up your lesson plan. Before anything goes into shambles, prepare a support plan on the side. You need to let your students know how to get in touch with you in cases when unforeseen technical problems arise.

5. Use Multimedia for Student Work or Online Teaching

One of the best things about virtual classrooms is the easy integration of multimedia or web content to your online learning setup. You have the option to use different kinds of medium such as images, videos, graphs, diagrams, and slide presentations. Employing multimedia in your teaching style can improve the learning process if you do it correctly. But you also need to consider the preferences and needs of your students to ensure that they can cope with your classes well.

6. Share Recordings of Your Online Classes with Business Texting Services

Another advantage of virtual classrooms is allowing you to record the virtual classes, which you can create and share as online resources. The students can use the recordings for tutorials and reviewers for upcoming examinations. The recordings can also serve as your class history that you can refer to if you have forgotten something. Although taxing, you can create transcripts for every recorded file for easy reference.

7. Ask Your Students for Feedback with Business Texting Services

Don’t forget to ask for your students’ feedback, especially if you doubt the effectiveness of the online learning experience. You can ask them after the discussions or through a poll or use your business texting services to send a link to a survey that you can post on your virtual classroom. Remember to take their comments constructively and use them to improve your classes in the future.

Friendly Reminders

The transition to virtual classrooms is an immediate change, and many educators are still new to such setup. It’s going to take some time to adapt to the new learning environment, so first tries don’t always work the way we want it, and that’s fine. Don’t pressure yourself too much and just do the tips to make online learning a much better and more engaging experience.

Takeaway

Adapting to changes is only as seamless as you structure it and when you use business texting services you are adding a layer of efficiency that is both fast and convenient. For schools who are interested in partnering with a company that offers an SMS platform but are not sure how to implement it, Text My Main Number offers free training. You can also take advantage of the 14-day trial to test how effective this communication channel will be in conjunction with your setup of virtual classrooms.

COVID-19 has completely changed the way we live our lives. It has forced us to find rely more on technology and utilize digital tools such as Business Texting Services to expedite communication. We have been forced to be flexible to the alternative ways of doing things and more creative ways of getting things done.

One of the most notable changes people–those involved in recruitment in particular–had to go through has to do with the hiring process. With social distancing measures being undertaken everywhere, businesses and chambers of commerce could no longer hold hiring events or career fairs. Well..not in person.

The solution? Virtual career fairs.

Benefits of Virtual Career Fairs

For job seekers, virtual career fairs can be a highly convenient way to look for work. It does not require you to wake up at the crack of dawn or wait in long lines for a chance to get an interview. For businesses, here are the biggest benefits of going virtual when seeking new hires:

Cost-effective and Efficient

Holding an online event typically does not cost as much as running an actual hiring event in a physical venue. But just like an event in a physical venue, you can also run an online hiring event over several days, so you will have access to a good number of candidates.

A virtual event also allows you to set specific filters and criteria so you will not have to sift through countless applications; the most relevant ones will be given to you. This means the resumes of all the best candidates, based on your specified requirements, will be at your fingertips within seconds.

High Attendance and Diverse Applications

When you host a career fair at a physical venue, the applicants you are likely to get are limited to those who live within the vicinity. With a virtual fair, however, you are likely to get applicants even from the other side of the world. Having a diverse set of applicants gives you the advantage of being able to choose from candidates with varying backgrounds and skills sets. This means you will have a much better chance of finding the perfect person for the job in extraordinarily little time.

Communicating with various potential candidates from different parts of the country or world is best managed by using a business texting service that can archive and mange multiple conversations simultaneously.

Opportunity to Build a Candidate Base

When you’re looking through resumes of people from a wide array of backgrounds, you just might find a few who may not be right for the position you’re currently looking to fill, but who would be a perfect addition to your team at some point. Hosting a virtual career fair gives you a chance to create a database of well-rounded candidates whom you could contact at any time in the future, should you have a job, which you feel would be the perfect fit for them.

Hosting Your Very Own Virtual Career Fair

So, now that you know why virtual career fairs are an excellent idea, how exactly do you go about hosting one? Here are some guidelines…

Choose the right platform

No matter how simple or elaborate your career fair is, you will have to make sure you use the right platform. There are numerous one’s for you to choose from, and the most basic of these is perhaps Zoom. This platform allows for interactive sessions and smaller groups. If you are looking for a more advanced platform, you would likely prefer high-end options like Brazen, which offers features such as pre-screening, chat scheduling, and video presentations.

Once you have chosen the most fitting career fair platform, you can send an invitation link using your business texting services. You can then manage attendance by referencing responses on the admin panel.

Map out your budget

The number of attendees you expect and the kind of features you want in a platform are perhaps the biggest factors that would determine the budget for your career fair. You may have to shell out anywhere from $8,000 to $80,000, but your total expenses would most definitely be just a fraction of what you would spend on a physical hiring event.

Customize your virtual booth

Get creative with how you present your virtual booth to potential partners and attendees. Choose the format and the information you want to display very carefully. Think about how you would present a physical booth and try to translate that into the online version. If you don’t have any design experience, don’t fret. Many online platforms have templates you can choose from, both for your welcome area and for the individual booths.

Promote your event

The whole point of hosting a virtual career fair is to open job opportunities to as many qualified candidates as possible. How can you do that if you do not tell people about the event well in advance? And what is the best way to let people know about stuff these days? Social media. Put out announcements on the most popular social media platforms if you want to draw attention to your event.

Monitor the event

Make sure you set the platform’s features such that it will keep a record of how many people registered for the event, how many actually attended, how many candidates got interviews, how many actually got hired, and other pertinent details. These details will determine how much of a success your event was.

Follow up

Bear in mind that your work is not done when the career fair ends. Remember that you now have a pool of talent, and you can start scouring this pool for candidates who may be perfect for specific positions that need to be filled. At the very least, you could send the best candidates a “Thank you for attending” email to show that they have caught your attention and deliver the promise of future contact if you do find the right job for them.

They say storm clouds always have a silver lining, and one of the silver linings of the COVID-19 storm is that it can bring out our creativity. So, start letting those creative juices flow and plan your virtual career fair now.

To learn more about implementing business texting services to enhance your recruiting methods, feel free to visit our blog for the latest articles on the benefits of business texting services. Please try out our SMS platform for free and if you have any questions or need training, we are here to help you. Just contact us and the Text My Main Number team will be here to walk you through the process.

How Salons Can Use SMS Marketing During COVID-19

The Coronavirus pandemic has drastically changed life around us. This unprecedented change has caused all of us to rethink how we spend our lives, and many of us are having a hard time coping. Apart from household consumers, businesses have felt the heat of the situation too.

Because of restrictions related to the pandemic, businesses have had to prioritize business operations. One of the core functions of any company that hopes to earn revenue is their marketing strategy. The passage of time has taught brands how active and influential marketing can be the deciding factor in their success.

But with that being said, there are also no two opinions about the fact that COVID-19 has severely damaged marketing strategies around the globe. A brand’s marketing strategy is often surrounded by the goal of them promoting their products or services.

Different brands use different communication channels to interact with their consumers. Of course, communicating with your consumers through channels that resonate the most with them is always a sensible decision. But what would you do if COVID-19 has made your preferred communication channel useless?

Has COVID-19 Changed Marketing?

Many brands prefer advertising through the out-of-home channel by using billboards and direct marketing techniques, but due to COVID-19, the out-of-home channel is now useless. Restrictions around the world have caused people to stay at home.

The same can be said for brands that relied on radio to promote their products, but now that no one is driving their cars to work, the number of people listening to radio stations has drastically reduced. But with that being said, it’s trying times that genuinely differentiate a winner from a loser.

Changing the direction of your marketing efforts can still save your business from drowning in the despairs of debt, and this is where SMS Marketing comes into the picture. There’s no doubt about the fact that SMS marketing for business provides one of the biggest audience reaches in the world, and in times like these, it can be ideal for any brand.

SMS Marketing helps salons and spas improve their relationships with frequent clientele, create appointments, and promote their discounts. In times like these, the use of business texting services for salons has become much more relevant because people are spending a lot more time using their phones.

Now, there’s a much higher chance that your targeted customers will see your text message, but how exactly do you use SMS marketing for your salons?

Ways Salons Can Use SMS Marketing

In the past few years, salon managers have adopted many techniques to promote their businesses, but none have been as effective as SMS marketing. Business texting services give salon managers and marketers the power of direct communication into their hands.

Not only can they communicate with a broader audience more easily because of SMS marketing, but they can also send personalized texts to customers who they know require their services. For example, you know Brian has a habit of getting a haircut after three months. It’s been three months since he visited your salon, so you text him a discount code, that makes him change his mind and visit your salon.

Appointment Reminders and Confirmations

The most prominent advantage salons get from SMS marketing is the ability to communicate with their customers instantly. Because of business texting services, salons don’t have to call up customers or send them emails for the confirmation of their appointments.

Because of COVID-19, people are reluctant to leave their homes too, so you can’t expect them to pass by your salon and be reminded of their appointment with you. In situations like these, a simple text message can do the job. SMS Marketing ensures that your customers are frequently notified about their appointments.

Notifications

Another added advantage of SMS software is that you can provide your customers with notifications about all kinds of factors related to your business. During COVID-19, you can never know when there might be a need to close your salon and practice social distancing because the worst has happened.

In a situation like this, a simple text to your customer notifying them that you are closed for the day can save them a lot of time. They’ll also think that you’re a responsible business and this will, in turn, increase their trust in you. The best part about SMS marketing is the minimal costs associated with it. It gives you complete advertising value for a negligible cost.

Customer Relationships

Apart from helping your business grow, SMS for businesses can also help you build relationships with your customers. During COVID-19, you can send your customers helpful texts that inform them how to take care of themselves and how they should be practicing social distancing.

You can also send them personalized greetings on special occasions; this makes customers think that you are thinking about them, and it also increases brand recall. In times like these, when advertising efforts are more of a miss than a hit, having high brand recall can mean well for your salon.

Increases Revenue

Of course, we all know that SMS marketing can help salons promote their products or services, but at the end of the day, it comes down to revenue. A well-informed consumer has a higher chance of making a purchase than a customer who does not know about your brand. When a customer is well informed, they are more confident to make a decision, and this means increased revenue for you.

