All posts by Text My Main Number

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Business Texting Services: 4 Techniques Helping Accountants during Tax Season

It’s tax season! That may be exciting for some and not so much for others, because of the stress that comes with this time of year. When accountants need to effectively communicate with clients, they turn to SMS Business texting services. Busy business owners appreciate the deadline reminders and text communication rather than the missed phone calls that end up being costly mishaps.

Accountants are always looking out for their client’s best interest by doing their best to reduce tax liability and ensure financial success. Chasing clients to make sure their documents are legal and turned in on time can be a challenge. However, part of the job is to stay on top of them and guide them to their financial success even when they do their best to avoid the needed steps.

Finances are not everyone’s favorite subject, and the fact that an accountant will have to scrutinize people’s dirty laundry gets tricky. Despite how sore the subject may be, interaction is critical to the relationship and using business texting services develops an easier communication channel between accountants and their clientele.

To increase communication and reduce stress we’re going to teach you some of the best methods to use business texting services.

Business Texting Services: 4 Techniques Helping Accountants During Tax Season

There are no ifs, ands, or buts when it comes to the need to communicate during tax season. Even after mid-April comes and goes, you will need to stay in touch the remainder of the year. Keeping documents, receipts, reports, and forms organized throughout the year is the most convenient way to stay organized with taxes. During the actual season, frequent communication will not only build rapport but by implementing business texting services you will ensure deadlines are met on time.

Accountants started using text messaging when emails were being ignored and the fact that SMS has a higher open rate made the switch a no brainer. In fact, reports show that most people read their emails from their mobile devices more than from a PC or laptop these days.

With business texting services becoming such a powerful tool for accountants, we encourage that you sign up for the Text My Main Number free trial to employ the following 4 techniques.

1. Securing Consent

The first rule to follow when using business texting services is to never send a text message to clients without their permission. You want to follow the TCPA and CAN-SPAM rules at all times when communicating with your clients via text or email. The alternative can lead to some pretty heavy fines or even worse legal consequences.

It is absolutely necessary that accountants read both guidelines in their entirety and possibly consult with an attorney if any of the rules are unclear.

How to get clients to opt-in

The easiest way for accountants to get their clients to opt-in to receiving text messages is to create a keyword like “TEXT4TAXES” and have them text the keyword to your business phone number. Once they sign up to become subscribers, you can add them to lists or include them in pre-established groups.  

2. Divide & Conquer

One of the most convenient tools that business texting services offers accountants is the ability to send messages to specific groups. There’s always a group of clients that need reminders sent out, another group that needs to schedule an appointment to come in, and possibly another group to just send discount offers to. That would be the group who likes to wait until the last minute to file their taxes and may need a discount to encourage them to come in to file.

The best thing about having the ability to create list with the Text My Main Number business texting services is that you will save so much time sending messages in bulk. You won’t have to sit there making phone calls to a large list of people to remind them that it’s time to file their quarterly or annual taxes.

3. Enhance Client Relationships Through Communication – Business Texting Services

Communicating with clients is vital to the relationship they have with your accounting firm. The one component that will help enhance that relationship is speed. The faster you respond, the happier they’ll be. The best way to satisfy a client’s need from a prompt response is by using business texting services so that you can receive a notification on the user panel of the platform as soon as a message comes in.

Keep in mind that not everyone works around the same schedule that your accounting firm does. That means that some people only have free time in the early mornings before the firm opens up or late at night after hours. That’s usually the time they’re able to check emails or listen to voicemails that came in while they were working. With SMS communication they will instantly see your message and can quickly reply to your inquiry.

4. Text My Main Number Business Texting Services

Partnering with the right SMS provider for business texting services is so important to the success of your accounting business. Whether you’re using the platform to enhance communication or for marketing your accounting firm, the best way to stay connected and engage with your clients is through text messaging.

With Text My Main Number you will be able to use your business phone number to:

  • Schedule, reschedule, and cancel appointments
  • Send alerts and reminders
  • Send promotional offers
  • Create groups to send bulk messages
  • Send pictures and videos with accounting advice
  • Schedule automated messages
  • Send links to forms
  • Provide directions to e-sign documents
  • Send payment links
  • Instantly chat with clients
  • Send tax tips throughout the year
  • And so much more!

Accountants will benefit from the ease of communication and the time that will be saved with business texting services. We offer free training to get you set up with the tools you will need to help clients meet important deadlines as you build a more loyal relationship with them. While we’re in the heart of tax season, we understand you may want to get started with business texting services immediately. Feel free to contact us for a free consult on the fastest way to get started!

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Using Business Texting for Live Coronavirus (COVID-19) Updates

As various countries take measures to prevent the widespread сoronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak from progressing, medical facilities are turning to SMS business texting to send alerts and notifications. In addition to keeping the public up to date on the confirmed cases, sending text messages is also the fastest method of delivering information and helpful tips that will help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In any state of emergency, the most useful approach to notify as many people as possible about the latest news updates is to interrupt programming on the television and/or radio. Up to now, that has been the standard platform to broadcast information.   

The most efficient way to prevent chaos in a medical emergency is to arm people with accurate data and instructions. The faster you get the announcements spread, the better the damage control will be. In other words, speed is going to be the most crucial component in controlling an epidemic. That’s why SMS business texting is the most appropriate channel to convey live coronavirus updates to the public.

Using SMS Business Texting for Live COVID-19 Updates

Can you imagine what would have been stopped in its tracks had a major organization used SMS to broadcast information about the coronavirus?

Let’s just say the CDC who is the most trusted source of information regarding diseases had sent a mass text to specific medical governments, the information would have been in the palm of the required hands in a matter of seconds.