Conclusion

During COVID-19, it is imperative that you keep yourself up to date with the latest marketing strategies to help your salon grow. COVID-19 has left many marketing efforts meaningless, but SMS marketing is not one of them. If you want your salon to stay relevant when people are practicing social distancing, SMS marketing is the way to go. Get started today with a free 14-day trial of our SMS business texting services!

How HVAC Technicians, Electricians and Landscapers Can Use SMS Marketing During COVID-19

As humans, we’ve all been impacted by COVID-19 in one way or the other. Whether this means worrying about your elderly parents or the well-being of your children, we’ve all been worried about the worst at some point. Some of us have had to change our travel plans, and some of us have to stock up on the essential items we will need to survive working from home.

As an HVAC technician, electrician, or landscaper, you might be seeing fewer customers. People have now started to limit their social interactions, which may have hurt your business’s revenue. Apart from limiting social interactions, people have also changed their travel plans and leisure plans and have started to focus entirely on staying healthy and safe.

While this may be the ideal scenario for people who are trying to stay safe from COVID-19, it has severely impacted small businesses. Unless you’re selling toilet paper or hand sanitizer, your business is likely to have been impacted due to COVID-19.

Because of COVID-19, not only have revenues dropped, but expenses have started to increase too. Resources that were readily available in usual conditions are now getting scarce because an increasing number of people are practicing social distancing.

We know we’re living in trying times, but every challenge can be met with the right mindset. The virus and how it has impacted the global economy will go down in history books, but so will our determination to fight back. As business owners, we have to rethink our marketing strategies, because COVID-19 has made us re-evaluate our marketing efforts.

While many marketing communication channels promise a broad range of customers you can interact with, none come close to the potential SMS marketing has. But how can SMS marketing help your business?

HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) Technicians

We all want a reliable way to grow our businesses without spending too much money; that’s why so many heating and air conditioning companies have started texting their customers. If you or your agency has set up a Google Listing so that customers can find you easily, you should also add a messaging option to your listing.

To start messaging your customers, all you need is a cellphone number, and you’re good to go. You can also add a text messaging feature to your business so that customers can text you easily. Apart from adding a messaging option on your listing, you can also add a floating click-to-text button on your website. This ensures that you connect with your customers on their phones.

To put it simply, a click-to-text button is a feature that goes on your website, and it only appears on mobile devices. If a customer taps on it, they are shown a number on which they can text you. You can customize how this button looks, and it’s usually found on the bottom of a web page. Another useful option is Adwords message extensions.

This feature can help your ad gain better visibility on web pages, and it also gives your ad an optimized call-to-action. Like a click-to-text button, customers that click on this will have the option to text you, and you can also prompt your customers into booking an appointment.

For example, “Need to get HVAC work done? Text us to know our business hours!”   

Landscapers

The way customers found landscaping services has changed in the last few years, and so has the way customers prefer to communicate. Using SMS marketing, landscapers can schedule appointments or increase the number of inbound leads they are gathering for their businesses.

SMS marketing also allows landscapers to send out promotions and discounts that they are offering. Customers are less likely to pick up a call, and they won’t check their email if they aren’t connected to the internet. But a text message is less intrusive, and there’s a high chance your customer will interact with you this way.

If you put a click-to-text button on your website, your customers can reach you far more quickly than them waiting for your response via email. You can also use SMS marketing to remind your customers about upcoming bill payments. Not only will this help your business receive payments on time, but it will also save your customers from late payments that ruin their credit score.

You can also send your customers an online link for payments; this way, they can make payments quickly. Another feature you can add to your website is click-to-text embed. A click-to-text embed opens up a text box whenever it is tapped on. You can also track how many customers have clicked on your embedded link through Google analytics.

This can help you determine if this feature is working well or not.

Electricians

The older way of reaching out to your customers and colleagues was an email for the electrical worker union. The problem with emails is that they don’t work well because most of them get lost into inbox badlands, never to be found.  

SMS marketing, on the other hand, focuses on a medium of communication that is the most direct and has the largest number of people connected to it. Using business texting services, businesses can gather customers who search for electricians online.

A simple click-to-text feature on your Google listing ad can make a huge difference. This way, your website can convert a lot of these searches into leads. Using SMS for business, follow up on quotes and service requests. Strong follow up with your customer can get you updates when your electrician has arrived on-site, and to do this, you won’t have to tie up your phone lines.

SMS marketing can also help you get feedback and reviews from your customers, and the feedback your business has received from past customers means a lot to potential customers. Moreover, you can also use SMS marketing for businesses to send your customers your latest promotions.   Want to give business texting a try? Contact us with you any questions you may have on using an SMS platform for your business.

How Food and Hospitality Services Use SMS for Attracting More Customers

81% of all consumers search for restaurants on their cell phones. When you talk about a marketing service that promotes a specific business to a segmented target base of customers – the mode of delivery is essential. The mode of delivery you choose for your business’s marketing strategy can necessarily make or break your marketing efforts.

With that being said, it is vital that the mode you choose resonates well with your consumer – and this is where SMS wins. When was the last time you saw someone who did not own a cellphone? While there may be doubts about its effectiveness, when it comes to SMS marketing, no other channel of marketing has a larger customer base.

The median cost to open a restaurant right now is over $370,000. With such astronomical costs, no business owner would want their marketing efforts to be scrawny. Most restaurant and hospitality service owners prefer SMS marketing because let’s face it; our smartphones aid every decision we make.

If you’re deciding to eat out with your friends, you’ll probably jump on Yelp to look for possible options. Some of us are so intertwined with our phones that we browse through social media while eating. It’s safe to say – SMS is the perfect channel to get the most attention from your potential customers.

What Is SMS Marketing?

SMS Marketing (short message service marketing) is a marketing strategy that utilizes permission-based text messaging to promote anything. Customers opt-in to receive text messages by texting an initial keyword to your business phone number.

When the customer texts a keyword to your business phone number, their number is saved by the SMS provider, and after receiving the confirmation message, the customers start receiving promotional messages. Generally, the goal of SMS marketing is to increase the customer base and generate potential leads.

Believe it or not, but 60% of customers prefer SMS marketing compared to email marketing or push notifications. Even though no other marketing channel has a broader range of audience, your SMS marketing efforts can be highly targeted.

Several business texting services allow business owners to target a specific set of customers that are relevant to their business. While everyone would want to market their product or service to as many people as they can, focusing on a defined segment saves costs for businesses and can also churn out better results.

How Do Businesses Do It?

Most people open a text message within 15 minutes of receipt, and on average, 16 percent of all offers shared with customers via text message are redeemed in restaurants. While that number might not seem massive, it is impressive when you compare it to other marketing channels. With conversions that happen so often, and so quickly, what are restaurant owners and hospitality service providers doing, right?

· Menu Offers

Apart from blatant promotion, SMS software also provides restaurant owners with a great way to inform their customers about any changes to the menu or any price cuts. Because it isn’t too hard to craft an SMS, you have the ability to update your customers quickly. Not only are quick updates profitable to your business, but customers love to stay updated about their favorite restaurant’s menu too.

· Discount Coupons

Who doesn’t enjoy discounts? One of the most common ways of engaging customers is by sending them customized text messages about exclusive offers and discounts. Business owners have the option to send bulk messages that are customized to a specific customer. Studies suggest that when a text is personalized to a customer (for example, it starts with their name), the customer is much more likely to open that text.

Not only do discount coupons mean well for your consumers, but they also mean well for your business. A single discount offer can change a bad day to a good day of business. While the profit margin might have been reduced, the number of customers that pile in to avail a single offer can be astounding at times.

· You Can Retain Customers Through Reminders

SMS marketing also allows you to send constant reminders about your business operations to your existing customer base. It is vital to your business’s success that your customer is aware of you and what you do. This increases brand recall and hence, increases the chance of the customer visiting your restaurant.  

A reminder does not always have to be simple; you can also send your customer’s customized greetings on special occasions that can delight them. A common tactic that businesses use to attract lost customers is that they send non-active customers customized discounts that are specifically for them.

· Feedback

One of the foremost uses of SMS for business is gathering customer feedback. While SMS is an excellent tool for marketing your business, it doesn’t always have to serve that purpose. Feedback is an essential part of doing business. It helps businesses improve, and no one can give better feedback on your product than a customer who willingly paid for your product or service.

SMS is an excellent way of collecting feedback from your customers. Soon after the customer has left your restaurant, you can send them a text message asking for feedback on various factors. This method is much less intrusive than asking for feedback in person and much more effective. How many times have you lied to a person to their face just because you did not want to hurt their feelings?

Conclusion

Restaurants these days are now using multiple marketing channels to promote their brand and attract new customers. Because our mobile phones play a massive part in our lives, no one can put a cap on how successful SMS marketing can get. Different needs and different wants might change the way we look at business texting services, but there are no doubts – SMS marketing is here to stay. So, if you’re a restaurant owner or manager that is interested in a free trial of our SMS platform for restaurants, contact us today!

How Can SMS Marketing Be Used in Elections?

It was former president Barack Obama who used the SMS Marketing technique for his political campaigns. It was back in 2008 that the former president reached out to almost 3 million Americans through text messaging. Since then, bulk SMS swiftly secured his position in political campaigning.

SMS marketing is an effective tool for political campaigns. It is an economical way to reach out to a large number of people. Many people tend to stay away from all things political. They don’t take out time to read about the manifesto of different political candidates and parties. With text messaging, there are higher chances of your message being read.

Why Should You Use SMS Marketing for Your Political Campaigns

For candidates, it is virtually impossible to hold a large number of rallies or to conduct a door-to-door campaign and reach out to millions of people. Candidates use other channels such as Op-ed pieces, podcasts, or TV appearances, to spread their message far and wide. In today’s time, however, this is also an obsolete way of marketing.

Today, most people don’t spend much time watching TV or listening to a podcast. They are also quite lazy when it comes to reading formal Op-ed pieces. But, the same people are responsive to text messages and spend a considerable amount of time on their phones. This is why many candidates – whether running for presidency or other position – are now using the benefits of SMS marketing to reach out to their voters.

In addition, the political environment of any country is fast-paced. Decisions are taken in a blink of an eye and politicians find it necessary to let their supporters know what their stance is regarding a particular situation.

How Should You Opt for SMS Marketing

You cannot use your number to send bulk SMS to your supporters. What you should do is to hire a service provider who can take care of your messaging needs. Then, draft a message that you are considering to send to your supporters.

You might be sending a message with a proper call-to-action as well. For that, make sure that you provide complete information to your supporters so that they know what they can do if they are willing to act. When writing messages, make sure that your message is short and crisp. Even though people are responsive to text messages, they don’t appreciate lengthy messages. 

How Can SMS Marketing Be Used in Elections

Political campaigns should embrace the change that society has to offer. During the period when the TV was in its infancy, campaigns were run on the TV to reach out to a large number of people. Now that a large number of Americans have mobile phones of some kind, it is understandable why people should use this effective tool to communicate with their supporters. In this section, we’ll have a look at some of the best practices of politicians when it comes to reaching out to their supporters via text messaging.

1.      Voting Day Reminder

People are trapped in a busy life that makes it difficult to keep track on important dates. It is understandable for a person to completely forget about the Election Day. The forgetful nature of a person means one less vote – which, in elections, cost a lot. Through texting, you can send a polite reminder to people and get them participate in the voting process – regardless of whichever party they support, it is important for people to exercise their right to vote.

2.      Reach out to Volunteers

Election campaigns need the support of voters and supporters of a party. An individual politician – even with their dedicated team – cannot run a campaign by themselves. Just like they need sponsors to donate money for their campaigns, they need people to donate an even greater resource – time. And for reaching out to potential volunteers, SMS marketing is the best way. Send texts to constituents and encourage them to donate their time and participate in election campaigns. In the text, add a link where interested volunteers can sign up.

3.      Important Announcements

Text messages can also be used to make important announcements. By releasing critical information, politicians have a better chance of involving the supporters. Some of the common political announcements that people make via text messages are event reminders, debate highlights, Election Day vote counts, etc.

4.      Keep Supporters Informed

Neither a supporter nor a potential candidate can spend hours in front of and behind the TV to give critical information about. For rallies and town hall meetings, text messaging serves as a great tool that helps reach out to a wider audience. Text messages are personal and encourage voters to interact with their party on an interpersonal level. For politicians, SMS marketing is indeed a great way to communicate effectively with their vote base.

5.      For Feedback

How is the campaigning going on in a specific area? What do constituents have to say about a particular candidate? These questions are always on the minds of people when they are campaigning during elections. The feedback of voters – whose votes matter the most – is also of prime importance. Text messaging can be a perfect way to encourage constituents to share their experiences and identify the areas that need improvement.

6.      Replies to Texts

If you are allowing people to share their opinions and experiences with you, you should also work on ensuring that all the texts are responded to in a timely manner. Whether you have to set a dedicated team for that or not, it is of prime importance that you keep the communication flow open, allowing constituents to feel more connected to the party they are aspiring to vote for.

The Final Word

Election campaigns are the time when politicians have to be on their toes, trying to reach out to as many people as possible. If your supporters don’t come to the polling station to vote for them, there is literally no use of having a giant support base. To mobilize the voters and to make sure that they don’t miss out on Election Day, you should consider utilizing the many benefits of SMS marketing. If you’re in charge of managing an upcoming campaign and would like a free consult on implementing SMS to enhance communication, feel free to contact us!

The COVID-19 crisis brought the entire world to a standstill, locking millions of people in their homes. The sudden halt had disrupted the people’s routine, and the majority struggles to be productive. Many people who were fitness freak are missing their gyms where they would spend hours doing Zumba on fast tracks.

The government-mandated lockdown all over the world will go on for an indefinite period. People cannot pause their lives for prolonged periods. And this is why most businesses are making use of digital technology to keep their operations going. Most gym owners have now started to give online classes to allow people to get back to a little bit of normalcy.

A Drop in Gym Attendance

But the mere feature of an online class hasn’t been able to get people attend these vital classes – especially during the time when troubling news and uncertainty across the globe can lead to depression and anxiety – which makes it all the more important for gym entrepreneurs to reach out to different marketing techniques and make people participate in the classes.

The 24/7 lockdown has also disrupted people’s schedule. Now, instead of going to bed at 10pm, people are staying up late, binging watching their favorite shows, and going to bed at the crack of the dawn.

These habits cannot possibly allow people to stick to a schedule. Most people, who are involved in housework, often forget about their class timings and end up missing out on the daily workout. The thin attendance is also quite demotivating for instructors who spend a lot of time preparing the workout.

How Can You Increase Gym Attendance with SMS

SMS marketing is an ideal way to interact with a large customer base. Studies have shown that as compared to emails, SMS messages are widely read – providing businesses the opportunity of being heard. In the section below, we will talk about some easy-to-follow tips that can help you increase gym attendance with SMS marketing. Even though these tips are ideal during the Covid-19 days when millions of people are in quarantine, these techniques will also help you have a significant increase in gym attendance in the post-quarantine times – which, hopefully, we will be observing soon!

1.     Inform People

How will people sign up for gym classes if they have no idea that you’re offering one? The first obvious step, in this regard, would be to send a promotional message to your existing and new clients telling them how they can keep up with their fitness routine during the lockdown period. Attach a link with your message where your customers can have a look at different online packages that you’re offering.

2.     Send in Reminders

This is a great way to ensure gym attendance – both on-site and online. If you are a frequent traveler, you would have noticed that some airlines do send a text message to the passenger a few hours before the boarding time. First, the companies would send an email message, reminding people of their flight. In the same manner, app-based hotel booking sites also send frequent reminders to travelers relating to their upcoming bookings. An email message tends to get lost somewhere in the cluster of emails. On the other hand, a text message has better chances of being read.

The gym administration must utilize the same technique to get people to attend the classes – and once people start taking their classes regularly, there are higher chances that they’d recommend their friends and family to join too – leading to an increase in admissions as well. In the lockdown life, when mornings swiftly merge into evenings, leaving people with no track of time, constant reminders will help fitness freaks to get back in the routine.

3.     Ask for Feedback

How can you keep your clients engaged after the class is over? By asking them to give feedback of the class! This is a great way to engage the clients and make them feel heard. Individual messages will make clients think that their opinion is valued. The feedback from the client will, in turn, help you improve on the areas which need work.

4.     Offer Incentives

People at home will not be too keen to join a class. After all, the excitement of just lying around can be a lot exciting for some. To make them join your classes, you will have to convince them into thinking that their registration is of utmost importance and can lead them to exciting prices or bonuses – for example, a one-time three-month registration could get you the four month for free; or that the gym will donate 25% of your registration fee to organizations that are on the frontline of the fight against COVID-19.

5.     Fitness Advice

A great way to keep your clients engaged is to offer them a texting hotline. This will help them ask specific questions from their trainers regarding their workout. Make sure that your response time is quick and that someone is available to provide answers to their fitness-related questions.

6.     Tips

Texting out a daily workout or nutrition tips will also help increase the client’s engagement. The lockdown can be a bit overwhelming, and people may struggle to say no to the last piece of big cake they continuously see in the fridge. Your daily reminders via texts will help them say no to the sugar-laden dessert more strongly.

The Final Word

Has this global pandemic brought your life to a standstill? Your business doesn’t have to suffer just because your clients – both existing and potential – are in quarantine. Digital technology has helped us connect to people physically far from us. With the coronavirus outbreak, when the health authorities have restricted people from taking part in gatherings of more than 10 people, places like gyms have been closed indefinitely.

Many people who are in self-quarantine are also not visiting the scant open gyms to avoid contracting the virus. All of this has made it essential for gym owners to come up with a novel way to increase their sales without defying the social distancing orders. To learn more about how the Text My Main Number landline texting platform can help improve your communication with employees, feel free to contact us.

Tips for Startups to Use Bulk SMS Technique

The 21st century officially welcomed the startup culture around the world. Breaking away from the monotony of big oligarchs, startups emerge as a novel competitor in the industry. However, in the sea of cut-throat competition, a startup venture will likely dissipate into nothingness in a short span. To strengthen their presence among potential leads and clients, startups must embrace the bulk SMS technique under which they can interact with their targeted audience by sending/receiving text messages.

This is an economical marketing technique that helps startups that are already under the burden of limited resources to reach out to a wider customer base. Also, considering the fact that a large number of people own a smartphone and are likely to check their messages, SMS marketing is indeed a great way to reach out to a larger customer base.

Types of Bulk Messages for Startups

Startups can use bulk messages to introduce themselves to new leads and clients, inform about the latest deals to the existing clients, or communicate offers and other promotions to their targeted audience. Generally, bulk SMS can be divided into the following two categories:

• Promotional Bulk SMS
• Transactional Bulk SMS

Promotional Bulk SMS

Have you ever received a message from your favorite food chain telling you about the hard-to-miss meals they are offering? Such messages generally fall under the promotional bulk SMS. Under this kind of SMS marketing technique, startups send promotional messages to their existing and potential clients. Startups can use this feature to offer first order or signup discounts to new clients.

Transactional Bulk SMS

These bulk SMS are a little advanced than the former. They are used by the businesses to reach out to customers who have already had some sort of interaction with the businesses. These SMS messages usually contain sign-up and log-in notifications, authentication SMS, one-time passwords, etc.

Why Should Startups Opt for SMS?

Many businesses rely on email marketing to reach out their clients. Even though it is an effective way to promote your businesses, there is always a risk of the email message left unread. On the other hand, text messages are more likely to be read. This means that they are an effective way to get your customers hear you out. Today, almost 96% of Americans have mobile phone of some kind. This means that through SMS marketing, you can reach out to a significantly large number. 

Tips for Startups to Use Bulk SMS Technique

The bulk SMS technique is a great way for startups to strengthen their presence in the market. Here are some tips that can help startups to use this effective technique in an efficient manner.

1.       Cost

The first thing to do when you are adopting this technique as your marketing strategy is to calculate its cost. Startups who have just ventured out don’t have enough funds to splurge on advertisement – the cost of which can be humungous. Then, look for a service provide which can help you reach out to a number of customers.

2.       Brevity of Message

SMS messages ought to be short and clear. It is also important to explain to your clients why you are sending a particular message to them. Your clients will leave the messages mid-way if they are long and laced with jargons, too salesy, etc. To prevent this from happening, you will have to focus on making your SMS messages sharp, short, and crisp. The message, however, should be complete and have all the relevant information. For example, if you are a web-based startup, you should include a sign-up link in your message so that people can easily land on your site and sign up.

3.       Research Your Audience

To whom are you sending this message – this is important! If your startup targets businessmen, for example, you will have to adopt a more formal tone. On the other hand, young people would be attracted by a message that is ‘relevant’ with proper references to pop culture, etc.