Within minutes, the proper course of action would have been in the works. In turn, a great number of preventive measures would have been put into place and we may have had a significantly lower percentage of people test positive for coronavirus.  Here are some scenarios where SMS business texting can help medical emergencies:

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Symptoms: Notifying Patients

Medical professionals have an obligation to provide a thorough checkup when patients come into their office complaining of symptoms. When there is a major infection spread being announced on all news outlets it tends to cause panic. That panic can easily cause people to rush to their doctors when any signs or symptoms present themselves, even if those indicators aren’t related to the current medical emergency.  

Sending a list of coronavirus symptoms to patients by using an SMS platform, could greatly reduce the chances of your medical practice being flooded with superfluous claims. It is natural for people to get nervous when it comes to health risks because their life is on the line. Especially if you don’t know what to look for that would indicate that you may have been affected.  Since people rely on their doctors to treat them, it would be a great gesture for practitioners to send a text message to their patients with symptoms to look out for. Here’s a great example of how a medical facility can use business texting to send information:

  Once their labs come back, you can send another text message to inform them.

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Using Free Online Texting to Gain Online Reviews

Using Free Online Texting to ask your customers for feedback is now a common request across all industries.  Why? Well, their opinions, experience, and overall satisfaction is crucial to your business. Without knowing what is working and what is not working for the business, you won’t know what to do more of nor what can use improvement.

Using free online texting as a technique to increase your online reviews for the business is a great way to fish around for your consumers feedback.

The Importance of Online Reviews

In the last few years, most of the population became increasingly digitized, and the importance of the customer service experience has been enhanced. It is now so important that if you’re listed on Yelp, it will typically show up on a Google search before your own website does. Consumer’s opinions hold a heavy weight on the internet which is why it is crucial that you continuously nurture your customer relations in order to grow and maintain a good online reputation.

Online reviews aren’t just a tool for your brand, they’re also very useful to your lead generation because people will decide if they want to spend their money on your products or services based on the collective feedback they read online.

How Using Free Online Texting for Online Reviews Can Increase Revenue

If your consumers have had an excellent experience with your company, you can be that it will generate a buzz. Customer who are satisfied tend to share their story on any social media platform they can. Even if it’s a picture on Instagram where they tag your company and tell people what they experienced in the caption. Social consumers will help increase your revenue. This group of social consumers are the ones you want to use free online texting with. Send a text message to them requesting that they click on a link to write a review for you.

In order to stay ahead of the game, you must always think ahead to what’s next. Nurturing your customers and ensuring their satisfaction is a sure shot technique to guarantee a boost in sales.

Requesting Online Review from Customers

When you have a satisfied customer, you have a good chance of getting a positive review submitted…if you use free online texting to ask for one. Obviously, your business will benefit from receiving 4 to 5-star reviews on the directory giants like Yelp and Google. However, your customers may not necessarily feel going the extra mile to submit a review on your behalf. But what if there was something in for them?

Offer your customer an incentive like a promotional discount for submitting a positive review about their experience with your brand. Don’t overlook the significance of receiving online reviews! If an incentive is what you need to offer to get those review numbers up, offer it!

After you’ve noticed that a customer has submitted a positive review, it’s also important that you communicate your gratitude. Make sure to acknowledge their feedback (whether it’s good or bad) by replying as soon as possible to their review. To get started with a free trial of a text messaging platform that will allow you to send and receive text messages to your business phone number, feel free to contact us today for a quick chat on how we can help you increase your online reviews.

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4 Reasons Your Business Must Use Landline Messages to Communicate

Using a landline message platform to connect with consumers is being used across the globe and with each type of demographic because people tend to pick up their smartphones over a dozen times each day. That opens up a world of opportunity for businesses to engage and stay connected with their loyal customers.

As mobile technology is evolving with components like VR development, Voice Search, and Rich Communication Services, we will see even more opportunities to attract consumers even more. But never fear because landline messages are in the lead as the most popular way to communicate with your target audience and it’s much less expensive than PPC or email campaigns so it’s most definitely worth the investment.

As marketing rapidly develops its methods and there is an increase in new online strategies from brands who are competing with one another, landline messages will allow businesses to grab their consumer’s attention, build loyalty, and provide personalized customer service to nurture their shoppers. Being that text messages has such an impressive open and response rate and is favored by most consumers; most successful brands follow these 4 key facts below.

4 Reasons Your Business Must Use Landline Messages to Communicate

1. Using landline messages for marketing is paving the way for other technologies

79% of Digital Marketers who focus on mobile advertising are more likely to use other mobile marketing methods in conjunction with SMS. (Source)

The main reason that is, is because the proof is in the pudding. If adding landline messages to the marketing plan is effective, then it only makes sense that the target audience is seemingly comfortable with utilizing modern technology which means it will only enhance the overall digital methods being used to promote the brand and its products or services.

Landline message campaigns also set customers up to connecting and recognizing a company’s other mobile campaigns, assist with exposure and response rates, all while strengthening the relevance and the positive image that they view the brand in.

2. The next big mobile marketing method: Rich Communication Services (which is worth billions)

It is estimated that Rich Communication Services will be worth $74 billion by the year 2021. (Source)

So what exactly is Rich Communication Services (RCS)? Introduced by TechCrunch, GSMA, OpenMarket andGartner, as “a messaging standard that has the potential to tie together SMS and other chat apps”.  RCS is planned to overhaul landline messages into a messaging system that compliments Apple’s iMessage texting service, by offering group chat, read receipts, video, and all the comprehensive functionality of an APP or webpage. It was first developed in 2008 and was promoted by the GSMA Association, Google is now developing and implementing it together with the core carrier networks.