4.       Allow Them to Cancel

Many people get irritated by constant messages they receive from a business entity. And while sending informative and promotional messages are a great way to advertise your business, you should allow your clients to decline receiving the messages. However, it is also important to mention that some customers do appreciate receiving timely updates from a business. So, don’t let the usual opt-outs make you have second thoughts on your marketing strategy.

5.       Offer Something Unique

What is the purpose of your message? For how long will you advertise your company through SMS messages? For your existing clients, you will have to think of new ways to get them read your message and take the required action. For example, you can send a time-bound offer to your clients via SMS urging them to avail your product(s) or service(s) within the given deadline.

6.       Call-to-Action

Messages that have a clear call to action at the end have better engagement rates. Make sure that you have a clear CTA in your message.

7.       Be Consistent

The road to success for startups, especially, is quite bumpy. There are so many ups and downs that you have to face to go ahead. It is possible that after the first few attempts, you couldn’t reach the desired customer base. Even then, you will have to deal with plenty of opt-outs. However, don’t let these small hiccups demotivate you. Remain consistent in your approach.

The Final Word

Does this seem like a doable way to increase your customer base? It sure is. However, when using the service, work on the content of the message, and make it crisp and short. The other thing that you have to be mindful of is the fact that the people you are sending your messages to want them as well. Once you and your customers are on the same page, you will see that SMS marketing technique is a great way to keep your clients up-to-date relating to different deals, offers and discounts, appointments, and other critical information. If emails and phone calls aren’t getting you the results you want in terms of reaching customers, nurturing customer relationships, or converting leads, then perhaps it’s time for you to give a business texting service a try

75%. That’s the average rate of people who add items to their online shopping carts and then never checkout. That’s why online retailers began using landline texting to help reduce cart abandonment rates and improve sales.

Window shopping took an entirely new turn with the birth of true e-commerce (online shopping) back in 1991. What was once known as a stroll down the busiest city streets to look at the window displays of your favorite department stores was now a scroll and click on a browser. With the development of apps, consumers began downloading their favorite stores’ apps where they can now browse for items that come to mind, add to cart, and checkout when they’re good and ready to.

What about those who just leave items in their shopping carts and never checkout?

How can landline texting help encourage those consumers to place their orders?

We’ll tell you how.

How Landline Texting is Reducing Lost Sales from Abandoned Carts

Scenario 1: Potential Payday Purchase

Payday is this Friday and you know you don’t have any major bills to pay so that means this week’s payroll is your playground. By Tuesday you catch yourself browsing your favorite online stores and adding items you will definitely purchase once your direct deposit hits the account.

Going from website to another while you’re bored at home and can’t sleep, you’ve now reached website # 10 and all of them have items in the cart. You probably shouldn’t have done this from your mobile device because you used the same browser to hop from site to site whereas on the computer you would have left a tab open for each store. Chances are you’ll only remember the last few website you added items to cart to when you’re ready to buy. The rest will be lost in the abandoned cart world never to be found again.

Solution: Retailers can use landline texting to send a reminder about the items that were left in the shopping cart. Include a link to the shopping cart with all the items to encourage consumers to complete their purchase.

Reminder: In order to send messages to consumers, they must opt-in to receiving messages from your brand.Be sure to include a pop-up asking them to enter their email address to subscribe after they add the 1^st item to their cart.    

Scenario 2: Caught Browsing at Work

How many of you have had a slow day at work and the next thing you know, you’re 10 tabs deep into comparing prices from one website to the other when your boss walks in. Now you’re quickly closing all of the tabs you had open while you do your best to appear busy. Sound familiar?

What are the chances you will remember all of the tabs you had open? Sure, you can look through your browser history and try to re-open each tab but if the IT department has it set so that history is cleared as soon as you close out tabs or browsers…you’ll be out of luck.

Another case of items going into the abandoned cart abyss.

Solution: Retailers can send a text message using their landline texting platform to send subscribers a reminder about the items in their shopping cart. You could word it like a friendly reminder to see if they forgot to check out (highly unlikely but still) or use similar personalized verbiage.

“Hi Sarah! We noticed you left some items behind in your shopping cart and didn’t want you to forget. Click here (insert hyperlink to their shopping cart items) to checkout before the items run out of stock!”

Scenario 3:  The Shipping Costs Buzzkill

We’ve all been there. Happy we found an amazing sale going on from our favorite retailer and all too excited to add, add, and add some more to our shopping carts. Right when we feel we have gotten away with the bargain of the year we happily click on that button to checkout.

Once you’ve checked the subtotal you get your payment method ready, enter your shipping address so that your shopping cart full of items is ready to be sent to you and boom! The shipping cost is added. Total buzzkill! Your great bargain has now taken a turn for the worst and you find yourself hesitating on completing your purchase. You decide to leave all the items in the shopping cart so you can contemplate on whether the shipping cost is worth it or not. But you never go back…

That’s the point of view of a consumer who was turned off by shipping costs. So what’s a retailer to do when they lose customers who liked the subtotal but hated the grand total?

Solution: Shipping costs are what they are and if your business cannot afford to offer free shipping, then perhaps it’s time to use landline texting to send promotional discount codes. If a consumer can cancel out some or all of the added cost to their purchase by using a promotional code at checkout, this may help convince them not to abandon their cart.

Reminder: There are so many online retailers who offer free shipping, 2-day shipping, or free shipping when orders are above a specific dollar amount. Try to work with your shipping provider(s) to work out lower shipping rates that can then be offered to your consumers.

Send SMS Surveys to Find Out Why Customers Are Abandoning Their Carts

The best way to find out why consumers are abandoning their carts is to use the landline texting survey featureoffered by Text My Main Number. Send a quick text to subscribers asking them to reply with the reason they didn’t finish their purchase will help retailers gauge the areas of the business that can use improvement. Here is how you would find out if they abandoned their cart because:

• They compared pricing on your competitor’s website and your competitor’s pricing won
• The website was slow or caused technical issues that need to be fixed to enhance the shopping experience
• Shipping costs were a turnoff and it caused them to cancel their intent to purchase items
• They decided they would prefer to buy in-store
• There was a lack of payment options

If you offer a promotional discount to consumers who take the survey you sent them via text message, you will increase your response rate. For more information on how to decrease your abandoned cart rate, feel free to contact us to learn about implementing landline texting.

Schools who haven’t already deployed Landline Texting are quickly converting their school phone number to be text-enabled to send and receive text messages. The unexpected quarantine period brought on by the coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused parents to panic while they look for ways to continue educating and providing healthy activities for their children.

Netflix and chill is not the answer for all of the students who are now unexpectedly being asked to stay home for nearly a month. The anxiety is now building as parents try to figure out what to do with their students during the quarantine that was set in place to avoid the spread of the coronavirus.

While many working parents will be the most anxious to figure out an educational continuity plan, communities are quickly coming up with local resources that will help with providing solutions for care and meals. Even day cares are being closed so it may be time for the mommy groups on Facebook to start working together to figure out a plan for where to keep children who have working parents during the school day.

Those who are able to keep their children home will want a plan and direction to keep their children’s minds and bodies active and avoid disruption as much as possible. Many schools will be using landline texting to send announcements and distribute assignments through their online portal and request that the work be submitted by a certain date to be logged and graded. But not all schools have online portals in place, and some have very limited functionality so giving step-by-step or hour-by-hour instructions to parents is not an option.

Landline texting will be the most useful and resourceful tool for schools to guide parents during the COVID-19 quarantine.

4 Landline Texting Practices for Schools During Quarantine

If you’re on the faculty of a school who didn’t have a distance learning plan in place before the quarantine period was announced, then it’s up to you to save the day. Tell your school’s administration about landline texting services to enlighten them about this incredible communication solution. In order for the school’s staff to stay connected with parents and students during the pandemic, text messaging will work faster to send and receive messages.

You can keep a personalized relationship with families by customizing messages by groups. You can then send bulk messages to each group to filter messages by grade level, age, class, etc. Here are some of the most useful ways for schools to use landline texting to stay in touch during the quarantine.

1. Daily Lesson Plans

While the kids may have thought they were granted an additional spring break this year, staying at home during the COVID-19 quarantine doesn’t have to exclude learning. Schools who have implemented landline texting will be able to send daily lesson plans each morning to their students. If there are worksheets or pages to be downloaded for each lesson, the text message can include a link to the downloadable documents.

Instructions for each lesson and due dates can be included in the text message which will be archived on the user panel to keep a history of what was sent to each student. If there are students who need extra help, you can send an invite link to host a web conference session for each lesson.

Exams: Even if the quarantine only lasts a month, there is a quiz or test that would have taken place in the classroom that can now be taken at home. Not only could you send a link to take a test online to each student through the Text My Main Number landline texting platform, but you can also create study groups and add students who need the study buddies into the group.

2. Book of the week

Reading books is encouraged throughout the entire school year, but the typical 10 minutes a day can now be elongated since students will be spending more time at home during the quarantine period. Teachers can assign a book to be read each week and throughout the week send writing assignments via text message to ensure that all students are staying up to date with their reading.

You can make reading a bit more fun by inviting open discussion about the book just like a book club would. Teachers can create a group for the book in the Text My Main Number user panel and send a text message with highlights of each chapter. Then ask students to reply with their favorite takeaway and now you have a live chat going via text messaging.

3. Activity Schedules with Landline texting

While they may not have physical education (AKA gym class) during the quarantine, that doesn’t mean all physical activity has to come to a halt. There are so many options for exercise at home and outdoors that can be applied each day to maintain an active lifestyle. Physical education teachers can text parents and students with a weekly activity schedule to be followed by each student. Even a little research on YouTube can help coaches find at-home exercises for students to which they can send links to using the SMS platform.

We don’t want students cooped up indoors all day either so don’t forget to include outdoor activities that can be included into their weekly schedule that won’t require students to be too exposed to the general public. A 30-minute walk in the park or around the neighborhood should be safe and healthy for students.

4. Meal Plans

You don’t realize how complex coming up with a weekly food menu is until you have to put a meal plan together for a student. The school’s cafeteria doesn’t serve the same thing each day and neither should your home. Keeping students up to pace with their well-balanced meals and schedules will be ideal during quarantine.