3. Most people use landline message for business

80% of people who own mobile devices use landline message for business purposes (Source)

In today’s world where people are always on the go, people are finding themselves mixing business with pleasure wherever they go. It is not abnormal for people in business to be out with the family and have to answer a few text messages or reply to several emails on the go. Time is of the essence when it comes to closing deals/sales and communicating with vendors or clients while you’re enjoying leisure time with friends and family “is a thing” now.

Customer are becoming more accustomed to text messaging businesses for a variety of purposes like:

  • Ask product or service questions
  • Confirm appointments
  • Request status of an order
  • Request tracking information
  • Submit a review
  • Request return labels
  • And much more!

With the number of motives a customer has to send a landline message to a company, the time of day that their inquiry comes in will vary based on their lifestyle. So your outreach strategy and response time has to match theirs. Business owners need to take advantage of this open-minded method of using mobile phones and then find innovative tactics to incorporate landline messages into their marketing plans and customer service strategies.

4. More brands plan to use landlines messages for their marketing approach in the future instead of email

20% of mobile marketers plan on using landlines messages in their marketing strategies (Source)

If it’s working, keep it going! Or is a better saying, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it”? Either saying is valid in terms of what is bringing in sales conversions with any type of marketing. Yes, it’s a great idea to employ various marketing methods so that you cast a wide net of consumers, but your target audience is versatile, and your marketing methods have to match that. That means that while you may be using various marketing techniques to capture your consumer’s attention, SMS is leading the way so it’s safe to say that all brands should be using it more.

As more and more research studies prove the success of landline message marketing strategies, the attention in this area has increased in popularity across many industries. With one in five marketing professionals forecasting the increased use of landline messages in the next year, it is no wonder that only 14% of marketing professionals positioned email campaigns into their marketing plans.

Percentage of Marketing Leaders Who Use (orange) or Plan to Use (blue) the Following Channels over the Next Twelve Months (Salesforce)

In conclusion, using landline messages is a clear and easy win for online marketers to complement their existing marketing methods and engage their customers in a compassionate manner. Mobile communication doesn’t have to be complicated. That’s why the leading landline message platforms provide a free trial to offer you an invaluable opportunity to test the most popular method to reach consumers. When you need to get a promotion out and get a response from customers, why on earth wouldn’t you use the communication platform that’s getting results? Just like Rich Media, RCS, and iMessage, you can progressively offer the interactivity and functionality of an app or email by way of the tried-and-trusted format of a landline message.

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4 Ways Landline Texting for Business Will Improve Your Marketing Plan

It wasn’t too long ago that the mobilized communication platform known as Landline Texting for Business was deemed the best and latest form to reach leads. It completely changed the way daily operations would be managed and how we nurture our relationships with customers.

Landline texting for business became “a thing” in recent years but SMS for business was something that become common in the early 90s. It started as a tool that Europeans used for easy banking transactions, and now people often use it make payments, transfer money, pay bills, etc.

As all things do, this new form of communication and online tool evolved into something that many small business owners started to utilize for various purposes, and amongst its uses the most actionable function became adding landline texting for business to marketing plans. Companies were now discovering just how powerful SMS marketing was becoming.

When you’re looking to believe in something that is not going to be expensive yet will be very effective in increasing your revenue, it’s proof you want to see. There are several ways to prove that landline texting for business is going to be a fruitful source in your marketing plan. It may quite possibly be the most cost-effective and result-driven part of your plan.

Let’s review some statistics that will help introduce the power that lies in SMS marketing.

98% of Landline Texting Messages are Read

Practically all mobile devices have the capacity of receiving and replying to text messages. SMS is an out-of-the-box feature that doesn’t require internet connections or app installations. When someone sends a text message to a mobile device, there’s a 98 percent chance that it will be read. These prevalent aspects of landline texting make it a very appealing component of small business marketing.

Landline Texting for Business Has a Response Rate of 45%

In comparison to social media or email communication, text messaging has a much more impressive response rate. We’re talking nearly ½ of smartphone users respond to text messages faster than they do an email message or direct message on social media. Les than 10% of consumers open emails from businesses unless it’s in response to an inquiry they submitted or a notification about an order they placed. Spam fills up everyone’s inboxes and the actual percentage of emails that are considered spam is 80%. So of course, people ignore their emails!

More Than 50% of Consumers Prefer Landline Texting for Business

More than half of consumers enjoy the concept of interacting with customer support via text messages. Some of the most popular customer services inquiries that can be handled by landline texting for business include payment confirmations, availability of products, and shipping status or order processing. In the past, these communications were largely handled by email, but the existing overabundance of spam makes landline texting a better option.

75% of Customers Look Forward to Text Messages with Promotional Offers

According to Digital Marketing Magazine, 75% of all customers would like to receive special offers, discounts and coupons delivered as a text message to their mobile devices. Incidentally, a suggested strategy is to create a call-to-action messages that includes a certain sense of urgency. Limited time offers that have to be used by a particular date are great for increasing store traffic. Another approach is to encourage recipients to forward coupons to their friends and loved ones. In the end, even though landline texting for business is now a remnant media outlet, small business owners should not ignore it. With the right landline texting for business company owners can greatly improve their customer acquisition and retention processes.

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3 Ways Business Texting Services Help You Strengthen Customer Relations

Strengthening relationships through Business Texting Services comes in handy for marketers who are looking to generate and convert leads. It’s also very effective in improving your relationships with existing customers because it allows you to engage on a more personal level, share content, send exclusive offers, send special announcements, and keep them connected to your brand.

Some business owners may not be comfortable yet with using business texting services because it sounds a bit evasive to send text messages to their contacts but the fact of the matter is, people actually prefer to receive text messages from businesses than phone calls or emails.

Think about it.

You’re at work sitting in on a meeting and your mind wanders off as you begin to wonder why your shipment from your favorite retailer never arrived yesterday. You can’t very well pick up your cell phone right then and there to call and find out the status of your shipment. Sending an email isn’t going to work either because you want to know RIGHT NOW and not hours from now, and some customer service teams reply days later.

Now, if you could just pick up your cell phone and quickly send a text message asking for a status update and get a reply within minutes…how satisfied would you be? Very! That’s why more brands are using business texting services to improve their customer relations.

Here are 3 other ways business texting services will help you build trust and loyalty with your consumers:

1. Use Business Texting Services to Nurture Your Customers.

While automating messages can be useful, it’s not necessarily the best way to build a relationship. Ultimately it will affect your bottom line and it has been proven that when you nurture a relationship with a customer, you make nearly 50%more in sales from them compared to those whom you do no cultivate a relationship with.

Not only do customers you develop a relationship with become repeat customers, but they are also more likely to refer your company to friends and family. That means that nurtured relationships will in fact lead to higher revenue. But what will help you build a relationship with your consumers? Easy peezy! Conversations will!

More times than not, sending a text message is how friends and family choose to communicate with one other, and so it would only make sense that you use the same concept to effectively build a relationship between your brand and your consumers.

There are so many ways to use business texting services to start conversations. You can start with conversations starters such as:

  • Hey Sam, we noticed you wanted more info on our promotion. Do you have time at any point today to go over the details?
  • Good morning! I saw this article on how to maintain your hair color and thought you may want to read up on it before you schedule your next appointment for hair coloring with me ?
  • Hey Sarah, we were reviewing reports and saw that you ordered vitamins a month ago and figured you may be running low by now. Here’s a discount code for your next purchase!

These types of text message are short, friendly, and very likely to convert into a sale. We highly recommend you insert this into your sales funnels because you will notice an influx in orders over time simply because you embedded conversational wording into your marketing plan.

2. Send Promotional Offers as You Build Your List of Subscribers.

If a consumer had an excellent experience buying your products or taking advantage of your services, there is a high likelihood that they will be a repeat customer. In fact, they are more likely to spend money on your brand than a new lead. Even if that only accounts for an approximate 5% increase in customer retention it will still increase your bottom line up to 95%.

In order to make this theory work at its best, it’s imperative that you re-engage former buyers, which can easily be done by using business texting services to send messages about new products, announcements, promotions, opportunities, and features. You can track how many of those messages met your end goal of encouraging a customer to buy from you again by using a keyword to build your filtered list of subscribers.

When you use a keyword, your customers will have the ability to (for example), text VIPCUSTOMER to your business phone number for more information on receiving exclusive promotional deals that is not available to all customers. You can also set up an autoresponder to thank those who sent in the keyword and then make sure to monitor the list so that you know who to send the special “VIP” offers you promised they’d receive.

One of the benefits of using business texting services is the fact that people can send and receive text messages to and from your business phone number.

3. Increase Your Review Ratings – Business Texting Services.

Here’s a little fun fact: Companies that have 10 or more reviews online will gain 50% more conversions than brands who have a whopping zero number of reviews. Most people fishing for information on a product or service will use Google to find out more before they spend their money. On average, consumers read approximately 7 reviews before they believe in your brand, and 22% of consumers who have read a bad review (just 1 bad review) will quickly decide you’re not the brand for them.

Moral of the story is that having good reviews will help your business with positive online exposure and sales conversions.

Here’s how business texting services can help you gain good reviews and boost your sales:

Send a links in a text message asking your customers to write a quick review about their positive experience with your brand. You can insert an incentive like 10% off their next purchase for their time.

Want to know how much this tactic works? Links via text message have a 36% click through rate. Being that mostly everyone reads text messages within seconds of receiving them, you have a good chance of getting an increase in reviews on the same day you request your customers to submit them.

Takeaway

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. If you’re afraid it may be too complicated, it’s not. In fact, the Text My Main Number text messaging platform is very user-friendly, and the customer service team offers training during your free 2-week trial period.

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2 Ways Landline Texting for Business Increases Sales

So how will Landline Texting for Business ensure an increase in sales you ask? Well, think about the full process of landing a sale or a new client. It starts with an exchange that becomes a lead and then HOW you nurture that lead is what determines if you’ve gained a new customer. The more personalized your method of interaction is, the more likely you are to establish trust from the lead while increasing their interest in your brand.

Once you have their interest, it’s the next 5 tips that’s going to lock them in. Then you just copy and paste your methodology to multiply your revenue.

2 Ways Landline Texting for Business Increases Sales

Like we stated above, if you gain more leads, you’ll increase sales. The question is, how exactly will landline texting for business help you convert your audience from people who are just clicking around on your website or social media profiles into actual customers?

1. Use Landline Texting for Business to Generate Leads

The more leads you attract to your brand, the more sales you’ll receive. Being that text messaging is the feature that cell phone users utilize the most, it’s safe to say that you have a greater chance of attracting them by using landline texting.

Think about it. If you wanted to reach someone right now to tell them about something exciting, does your instinct drive you to email them? Or is your first thought to go to their Facebook page to send them a message? Probably not.

Your first instinct is probably to call someone when you want to tell them about something exciting or urgent. However, people rarely answer their phones and depending on the time of day, more times than not you’re going to get their voicemail. Now, what they will do almost IMMEDIATELY is check a new text message when they see the notification on their phone.

So again, landline texting for business is the method that will generate the most leads because texting is the majority of the population’s preferred communication method.

If you’re using Google Adwords to attract leads, you can now add coding that will let leads directly send a text message to your business. You can then use a landline texting for business platform to reply instantly and engage with your leads.

You can also generate leads by using the SMS feature on your social media profiles. Depending on the platform, some have the option to add a click-to-text button right on your profile.