Try to serve kids breakfast and lunch during the same time they’re used to so that you can keep them on a structured schedule. The school faculty can send the existing meal plan through the landline texting platform to parents each week. That will take the guess work out of trying to figure out what to shop for during the quarantine. Following a meal plan and serving meals during the same time the school does will help keep daily routines as normal as can be. The quarantine period doesn’t have to be disorganized and with the help of a landline texting platform to keep the school staff connected with students and parents, you will be able to set up a temporary and effective routine right away. Contact us today so we can review how quick and easy it is to get started!

When New Business Owners decide to launch a company the last thing on their mind is that it won’t succeed. OK, maybe it’s on their mind a little bit but it’s definitely not at the top of their list of priorities. No one plans ahead to fail, but everyone plans and dreams of being successful.

A limited budget is also a component that new business owners are faced with and any budget that exists is usually set aside for supplies, equipment, payroll, inventory, etc.

You know what usually goes on the bottom of the must-haves list for new business owners? Marketing.

Why is that?

How will people know about your business if you’re not marketing it? Even word of mouth which is technically free is a form of marketing. In many cases, it’s one of the most influential methods to spread the news about your new business.

The truth is that when new business owners are working on limited assets and time, marketing dollars falls on the backburner. If they do include a marketing budget in their initial business plan, chances are they’ll set aside the least amount of available dollars to the category. This is truer for small business owners, especially if it’s to launch a service-related business.

There are so many resources that can be included in your marketing plan to improve your growth endeavors. Not all approaches are designed to make you break the bank and in fact some are nearly free. Anything YOU DO put money towards should produce results for the long run rather than being a one-hit wonder method.

The following techniques are tried and true methods for new business owners to improve their brand awareness and boost sales.

Top 5 Marketing Resources for New Business Owners

Tools. Tools is what we use to fix, improve, and build with. Tools aren’t only items you buy at a hardware store because when you implement resources into a marketing plan, it serves as a tool to make your business growth function effectively. Below we will review some of the marketing tools that will positively contribute to your efforts of growing your business.

1. References and Reports

When you’re starting a business, you already know that it’s been done before unless you’re starting a business on another planet where we know nothing about how productive of an idea it is or not. Researching how previous companies such as your own have provided value to their customers is an excellent tactic to help gain understanding of what your target market needs.

During your research phase, take advantage of the resources available to you such as case studies or testimonials from your competitors to see how the service or product you are offering was accepted. In order for you to show your customer base that you are a legitimate business that can be trustworthy you should:

• Research what your target market needs and what their previous experience has been with the type of product or service you offer. Read testimonials from your competitor’s online profiles to get a good idea of what they enjoyed and what they complain about.
• Find out what their goals are when it comes to receiving service or products from your industry.
• Do a mock-up of scheduling service or ordering products from your competitor’s website to feel the experience from a consumer’s point of view. This will allow you to get a gauge of what you can do that’s more convenient on your own website.
• Read case studies online to find out the pros, the cons, and the statistics of everything that has to do with the services and products you offer.

2. Business Texting Services for Marketing

When you are just starting out as a company, marketing is the most powerful tool to grow your business. The wisest method to market your business is to utilize a platform that is cost-efficient and effective like business texting services.

Why are business texting services the most effective form of marketing your business? Because text messages are the #1 communication resource. With an open rate of nearly 138% in comparison to emails, and a response rate of 31% in less than 6 minutes…SMS is indisputably the most effective marketing platform.

The wisest takeaway in this article for new business owners is to partner with a company like Text My Main Number who offers business texting services on an easy-to-use platform. You can use your business phone number to send and receive messages to consumers who opt in to do so. Since a free trial is available, it surely doesn’t hurt to test its efficiency.

Once you’ve taken advantage of the Text My Main Number training for free, you will be ready to get started with putting the most powerful marketing resource to work. You can create marketing templates to:

• Execute marketing campaigns
• Send automated text messages to your subscribers
• Create groups so that you can customize messages on a more personalized level
• Send promotional offers to boost sales

Depending on the type of business you’re launching, you can utilize business texting services in numerous ways to connect and engage your target audience.

3. Digital Engagement

The ability to connect and engage with your target audience is the most useful resource for new business owners. Luckily, we live in a digital age and have a variety of digital channels where you can promote your brand.

The two most useful digital platforms to create are:

Content Channels: A great example of a content channel is a landing page that you create on your website that showcases the most valuable content to your target audience. You can develop content such as e-books, blogs, “how to” guides, videos, etc. The goal is to create engaging content that will offer a solution to your target audience.

Social Channels: Once you begin to attract potential consumers, you’ll want to engage with them on the platforms they use the most. That means it’s crucial that you create social media pages where you’re able to interact with your consumers on a daily basis. It’s an excellent method to promote your business and new business owners can benefit from the fact that this is a free form of marketing. If you’re ready to launch a new business and would like more advice on how to utilize economical techniques such as business texting services to spread the word, feel free to contact us today!

If your company employs telecommuters, then it’s up to you to read this article in its entirety to learn how Business Texting Services is going to improve your productivity. Text messaging is a very useful tool to equip your remote workers with the resources that will:

• Improve communication
• Streamline Managing Tasks
• Enhance Customer Service
• Track Inventory
• Close Sales

Deploying business texting services in a business where you have various affiliates and employees will quickly streamline operations. Various industries have begun using SMS for their business but in terms of a mobile workforce, it is paramount to utilize the #1 solution for bridging the gap between the office and the telecommuters.

Years ago, before working remotely was even “a thing” the main concern business owners and managers had with allowing people to work from home was the disconnect it would create between the office and the employee. There is a needed connection that helps build a strong relationship between management and staff. It’s not only about checking up on the employee to make sure they’re doing their job, it’s also about building rapport. Nurturing that link will improve the company culture and when you have an employee that’s excited about the brand you can rest assured that you have someone that will give the business the best of them.

Besides communicating with telecommuters, there are other benefits that business texting services will afford a remote workforce and we will discuss the top purposes.  

3 Benefits that Business Texting Services Adds to a Remote Workforce

If your business employs telecommuters, freelancers, or independent contractors the most important element we want you to realize is that an SMS platform produces positive and effective results for all industries. That includes, Medical, Education, Night Life, Beauty, Hospitality, Restaurants, Legal, and so much more. Here are some of the areas that each industry is benefiting from by using business texting services:

Enhanced Communication

If phone calls are the way you’re presently communicating with your remote team, we’re here to tell you there is a MUCH EASIER way to stay connected. How many times have you tried to call someone and instead of reaching them, you reach their voicemail? A lot of times, right? Continuing to attempt to reach someone who is either ignoring or missing your calls is a huge waste of time. In a work environment time is always of the essence and reaching your staff is paramount.

Business texting service will improve the futile attempts to reach team members by phone because there is no doubt that your message will be received instantly. It will only take a few taps for you to send and receive important messages. It’s even easier on the Text My Main Number user panel where you can type your message quickly and send it out and then await a reply. This chat feature works like any message platform you’re already used to so it will be a seamless process to collaborate with your team.

Streamlining Tasks

When you’re in charge of a team of remote workers, assigning tasks is part of your day to day. If it so happens to be a busy day or a day when an unexpected situation arose, you’ll have to focus on handling the issue at hand before anything else. That now leaves some of your telecommuters waiting on you to assign their work so that they know what to do.

Instead of waiting to speak to a remote worker to tell them what is expected of them for the day or week, you can easily broadcast a group message to assign tasks. In a matter of a few seconds you’ll have assigned the needed tasks and can always reference what you sent through the user panel. Everyone will appreciate the convenience of never having to wait on their assignment. The bonus is that you can also send links that reference the details of the work along with links to forms that may need to be filled out. You can also customize templates and send messages to specific groups that you will create in the user panel.

Increase Revenue with Business Texting Services

You’ll never have to worry about losing a customer because they’ve been waiting on hold while an influx of calls poured in. If your customer is trying to reach you to submit an update for a project they assigned to your business, they expect for you to reply right away. If they don’t hear a response from you in a timely manner, they may very well spend some time looking at your competitor’s website as they await to hear from you.

By implementing business texting services, you can have your customers text your business phone number to notify you of any project updates and you can respond right away to acknowledge receipt. With the convenient chat feature on your SMS platform, you’ll be able to carry a 2-way conversation with them to review details. You can then use the user panel to text your telecommuters and assign tasks to complete the client’s work.

Additionally, business texting services allow you to connect to your prospects faster than a phone call or email which boosts sales. The expediency and convenience of text messaging makes it much easier for your remote salespeople to communicate with your leads.

Takeaway

With everyone using text messaging to communicate with family and friends these days, SMS has become the most personalized digital form of connecting with people. Using business texting services with your telecommuters will create a more streamlined yet still personalized and professional connection. Being able to reference conversations and send messages to various groups will help keep thing organized and convenient. This cost-efficient form of managing your team(s) is not only innovative but a smarter way to work. If you’re looking for an SMS provider to get started with business texting services, our team is always available to speak to you. Simply contact us to go over the benefits of using SMS for your business and we will set you up with a free trial and training so that you’re ready to deploy a communication platform that will help your business work smarter and not harder.

Everyone loves the feeling of seeing great content when they’re scrolling through social media feeds and find a post they enjoy. SMS for business jumped on that band wagon with the goal of distributing content during the best times to post on social media to grab consumers’ attention. The double tap and share have become a natural instinct to users when they see great content, but the key here is to post when they will actually see it. Otherwise, it doesn’t even exist.

When you’re looking to establish a loyal relationship with your audience every form of interaction counts towards their connection to your brand. You must know the right time to reach your target audience because that is as crucial as the actual message itself.

If you’re looking to use SMS for business to increase engagement, expand your online presence, and boost revenue, you have to know the right time to post and in this article we’re going to help you figure that out.

The Best Times to Post on Social Media with SMS for Business for Maximum Exposure

The social media platforms are continuously evolving as are the algorithm protocol updates. If you’re not up to date with these changes, your posts will easily get lost in the sea of content published on your audience’s feeds.

You can’t take the SMS for business approach lightly when statistics show that 76% of consumers prefer to buy from brands they’ve established a connection with more than their competitors.

With that in mind, once you’ve signed up to use an SMS for business platform for marketing your brand, you’ll have to know the best times to reach your audience. That’s the only way to widely expose your strategically designed content and show off your brand to your target audience.

Figuring Out the Best Times to Post on Social Media by Industry

The insights page of your social media platforms will provide you with valuable information on which of your existing posts have received the most traffic, engagement, and shares. Looking at all of the reports on your social media channels to analyze the statistics will teach you which days and times your viewers mostly engaged with your content.

If you’re wondering why you should go through your own insights reports when there are articles out there on the best times to post on social media, it’s because there are variables that go unmentioned in those posts. Not everyone lives the same life and abide by the same schedule each day. Depending on the industry you work in, your day to day differs from others.

For example: An overnight doorman would be perusing social media late at night when work is slow and then comes home to sleep all day. Whereas a schoolteacher who is busy throughout the day would browse news feeds in the evening when he or she is relaxing from a hard day.

So, if you know your industry’s audience’s usual schedule, you must keep that in mind and the best way to learn when to post to grab their attention is to compare their schedule to your own. If the people whose interest you’re trying to grab are your potential customers, by now you should know them well enough to know the type of schedule they keep as well.

For example: If you’re a service professional and you know that typically your customers schedule service for morning hours, chances are your target consumer has leisure time in the evening. They’re early birds and they wake up early to get things done not browse online.

The platform you’re posting on is another factor to consider when figuring out the best times to post on social media with SMS for business because your target audience uses each channel differently. In other words, people may catch your tweet at night when they’re quickly scrolling through Twitter to see the latest in trending topics. Whereas they enjoy scrolling through Facebook during their lunch hour to see videos and pictures while they eat.

Using apps like Later will also help you determine the best times to post on social media for your industry. Rather than rely on all the articles out there on when you should post, we suggest you do your own research and use the following as the criteria that will provide accurate answers:

• Each day of the week publish content at what you believe to be your target audience’s peak leisure time and then track the results of your post through the insights page. For example, if you feel your target audience has lunch around noon or 1 p.m. then post at that time and then watch what the reports say happened. Then try again around dinner (or after dinner) hours and see what happens there as well. Do that for each day of the week to learn your industries best time to post.
• Create a spreadsheet with columns to track your likes, shares, and comments by social media channel, day of the week and hour of the day.
• On the spreadsheet, create an additional tab with the same columns but this time alternate the hours of the day that you posted and then check the stats to enter the data in your workbook.
• Each week create a new tab with the same columns but using different hours of the day to post and keep doing that until you’ve covered all times per weekday.
• After the 4^th week and tab, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the best times to post on social media are based on the numbers you tracked throughout the month. The day and hours that showed the most engagement will demonstrate when it’s wise for you to post.

How to use SMS for Business on Social Media

Each social media platform has click to text features that you can set up to have viewers text your business. Once your SMS for business platform receives that text message, you can engage with your viewer instantly through the web-based user panel of your landline texting program. You can then reply from any mobile device and the response will come from your business phone number. Genius! Now you can answer questions, suggest products to purchase, assist your audience with placing an order, schedule appointments, and resolve all customer service inquiries. For more information on how to integrate SMS with your social media profiles, feel free to contact us today for a free consult.

There is an entire dictionary of acronyms being used as Text Abbreviations when alphanumerically conversing. If you’re one of the many people that “just don’t get it,” this article will help you master digital shorthand all in one day.

As common as it is to use slang, text abbreviations have become the internet-based form of shortening words when communicating via text messages, instant messaging, and email. This SMS language became a feature during the rise of smartphone usage to simplify composing messages within the allotted character limits.

Internet-based communication is the most popular form of conversing nowadays and although text abbreviations were mostly used for mobile phone messaging, it has now become common to use when writing emails and letters.

Before smartphones were “a thing” cellular phones didn’t have the screen capacity to allow for long messages. When people were limited to send messages of 160 characters or less, they started to get creative and used text abbreviations to get the most out of their restricted space.

Having the ability to shorten words and phrases became second nature to cellphone users and by the time Millennials picked up on the lingo, the popularity rose to an all-time high and an entire dictionary of acronyms was born.

History of Text Abbreviations

Remember when Generation X thought it was so cool to have a beeper/pager? It was the last item to put on before leaving your house and if you were a teenager, you made sure to place it somewhere visible on your body. You wanted everyone to know you owned one and as soon as that device started beeping or vibrating, you instantly became a VIP. People were so excited to be paged and would quickly run to a public phone to call whoever was paging them back.

Over time, companies who made pagers became creative and what first started as a square black device, now came in different shapes, sizes, and colors. As the pager sizes increased, so did the screen space and you can bet that users became creative with what they can do with their limited characters allowance by developing pager code.

Pager codes were the original text abbreviations and became very popular amongst friends in the teenage demographic who started off with discovering that when turning specific numbers upside down on your pager, it formed a word. Some examples of these pager/beeper codes formed words such as:

07734 (Hello)

143 (I love you) – While this one isn’t one to be read upside down, you were to add the number of letters in each word to decode it.

121 (I need to talk to you) – This abbreviated beeper code was crafty because 1-2-1 means “we need to speak one-on-one.”

1134 2 09 (Go to hell)

911 (Emergency/Call me now)

14 (hi)

There were many more beeper codes developed over time and now anyone who owned a pager was able to use what came across to be the modern-day Morse code. This social habit of creating words and phrases out of numbers later translated into text abbreviations when cellphones hit the market.

Top 10 Text Abbreviations

WE HAVE ACTUAL LETTERS! That’s probably what ran across the minds of the first cellphone consumers because now instead of trying to decode numbers to figure out what words the sender was trying to send you, you were now able to send a limited amount of words.

Even though the first cellphone models were not the type of phones that people would use for texting, when the flip phones came around, texting started gaining popularity. Before the first smartphone was designed, people would use their dial pad to enter letters on their cellphones to form words. While this method was a bit carpal tunnel forward, the excitement of being able to send actual words spread like wildfire. But pressing numbers to get to the right letter apparently was too much of a hassle and so abbreviating words became a thing. While not all abbreviations are rated PG, below are the top 10 text abbreviations being used in messaging.

1. ROFL means Rolling on floor laughing.
2. STFU means Shut the *freak* up.
3. LMK means Let me know.
4. ILY means I love you.
5. YOLO means You only live once.
6. SMH means Shaking my head.
7. LMFAO means Laughing my freaking *a* off.
8. NVM means Never mind.
9. IKR means I know, right.
10. OFC means Of course.

Text Abbreviations Hit Social Media

With everyone being used to using text abbreviations to send messages with their mobile devices, it was only natural that this social lingo would carry over to social media. Twitter uses the “less is more” philosophy with its limited character space so people are forced to use acronyms for brevity. Though Facebook and Instagram which are two other social media platform giants, allow for more characters, using abbreviated words and phrases is a huge time saver so text abbreviations are still commonly used there too.

Most Popular Text Abbreviations

You may or may not be a “texter” but if you own a mobile device and have 1 or more social media profiles, the text abbreviations listed below may come in handy. Here are the most popular acronyms being used in today’s digital world.

Abbreviations A to L 2moro Tomorrow 2nte Tonight AEAP As Early as Possible ALAP As Late as Possible ASAP As Soon as Possible ASL Age / Sex / Location? B3 Blah, Blah, Blah B4YKI Before You Know it BFF Best Friends, Forever BM&Y Between Me and You BRB Be right Back BRT Be right There BTAM Be that as it May C-P Sleepy CTN Cannot talk now CUS See You Soon CWOT Complete Waste of Time CYT See You Tomorrow E123 Easy as 1, 2, 3 EM? Excuse Me? EOD End of Day F2F Face to Face FC Fingers Crossed FOAF Friend of a Friend GR8 Great HAK Hugs and Kisses IDC I Don’t Care IDK I Don’t Know ILU / ILY I Love You IMU I Miss You IRL In Real Life J/K Just Kidding JC Just Checking JTLYK Just to Let You Know KFY Kiss for You KMN Kill Me Now KPC Keeping Parents Clueless L8R Later

Abbreviations M to Z MoF Male or Female MTFBWY May the Force be with You MYOB Mind Your Own Business N-A-Y-L In a While NAZ Name, Address, ZIP NC No Comment NIMBY Not in my Backyard NM Never Mind / Nothing Much NP No Problem NSFW Not Safe for Work NTIM Not that it Matters NVM Never Mind OATUS On a totally Unrelated Subject OIC Oh, I See OMW On My Way OTL Out to Lunch OTP On the Phone P911 Parent Alert PAL Parents are Listening PAW Parents are Watching PIR Parent in Room POS Parent over Shoulder PROP(S) Proper Respect / Proper Recognition QT Cutie RN Right Now RU Are You SEP Someone else’s Problem SITD Still in the Dark SLAP Sounds like a Plan SMIM Send Me an Instant Message SO Significant Other TMI Too Much Information UR Your / You are W8 Wait WB Welcome Back WYCM Will You Call Me? WYWH Wish You Were Here XOXOXOX Hugs, Kisses, …

We hope this history and guide of text abbreviations helps all the Baby Boomers and Generation X folks out there who find themselves often Googling acronyms to understand the messages they receive or see on social media. Being that SMS for business is also on the rise, it’s only wise that you become familiar with this modern-day language.

Implementing business landline texting seems to have been the top to do list item for business owners this 1st quarter. It’s now the end of February 2020, and we wonder how many business owners have reviewed and analyzed their digital marketing plan to see if they’re on track thus far. Confidence in the success of any marketing plan starts to diminish quickly when you’re already off track by the 2^nd month of the year.

Don’t fret if your plan doesn’t seem to be fully on track, because there is still plenty of months left in the year to improve your Sales Conversions.

Building a solid digital marketing plan can be a struggle especially when you don’t even know why it didn’t work in the past. Analyzing previous years’ analytics is the only way you will figure out what is positively and negatively effecting how well your brand’s content is performing. Once that’s established, you can work towards refining your content strategy and set your goals for the year.

If you’re not familiar with content trends, technology advances (like landline texting from your business phone number), SEO protocol updates, then you may very well be blindly approaching digital marketing and its power over sales conversions. That will easily translate into a loss for the business. An expensive loss.

Marketers aren’t necessarily cheap and if you’re handling your own online marketing, most times you get what you pay for. So, before your expense column in your profits & loss statement for 2020 is higher than your profits, let’s review what should be included in your digital marketing plan.

Digital Marketing Plan: Content Quality Over Quantity

In order to increase anything, you must always add value to what exists or enhance it with an improvement to what you offered or distributed before. Same rule applies to content, especially when your main goal is to boost sales conversions.

Content doesn’t only consist of blog articles and social media posts. Don’t think of the platform, think of what you’re publishing on those platforms when strategizing your digital marketing plan.