2. Beat Your Competitors with Your Follow-up Method

OK, now you pulled their attention because they clicked to text your business. What’s next?

Research has demonstrated that 35-50% of sales go to the brand that replies first to a lead’s inquiry. Then comes the art of persuasion and the attitude you use in the verbiage of your message to certify that you’re using your landline texting for business technique at its best.

To build rapport with your leads you must start by indicating how your product or service will provide a solution so it’s crucial that you are detailed in your persuasion. Your text message will be read within seconds of being received so there is no doubt that you will connect with your leads more via text messaging than any other method of communication.

Takeaway

Once you have your foot in the door with your lead, send an inviting message that persuades them to click on a link to learn more about how your product or service is the answer to what they need and always suggest a way to connect. Include a call-to-action and use the word “free” wherever you can because everyone appreciates that they can ask more questions or schedule a consult at no cost to them. For more information on how landline texting for business can help your brand increase sales, feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

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The 3 Best Free Texting Apps for Smartphones

Two cartoon characters standing in front of a big tablet, one holding a star and the other a smart phone.

“If it’s free it’s for me!” We’ve all heard this saying and the reason it is so popular is because everyone loves anything that’s free. Especially if it’s a service you can make use of like the best Free Texting app.

When looking for a free texting app there are some things you should consider. For starters, some are bombarded with annoying promo ads because someone has to make their money somewhere. Other SMS/MMS services aren’t as irritating.

Being that text messaging is the most popular method of communicating, free texting apps have risen over the past several years. Now it’s up to you to decide which texting app is the one for you. After researching and testing a variety of text messaging services, we came up with a list of the best texting apps for smartphones.

The 3 Best Free Texting Apps for Smartphones

TextMe Up

Not to be confused with TextNow (which we’ll review below), this particular texting app provides you with your own phone number that you can use to send and receive message with. One of the perks of TextMe Up is that it doesn’t have as many ads per page. However, it does have them in more areas so the nuisance level will be a matter of the user’s preference. You can add credits to use the phone number to make calls. While solely using this as a free texting app doesn’t incur a cost, there are subscription fees that range from $4.99-$7.99/month depending on the access level you choose. When you do sign up to a subscription, you can say buh bye to the ads!

Google Voice

One of the most popular and best free texting apps is Google Voice. It allows you to send SMS and MMS for free and make phone calls so long as it’s within the US or Canada. People have reported some not so great reception when it comes to making calls outside of the coverage area but with perks like the Chrome browser extension, voicemail, and an easy-to-use app…who can complain? The great thing about this texting app is that you don’t have to have a Google account to use it.

TextNow

Similar to TextMe Up, TextNow is another free texting app being used by many smartphone users to make free calls and send and receive free text messages. It has a pretty clean and easy user interface to navigate which is why it’s considered one of the best free texting apps on the market. Users have reported that they barely have issues and they enjoy the fact that they can subscribe to a text plan that doesn’t require Wi-Fi for as little as $9.99/month. If you simply want to continue using the texting app services but want to remove the ads, you can subscribe to an ad-free service for $2.99/month, but that also limits the number of texts that you can send and receive. So there you have it. In the sea of information, you’ll find online on the best free texting apps, Text My Main Number has selected the 3 that happen to have the best service and all offer an option to remove the promotional ads that fund them. Happy texting!

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Use Business Texting Services to Improve Sales Conversions

Use Business Texting Services to Improve Sales Conversions

If starting a conversation has never been your strength, using Business Texting Services may be the key to using the right verbiage to improve your sales conversions. You’d be surprised how meaningful a relationship you can build by sending and receiving text messages with your customers.

Even when it comes to lead retention, business texting services have proven to be the best communication method to engage prospects, schedule consultations, estimate appointments, and getting orders.

Most business owners can probably relate to the fact that traditional sales methods no longer work. People prefer a more customized form of interaction and when pitching a service or product to them, they want to know SPECIFICALLY why it would serve them a purpose.

When you personalize a product or service to tailor to someone’s needs, you increase your chances of sparking their interest, and in turn, of landing a sale.

With business texting services you have the ability to customize messages to intrigue your target audience’s attention in a more direct way than say a print ad or email. The secret to creating a message that will improve sales conversions is to:

  • Be genuine in your wording
  • Define the benefit
  • Humanize your message
  • Include a call to action

Using Business Texting Services to Nurture Customer Interactions

Like anything else you’re looking to build, nurturing customer relationships also takes work. It no longer works to keep interactions between businesses and customers transactional. It’s too black and white and people want the gray.

People connect to brands via a variety of mediums these days and they end up overwhelmed with the different directions they’re approached in. Whether it be a TV commercial, promotional email, social media ad, or any form of print ad, the push to advertise brands is everywhere. That’s why we say that using business texting services is the way to go because you’re reaching them at the palm of their hands.

In other words, you’re cutting through the noise to get their attention.

Now that you’re at the front of the attention line, how do you ensure that they don’t ignore your text message AND that your message converts into a sale?

Conversation Goals That Ensure Sales Conversions

Not all conversations should be started to encourage a sale. Sometimes initiating regular conversation indirectly converts into a sale, and that’s where the science behind building good customer relations begins. Here are a few reasons to spark a conversation with prospects and customers that can help sales conversions via text messaging.

Engagement – Stay connected with your audience and send them text messages with important company announcements, a birthday wish, a “haven’t heard from you in a while,” and always include a promotional code to entice them to use their discount in store or online.

Retention – Most businesses get a good percentage of their sales from returning customers. Believe it or not, those returning customers sometimes make up over 90% of your sales. Send existing customers exclusive deals via text message to help them feel like they’re VIP to you and offer them an added incentive for referring your business to others as well.

Acquisition – Did you know the average cost of a retail lead is $34?That’s not counting what business owners are spending on publishing ads, but when using business texting services your spend is reduced by an impressive amount. The takeaway? Treat your customers like someone you know and nurture a relationship though personalized messages using business texting services that don’t break the bank. You’ll see that in time, you will convert conversations into sales simply because you got to know your audience better.

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Exploring Landline Texting for Evites

Exploring Landline Texting for Evites

Start using the # 1 communication tool to send and manage evites for your next event. Landline Texting for Evites has the highest open rate and providing invitees with the ability to autoreply is sure to increase attendance.

While it’s true that many industries have taken advantage of the benefits of SMS marketing, one industry that is finding landline texting to be useful for more than just advertising is the events industry.

Having the ability tocommunicate with your target audience via text messaging increases the possibilities of receiving a response to an invitation for an event. Even if you’re not in the events industry, chances are that your business will host an event sooner or later. Using business texting to send out the invitations will still work better towards increasing attendance than email or snail mail.

For example, restaurants can use a business texting platform to send out invitations to special events like when they want to alert their customers about a new themed night.

“Hi Michael! We’re hosting our very first karaoke night at Bob’s Steakhouse this Thursday, and we’d love to have you attend. Just reply with SINGMEIN to be added to our guestlist!”

Or, you can go a step further and include a link when your event requires that a ticket be purchased.

“Good evening Mrs. Horowitz. Tickets for this year’s annual Valentine’s dance school fundraiser are now available. Click on this link to purchase your tickets before the early bird special is over on February 1st.”

When you use the Text My Main Number text messaging platform, you’ll have the ability to manage communication on an easy-to-use web-based user panel. Making it easier to manage your guestlist and keep accurate count of attendance.

Sending Evites through SMS

When you’re trying to increase attendance for an event and you know that most of the population owns smartphones, it’s quite simple to decide which form of communication to use to send out invitations. Especially when text messages have an impressive open rate of 98%. I think it’s safe to say that you can pretty much guarantee that your invite will be read.

Exploring Landline Texting for Evites

There are so many text messaging platforms out there and choosing the right company to go with can become overwhelming. Before you end up down the rabbit hole that is Google, here are some of the features and tools you’ll want your landline texting provider to offer:

Cost Effectiveness: It doesn’t make sense to start using text messaging to send and manage evites if it’s just going to be an added expense. If you’re going to add this communication tool to your event planning duties, then you’ll want it to make financial sense. Choose a text messaging provider like Text My Main Number that will not break the bank.

Customization: Ensure that the provider you choose has a web-based user panel that is easy to use, and easy to customize to your needs. You’ll want it to have the ability to create lists and schedule messages. Text blasts are only as good as you can customize them to meet your target audience’s preferences (i.e. specific days, times, and text categories) in order to retain your opt-in rate. 

Features: When sending evites using a text messaging platform you’ll want to add a human touch and use featuressuch as emojis, MMS, auto reply, and perhaps even a chat widget to enable instant conversations for anyone who may have questions about the event.

Customer Support: Ensure that the provider you choose offers customer support to assist you with your campaigns and answer any questions you may have about how to use their landline texting platform efficiently.  Companies like Text My Main Number who offer free training are ideal because the first teach you how to use all the key features and the admin panel from the very start.

Free Text Messaging Trial

Before you decide what platform to use to send out evites for your next event, you should consider a landline texting provider that offers a free trial to test run your campaign. During this time, take advantage of also testing the level of customer support you’ll receive to make sure you’ve chosen a provider that will be reliable when you need assistance.

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Avoid Spamming Your Audience When Using Landline Texting

You never want to get so excited about having an SMS marketing platform to send offers to your customers that you forget there are rules to the game. Spamming someone with a plethora of messages is the last thing you want to do with using landline texting.

Yes, we get it. It’s fun to have a new resource to reach out to your audience. Not so fun? Annoying them to the point where they’re opting out of receiving further messages from you. It can also cause you legal problems.

Before you start partaking in spammy behavior, take a loot at the tips we outlined below to help you retain your list of subscribers.

How to Avoid Spamming Subscribers with SMS

Using the Text My Main Number landline texting platform for your SMS Marketing is not a large investment, but any investment you make in trying to pull in new revenue for your business should be taken seriously.

It’s extremely important that you know the proper protocol and permissions that go with text messaging.

Non-compliant marketing can become costly and the last thing you want to do is spend thousands of dollars in fees for improperly messaging your subscribers.

There are 3 organizations that regulate SMS messaging. They are:

When it comes to best SMS marketing practices, it’s CTIA and MMA that regulate it, and the FCC is a government agency. The laws created by the FCC are what regulate SMS marketing and protect the public from being spammed by businesses. The two laws that most protect consumers are the CAN-SPAM and the TELEPHONE CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT.

While Text My Main Number is not a legal firm and we do not claim to know all the ins and outs of the compliance regulations, we do have some recommendations on protecting your brand from being non-compliant.

How to Protect Your Brand from Complaints in SMS Marketing

For starters, you want to use a reputable landline texting platform like Text My Main Number who stays up to date with regulations to ensure their clients are always in compliance. As a text messaging provider, they do all the work to understand the laws so that your business can avoid complaints from consumers about being spammed.

Landline texting is a service you would only offer to people who opt-in to receiving text messages from your business. For those who want to opt out, it’s important that your text messaging provider knows how to create an easy method for people to unsubscribe.

How to Entice Your Audience to Opt-In Using Landline Texting

When you offer an incentive to your audience for subscribing, you will notice how quickly your opt-in rate will rise. The most common way to track the offers that are working to increase your list of subscribers is by using a keyword for your SMS marketing campaigns. You can then create promo ads using the keyword and publish the ads on your social media platforms.