For example: You can write an excellent “how to” blog article but how much more value would you be offering consumers if within that article you also offered a downloadable template guide? Hubspot tested this theory by reposting an old article about press releases and this time included a downloadable templates guide. The conversation rate skyrocketed by an increase of 240%. Impressive!

Use tools like Google Analytics to check out what is driving the most traffic to your website and post more of whatever content seems to be appealing to your audience.

If you’re seeing a lot of traffic but very little conversions, then you MUST re-optimize and fine-tune your content to improve your offerings. Make sure there is a clear call-to-action on all of the content you publish to easily direct your audience to a purchase, a free trial, or some way to contact your sales team.

Implementing Landline Texting into Your Digital Marketing Plan

If you know that part of the conversion problem is that you’re never available when someone tries to reach your business, then you must update your website and social media pages with “Text Us Now” buttons so that you can instantly chat with your audience.

You will receive messages through the Text My Main Number web-based user panel which will allow you to quickly reply to your potential customers on any mobile device. You can keep track of conversations and refer to them when need be. This landline texting platform will also allow you to create autoreply templates based on a keyword that the lead or customer used in their text message to you. You can use links that will lead to the purchase of their keyword or a link for them to schedule an appointment or phone call to speak to you during business hours.

• People prefer texting businesses over making a phone call these days. In part, because:
• They don’t want to wait forever to reach a customer service representative
• They hate long hold times
• Plain old laziness
• They’re used to text messaging to communicate with family and friends and are now translating that into communicating with businesses.
• It’s an instant way to ask their question

That being said, it’s up to you to include the landline texting option everywhere you publish content that is of interest to your target audience. If they can just press a button to ask more about what they’re reading or seeing on your website or social media profile, you’ll easily catch more fish in the sea of sales.

Once you’ve engaged a lead via text messaging, you’ll want to keep your interaction humanized in order to make your brand appealing to them. That’s the best way to build a loyal relationship with your consumers.  Make sure you goal is to connect with your audience, provide solutions, and then finally close your sale towards the end of the conversation. Pushing for a purchase or an appointment right away may make them feel like they’re speaking to a robot that was programmed to just get their money. No one wants to feel like they’re being driven to buy without first being acknowledged as a person in need of more information.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is Crucial

Your conversion rate is the number of people who take a specific action on a page or post vs. the total number of people who viewed it. The action that you consider to be meaningful may vary.

For instance, you may be aiming to get people to subscribe to your newsletters, buy a product, or schedule an appointment.

Conversion rate optimization are the actions you take to increase your conversion rate.

How can you use CRO to improve Sales Conversions?

Don’t waste your money on strategies and tactics that don’t work. You must focus on delivering value and offering an improved experience to your audience. Tweak your blog content and add banners, exit pop-ups, or slide-ins, to increase sales conversion rates and entice new leads. If you’re ready to see a real improvement in your sales conversions, then don’t wait another second to contact us so we can speak to you right away and together we will figure out the best solution to convert your online traffic into new customers.

Offering people an incentive using your Landline Texting platform to encourage them to opt-in is probably THE BEST way to grow your list. With consumers constantly being bombarded with offers to join a list, subscribe to a channel, follow a social media profile, or add their email address to some sort of brand’s contact list, it’s important you stay creative (and give free stuff away) when inviting them to opt-in.

The result of your opt-in landline texting campaign will be dependent on:

• Who you are targeting
• The size of your target audience
• The wording used in the text message
• The level of appeal in the incentive you offer

Before you begin designing your landline texting marketing plan, we are going to review the types of offers that have proven to draw subscribers from a text offer.

Based on the type of industry you’re categorized under, some of the items listed below may differ. Either way, here are:

 The top 5 landline texting giveaway ideas to grow your list of subscribers

Real-time Landline Texting Discount Offers

There’s nothing more exciting than a real-time discount offer when a consumer is ready to checkout on your website. Their shoppers’ adrenaline rush is already pumping and here they see an offer to enter their cell phone number to opt-in.

The most inviting part of this exchange it that they’ll receive a promotional discount code to instantly save on their current purchase before they enter their payment information.  Now it’s up to you to continue to keep them excited about your brand by maintaining a loyal text messaging relationship with them.

SMS Event Connection

By linking your giveaway offer to an event such as a movie premiere, a concert, or local marathon you’re sharing in the event’s momentum. It’s an excellent idea to piggyback ride on that excitement to increase your list of subscribers. For example, you can post an offer on your social media channels inviting people to click on a link and enter their mobile phone number to opt-in. They’ll then receive a discount code via text message with a word related to the event like:

“Thank you for subscribing! Get 20% off your next purchase by entering promotional code ‘STARWARSCLUB’ at checkout.”

The most beneficial aspect of this tactic is the fact that your text message offer will be read within minutes as opposed to an email offer that may be read days later (if at all). It’s up to you to make the wording compelling so that they don’t ignore your text, and DON’T FORGET TO INCLUDE A LINK TO YOUR WEBSITE TO GET THEM TO SHOP EVEN FASTER!

Subscribe & Click for Tips

People love reading informative blog articles, especially if “how to” or “top 10” is included in the title. But, the one thing that landline texting doesn’t have the canvas space for is a lot of words. While there are smartphones that have the on-screen space for it, it’s not the place to read a full article like you would on your computer monitor.

What can really offer consumers excellent value is quick tips sent to their smartphones. If you’re business falls under the service, healthcare, beauty, education, or even the non-profit industries (to name a few), landline texting is an excellent marketing tool. You have a full audience of people in all demographics that want to learn how to improve or resolve something. Offering daily tips or text messages that provide solutions and answers is an ideal strategy to increase your opt-in rate.

A Not so Mere Mention

You know what people really love? Themselves. You would be surprised at how far a mere mention of them on your social media would go. While this method may not necessarily increase your list of subscribers in bulk all at once, it will grow your opt-ins over time. Publicly thanking someone from your existing list creates a high-level connection between your brand and one of your consumers. Once you do that, you’ve not only locked in a loyal customer, you’ve also inadvertently created a brand ambassador.

This not so mere mention is structured to have this consumer share out your post on their social media pages where people they know are very likely to be your target demographic. Now their friends want to use your service or buy your products too so make sure the thank you copy includes a link where their friends can click to subscribe in exchange for an offer.

VIP List Invite

Who doesn’t want to be a very important person? Invite people to feel like their important to your brand by placing them on a special list. This is the list that will provide them with early access to view and buy new products, see previews, and engage with your brand earlier than the general public release.

Being invited to be a part of the “in crowd” is one of the easiest methods to entice your target audience to click and subscribe and then to keep them opted-in it’s up to you to send them attractive early bird giveaways.

Landline Texting Giveaway Takeaway

Make sure that when you’re crafting a giveaway offer that you’re not using the same one you use for your email or newsletter campaigns. Your consumers use different devices to view these mediums while texts are read on cell phones.

Those who subscribe to both your text messages and newsletters are the types of customers that not only become loyal to your brand but who also become the best brand ambassadors. You’ll see a more fruitful outcome if you’re using a variety of giveaway offers on the different streams. A tweet offering viewers to receive free daily tips for opting-in to your list may work well on Twitter, whereas an offer to receive a “how to” video may work to pull subscribers from Instagram.

Besides knowing the type of content to use when drawing in new opt-ins, be sure to keep them connected by being consistent, personalized, and considerate. For more tips on how to increase your opt-in rate and grow your list of subscribers, contact us for a free trial of our landline texting platform.

So many companies are turning to Business Texting Services because of all the important messages that continuously get lost via email, which can negatively impact employee communication. Over time, employees’ inboxes become inundated with spam and that causes them to pay less and less attention to their email.

Recruiters began using SMS to recruit new talent across all industries because it improved the correspondence rate. It was only a matter of time before Human Resource Experts realized that using business texting services would also help the onboarding process. Once they began deploying text messaging companywide, it became common inter-office communication.

While messaging platforms such as Skype, Slack, Gchat, and Whatsapp are currently being used for communication, companies are finding that responses are much faster when staff members receive a text on their cell phone.

In this article we will go over how your company can leverage the power of business texting services to enhance inter-office communication and engagement in an efficient manner.

Texting While You Work

Management would love to believe that all staff members are working their tails off from the time they clock in up to the time they clock out. Unfortunately, that’s not true at all.  In fact, a research study reported that throughout the day, employees collectively spend approximately an hour each day using their cell phones for personal use. Rather than ignore that statistic, it’s time to capitalize on the trend and turn cell phones into a resourceful tool that will improve communication valuably.

How Business Texting Services Improves Inter-Office Communication

Improving company correspondence and communication amongst staff is typically a top priority in any business.  With so many different messaging platforms being developed it sometimes takes some trial and error to figure out which communication channel will effectively increase engagement. As professionals in management positions struggle to implement change, they are finding that:

• Staff members are reluctant to learn new tools
• Employees are resistant to downloading new apps
• People dislike having to manage too many programs
• Technology can easily irritate older staff members

Using business texting services is not only a cost-effective solution that won’t require additional training, but your staff won’t have to download any software or app to use it.

If all of your staff members own cell phones, why isn’t text messaging for businesses the most obvious method to improve inter-office communication? It is.

73% of business leaders agreed that use of business texting services would increase because:

• Text messaging is cost efficient
• Nearly all cell phones have the ability to receive and send text messages
• Everyone is familiar with how to use texting messaging, so no training is required
• Little to no spam goes into the texting inbox since usually texting is only used with family and friends
• Internet isn’t required to receive text messages on the go
• Communication can be logged to keep conversation history stored

With so many companies allowing staff members to work remotely, business texting services also come in handy to reach those who are working from their home office immediately.

Business Texting Services Protocol for Companies

While text messaging with your staff is a resourceful tool, there is a protocol to follow to ensure that you stay within legal texting guidelines. Sending a text message to employees should be done through a texting platform like the Text My Main Number web-based user panel.

With the user panel, you can keep a secure log of conversation history which works well with managing multiple departments. Since people always have their cell phones nearby, employees will pay closer attention to messages they receive by texts and can reference them at any time.

Although 98% of text messages are read within minutes of being received, there are still some excellent tips you can use when text messaging your employees such as:

• Keep your text messages succinct
• Do your best to send text messages during their scheduled shift
• Stay professional yet personalized to avoid coming across like spam that they want to ignore
• Avoid sending a mass number of text messages by keeping this as a resourceful tool to use for essential information.