Best & Easiest Opt-Out Methods When Using Landline Texting

It’s important that you provide a clear and easy way for subscribers to opt-out, otherwise you will be violating regulations and it can lead to legal complications.

Subscribers should be able to easily opt-out from receiving text messages by replying with the word “STOP.”  

SMS marketing has become one of the most popular forms of promoting products and services for many industries. The last thing you want to do is lose the ability to advertise your brand’s offerings because you didn’t follow the laws that are accompanied by landline texting. The good news is, you don’t have to spend time learning what those regulations are, because Text My Main Number does it for you.Sign up today for our free trial and start using one of the most trusted landline texting providers in the U.S.!

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20 Useful SMS Templates to Improve Messaging

Part of properly strategizing a successful SMS marketing by SMS Templates campaign consists on setting goals.  You must decide if what your business needs is to:

  • Drive more traffic to the company website
  • Generate leads
  • Increase brand awareness
  • Boost sales

Otherwise all the efforts you put towards your business texting campaigns can easily be rendered futile.

Having such a powerful communication platform like the Text My Main Number landline texting platform can help you attract new consumers and ultimately become a resourceful tool for daily operations. Many companies are using business texting to:

  • Send alerts
  • Send appointment confirmations and reminders
  • Answer product and service questions
  • Provide instant customer service
  • …and all can be done using MMS!

These daily tasks are only some of the many features that landline texting offers business owners.

Now, we’re going to review some of the most successful SMS Templates to help you communicate better with your audience and help you increase sales.

20 Successful SMS Templates to Improve Messaging

Once you’ve undergone the free Text My Main Number trial and you’re ready to implement your new SMS marketing tool, it’s time to decide how to create messages that are concise and alluring. You don’t want to get stuck copying/pasting/editing messages while you try to figure out the type of context that sounds just right.

Here are some inspirational SMS templates to use when your creative juices just aren’t flowing.

SMS Reminders

Sending SMS reminders are an excellent way to manage schedules by reminding people about their appointments, boosting revenue by sending alerts about sales, increasing RSVPs for events, and more.

The SMS reminders can be simple and using some of the templates below should help get you started.

5 SMS Templates for SMS Reminders

  1. “Hi Michael. This is Child and Family Psychology. We just wanted to remind you about your appointment tomorrow at 11 AM.” 
  2. “Hi Sarah. This is Stacey with Paloma Bakery here. We’re sending a friendly reminder that your order will be ready to be picked up tomorrow at 5 PM.” 
  3. “This appointment reminder is for Barry who is scheduled to meet with Jasmine to process his taxes.”
  4. “Don’t forget! Your Business Marketing class has been rescheduled for Friday the 13th at 3 PM.”
  5. “Hi Evelyn! We see that you added items to your cart but didn’t check out. Just wanted to let you know that promo code SALENOW will give you 15% off your order if you checkout now!”

SMS Loyalty Programs

Setting up a loyalty program with SMS messaging is way better than the punch cards that everyone seems to lose. Once your audience has opted-in, they can track their points, visits, etc. via SMS text messages.

To reward your subscribers for being loyal customers, you can send them special offers.

5 Loyalty Program SMS Templates

  1. “Thank you for being such a loyal customer! Since we haven’t seen you in 3 months, we miss you and want to offer you a free gift to come back. Reply now with CLAIM MY GIFT to schedule an appointment.”
  2. “Text the keyword ILOVENAILS for 10% off your next manicure at Posh Nails.”
  3. “Send us a picture of your most recent receipt to info@salesareus.com and get a coupon for a $25 gift card.”
  4. “Can you believe it’s been a whole month since you subscribed to our list?! Reply with IAMVIP for a free $10 coupon.”
  5. “Reply with FLASHSALE to receive 75% off all women shoes today only!”

Encourage Sales and Improve Customer Service with SMS Surveys

Feedback is the best way to learn about your customer’s buying habits. Asking the right questions on a survey will let you know which products and/or services are in high demand and which ones you can do away with. Additionally, you can send out SMS surveys to find out where your customer service can use improvement.

5 SMS Survey Templates to Improve Customer Service

  1. “Hi Jimmy. We would love to hear about your experience with Smithson Locks! Leave us a quick review at [URL] and you’ll receive a $10 gift card.”
  2. “Thank you for your recent purchase! On a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to recommend our product to your family and friends?”
  3. “We see you spoke to our support team today! Was Angie able to help resolve your problem in a timely fashion? Reply YES or NO.”
  4. “Please rate the value of your most recent phone call with Dedicated Office on a scale of 1-10.”
  5. “Which service do you feel is the most useful at Vector Car Wash? Reply with power wash, car detailing, or vacuuming.”

5 SMS Survey Templates to Help Encourage Sales

  1. “Thank your recent purchase of our Elle Fashion Boots. Visit [URL] for a complete guide on this year’s best fall fashion picks.”
  2. “Read our latest blog post on 5 Ways to Find the Best Deals on Our Website at [URL]”
  3. “Thank you for signing up to receive recipes from Kitchen Classics. You might be interested in learning more about buying the right organic foods on our website by visiting [URL].”
  4. “We’re offering free hair care evaluations. Reply with DETAILS to learn more and schedule your evaluation.”
  5. “Hi Brianne. We noticed you purchased a new quilt today. Consider adding some pillow shams to your order that match perfectly with your new quilt. Visit [URL] to see pillow shams that go well with your order!”

Start Using the Easiest SMS Platform for Your Business Today

Ready to start sending SMS templates, but not sure how to get started? Start your FREE two-week trial with Text My Main Number today, and we’ll throw in free training to help you navigate our easy-to-use landline texting platform.