Top Reasons to Use Text Messaging with Staff

As mentioned above, you want to keep text messages to your staff brief and relevant. In addition to time sensitive information, you may want to consider using business texting services to send:

Important Updates

Once the onboarding process is complete there are still other documents that need to be reviewed and signed by your employees. You can use SMS to send updates on payroll changes, updates on benefits, policy changes, deadline, and important changes. This is the best way to ensure that all employees have received the update and avoid things falling through the cracks. You can always send a copy to them by email to cover all your bases.

Answer Common Questions Through SMS Templates

Using keywords, you can create templates that will quickly answer common questions your employees may have. This is an excellent tool for your Human Resources that can not only save time, but also satisfy employees by providing them with a near instant response.

Send Work Schedule by Text Message

If your business schedules staff on hourly shifts or if shifts change each week, you can become more organized by sending employees their schedule via text message.

Communicate with Remote Staff

Year by year, there are more employees working from home rather than in a traditional office setting. With remote workers you’ll be able to stay connected by using SMS to stay engaged with them and keep them up to date with company information.

Send Reminders with Business Texting Services

To avoid having scheduled meetings or phone calls being missed, you can schedule reminders to be sent to your entire staff. This is a great tool to use for industries that have ongoing training and certification programs to keep everyone organized and up to date. While these 5 reasons above are at the top of why using business texting services will make your company more efficient, there are still many other ways to utilize SMS for your company. To learn more about how the Text My Main Number landline texting platform can help improve your communication with employees, feel free to contact us.

Whether you’re a brick and mortar business owner, an e-commerce business or a service professional, Business Texting Services are probably a term you’ve heard about lately.

Being that it’s somewhat of a catch all, and it serves different purposes for a variety of industries. As a leading provider of business texting services, we’d like to give you the rundown on how business texting services will help you improve your customer service practices.

How Can I Use Business Texting Service for Customer Service?

The best method to understanding a large concept like business texting services for customer service is to zone in on the important features that will allow you to enhance your daily service operations. The Text My Main Number SMS platform allows you to integrate text messaging with emails, social media, online chat, and then there’s the web-based user panel that allows you to manage and maintain a history of conversations.

While you’ll find many providers that offer business texting services, not all will provide free training to teach you just how seamless the process can be. We do.

Adding a digital layer to your existing customer service practices will help you meet your customer’s needs. People are more digitally inclined these days, especially when it comes to shopping online. However, online shoppers don’t have a customer service desk to walk up to when they have questions or concerns. So, it’s important that you provide them with easy access to your customer service representatives online. Be it by online chat, email, or directly through their mobile device using business texting services.

You can use SMS to:

• Offer answers to product or service inquiries
• Provide technical support
• Assist with returns and exchanges
• Help place orders
• Schedule, reschedule, cancel or confirm appointments

That being said, we think it’s safe to say that business texting services is what will help improve customer service to your virtual audience. As SMS usage evolves, customers expect companies to reach them where they are. Online. In order to expand your customer service strategy to meet their needs, you have to separate your level of service from your competitors.  

Why are Business Texting Services Perfect for Your Business?

Here are 6 reasons why business texting service will help your customer service staff:

• They can handle customer requests faster since messages are delivered instantly.
• They will be able to enthusiastically reach out to customers and prospects in a personalized, and less invasive manner.
• Your team can manage and monitor the ongoing conversations through a control panel.
• Customer service can be made available 24/7.
• The staff can manage multiple conversations at the same time and each customer will feel like they’re being individually attended to, whereas you can do that in-person at a brick and mortar location.
• They will have access to the history of all conversations and can prioritize requests.

As we stated earlier, consumers have a heightened expectation on how companies meet their needs. In fact, a survey conducted by Microsoft, revealed that 54% of consumers shared that they have even higher customer service outlooks than they did only 1 year ago. The pace, responsiveness, and convenience that business texting services offer will allow you to keep up with consumer needs.

How Do Business Texting Services Work?

In order for your brand to produce the best online customer experience, you have to commit to generating opportunities through multiple devices and stay ahead of customer requests. You must do that while delivering a humanized touch and providing solutions.

5 Business Texting Services Takeaways to Enrich Customer Service

1. When customer service representatives aren’t available, don’t let the lead go to waste.
If you don’t have the budget to have a 24/7 team, that’s just fine. The good news is that your inbox is open 24/7 so you have the ability to automate responses for the customers who contact you after hours. You can include verbiage on when they can expect to receive a live representative. You can also program the Text My Main Number autoresponder to pick up on keywords that will automatically respond with a link to more information on a specific product or service. This way they may possibly find the answer they’re looking for before a live customer service rep is available.  

2. Optimize customer service contact for mobile devices.
A whopping 52.2 percent of website traffic around the world comes via mobile devices. Since most of the population is searching this way, the customer service experience you deliver should be seamless to access on mobile phones. A great way to facilitate and encouraging text messaging is to add a “click to text” button on your website and social media profiles.

3. Check your social media pages for messages various times throughout the day.
When you have social media profiles, you can bet that your consumers will find you so it’s important that you structure your pages in a way where you are ready to serve your audience.

Customers have become accustomed to using channels like Twitter to send their customer service request. About 70 percent of customer service requests in the last year came via Twitter! It appears that it’s become the preferred way to send in questions. That’s why it’s crucial that you check your social media messages various times a day to avoid leaving any inquiry unanswered.

4. Augment your auto-responses with resources that will proactively assist customers.
Creating FAQs on your website is an excellent way to address most inquiries. If you include a link to this section on your website in your autoresponder, you greatly increase the chance of resolving a customer’s concern even when you don’t have a live person available to provide support. Always remember to include your hours of operation so they know when they can come back to chat with a live agent.

5. Always send company updates to your consumers to keep them in the loop.
Business texting platforms allow you to build relationships with your audience. That means the platform isn’t just be a responsive space, but also a proactive one. Without overwhelming your customers with a bunch of messages, instead send valuable updates and resourceful information about upcoming changes, new product or service announcements and promotions. The name of the excellent customer service game is constant awareness. So long as you commit to monitoring your business texting platform, you’ll begin to see improvement in your customer service practices. Want to give business texting a try? Contact us with you any questions you may have on using an SMS platform for your business.

Every business owner that hasn’t tried Landline Texting should know just how it can help convert sales in today’s unruly market. Text My Main Number has learned through their client’s experiences that conversational text messages will in fact help you rise above the brands that bombard their clients with straight promotional messages.

If you have a sales team that is ready to answer any potential client’s inquiry via landline texting, you want them to virtually connect with your prospect in a humanized way. You can utilize the Text My Main Number (TMMN) landline texting platform chat feature to hold a conversation in real time with your consumers. This instant and personalized form of text messaging adds value to a customer service experience, which in turn, will convert more leads into sales.

Let’s review some sample text messages that will help your business’s sales conversions.

Instantly Respond to a Lead with Landline Texting

When a prospect sends your business a text message, you will be alerted on the TMMN web-based user panel to open up an immediate opportunity to engage. If the prospect has contacted your business before, you’ll be able to see any previous conversation history which helps your sales team review any relevant information regarding this particular lead.

Now, if you’re sales team is not available at the time that the lead sends a text message to your business phone number, then you can schedule an autoresponder that will send a message immediately to your prospect letting them know that their inquiry will be addressed during business hours so that they know when they can expect an answer to their question.

You can even include a link that will direct your lead to the company’s most recently asked questions to see if they can find the answer their looking for before someone on your sales team is able to get back to them.

Personalize Your Text Messages with Customers

When you have access to the conversation history with a prospect or customer, you’re able to personalize your conversation more. If they’re texting your business, it’s crucial that you create a human connection that will keep them interested in engaging with your brand. Mentioning relevant conversation points from previous interaction will go a long way.  

People want to know that you care about them and not just their money. That’s why it’s so important that you converse with them in a way that let’s them know you care about their needs, and your goal Is to provide a solution. For example:

“Hi Susan! It’s great hearing from you again. Did you ever find the collar you were looking for your cat?”      

You can even turn that into a sale by adding:

“If not, we have a great sale going on this week for pet collars! Here’s a link to our best deals (insert hyperlink)”

Keyword Auto Reply with Landline texting

Again, it’s not likely your sales team will be available 24/7, but if they are then great! If they’re not, you can setup keyword related autoreply messages for your consumers. That means that you can create templates that will reply to your leads and customers based on specified keywords. You can schedule the auto responses to activate during the hours in which your sales team is not available.  

That means that if Susan had sent a text message to your business phone number about wanting to buy her cat a collar (collar being the triggered keyword) at midnight which is outside of your business hours, then she could have received an auto response that read:

“Hi there! Although we don’t have a sales team member available, I see that you’re looking to buy a pet collar. Take a look at this week’s deals here (insert hyperlink to pet collars), and we will follow up with you during business hours. Thank you!”

You see how that works? Not only did you quickly reply to give them attention (even though it was an autoreply), you may have also possibly made a sale because the keyword “collar” triggered a template that sent a link to the pet collars you have for sale.

Even if you don’t make the sale, at the very least your autoreply link can provide them with relevant information regarding they keyword that was triggered, and now you’ve begun to nurture your prospect.

Following Up with a Sales Lead Using Text Messages

If not to just improve your business’s credibility, but also to add value to your brand it is so important to follow up after a sales inquiry. Using landline texting to send a follow-up is a great way to quickly start engaging with your consumers because the text message will be read within minutes of being received. Your goal is to be timely in order to convert each inquiry into a sale. There is no faster way to get someone’s attention then to send a text message.

Once your lead or existing customer replies, you will instantly get a notification on the Text My Main Number web-based user panel so you can now interact, answer questions, and close your sale!

Takeaway

Many business owners underestimate how many sales they lose due to lack of response or lack of personalization. Landline texting is absolutely the solution to bridge the gaps that are causing your leads to not convert into sales. If you are there to answer questions and provide solutions instantly, you’re immediately building trust with your audience. They know you’re there, and you were able to resolve their problem.

Keeping the entire interaction conversational with leads makes them want to keep a relationship with your brand. So even when you’re creating your auto-reply landline texting templates, keep the wording conversational and don’t forget to create keyword templates so that it triggers an auto-reply to the consumer that includes a link to what they need assistance with. For more information on how to create keyword auto-reply templates for your landline texting platform, feel free to contact us. If you’re not already enrolled with our platform, we can offer you a free trial and training to get your business on the right path to converting more leads into sales!