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10 Ways to Use Business Texting to Improve Your Opt-in Rate

What good is a list of subscribers if you can’t keep them interested? To ensure your contact list is continuously increasing, use these tips to improve your opt-in rate with Business Texting.

As more industries begin using landline texting, it’s important that you stay smart and use the best practices. You want your target audience to stay interested in receiving text messages from your business, which is why we created this post. We want to teach you how to use business texting in a way that will retain your list of subscribers.

With the plethora of communication channels out there for businesses, trying to decide which will work best for reaching your audience can be difficult. You want to ensure that your prospects and customers receive your message without being annoyed.

10 Ways to Use Business Texting to Improve Your Opt-in Rate

1.  Keep Your SMS Marketing Messages Short

The only way business texting is going to be effective is if you avoid annoying your subscribers so keep your messages short. No one wants to read a long text message and we strongly suggest that you keep them down to a sentence or two. You want them to quickly glance at their text message preview window and immediately attract their attention with that first sentence. That’s what’s going to encourage your subscriber to tap their screen and open the rest of that text message.

2. Use Business Texting to Build Relationships with Your Audience

In any relationship you build, loyalty is one of the most vital ingredients in that recipe. Building loyalty with your prospects and customers is a great way to strengthen a relationship with the. Don’t send messages they haven’t shown interest in receiving. Unless they’ve subscribed to receiving messages in the particular category your blasting out about, recognize their interests so that in turn, they appreciate that you respect their boundaries.

You can learn about your text message recipients’ preferences by simply asking at sign-up what type of text messages they’d like to receive from your business.

3. Don’t Annoy Subscribers

Research has already proven that consumers prefer communicating with brands via text messages over phone calls or emails.  One of the reasons it’s preferred is because they already feel overwhelmed with the overabundance of emails that are clogging up their inbox. Limit your business texting frequency and provide valuable content. People want to engage with your brand so long as you don’t pass a specific threshold where they perceive your messages as being excessive.

4. Provide Useful Updates

or online retailers who ship products, you can ask your customers if they’d like to receive alerts and updates about their order at checkout. Many times, emails from business fall into the spam folder and gets missed by the customer. This causes consumers to call your business phone number to get an update. Make it more convenient for them by text-enabling your business phone number so that they can send their questions or concerns about their order, and an employee can reply using the Text My Main Number web-based user panel.

5. Personalize Your SMS Marketing Messages

SMS Marketing works best when you customize your text messages to be personal and inviting. If you have a large list of subscribers, it would be best if you split them up into groups by category. That way you’re able to send personalized text messages to each group about their specific product or service interests. When you send out text messages to your entire list of subscribers, they tend to be too generalized and come across as they same advertising messages they’re already receiving from other brands.

6. Avoid One-Worded Replies When Using Business Text Messaging

You want your audience to feel like they’re interacting with someone who cares about their inquiry. The best way to humanize digital communication is by messaging as if you were speaking in person. Send full sentences and add a touch of personality to make it more conversational. You want your subscribers to feel engaged in order to retain their interest in sending and receiving messages to your text-enabled business phone.

7. Set Limits When Using Business Texting

Enjoyable communication is a two-way street so setting boundaries from the beginning will avoid overwhelming your subscribers. You want to be cognizant of the time of day you’re sending your text messages, the amount of text messages you’re sending, and that you’re including a reason from them to engage in your context. You may have to create groups based on the time zone the recipient is in and create sub-groups based on their interests. When scheduling text messages, be sure that you’re still customizing the messages by keeping the message personalized so that it suits they boundary lines.

8. Convey Value in Your Business Text Messages

If you’re a medical professional who just started using a landline texting platform to communicate with your patients/clients, send messages that make sense and are useful. For example, you can send daily tips on how to improve your health which will add value to your business text messages. Don’t spam them with nonsense because by doing so, you’re killing their trust in you. You can send out surveys that will help you understand what else you can do to add value to your text messages. Once people agree to receiving messages from your practice, adding value is what will keep them opted in.

9. Ensure Relevancy in Your Content

Everyone is connected to their mobile devices and with text messages having such a high open rate, there is no doubt that landline texting is the best form of communication. That’s why it’s extremely crucial that the content you deliver is relevant to your target audience. If they’ve opted in to receiving messages from your text-enabled business phone number, that means they’re already interested. So now it’s up to you to tailor content that will help establish more of a beneficial relationship with your subscribers.

10. Safeguard Your Opt-in Rate

A lot of times, businesses increase their text messaging contact list by offering a promotional discount for signing up. Shortly after customers have used that promo code, they opt out of receiving messages from your brand. Often times, the reason that happens is because your company has sent irrelevant content to them, and way too much of them at that. It’s not all about advertising when it comes to sending text messages to consumers. You can also offer customer service to your subscribers and answer their questions about products or services. Even sending a happy birthday will go a long way with subscribers and these items will help safeguard your opt-in rate. So, the formula in retaining and growing your text messaging contact list is:

Low frequency in text messages + valuable content + personalization = a strong and developing opt-in rate. To get started with SMS communication with your consumers, contact us to start your free trial and speak to one of your text messaging platform professionals who will be able to answer all of your questions, and help you get all set up.

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Top Business Texting Marketing Campaign Ideas

Business Texting

Is business texting a resourceful tool for your brand?

Making your SMS marketing simpler should be your goal and as you generate leads and increase revenue for your brand, you will realize that landline texting is the most cost-efficient and productive marketing tool you’ve ever encountered.

There are so many marketing channels that ensure business owners that they will see immediate results. In other words, ROI will be instantly demonstrated. Yet, once they launch their marketing campaigns…not so much.

As you decide which marketing strategies are worth the expense and which ones should be tossed out the window, think about this:

Let’s focus on that last statistic.

If you’re not providing value in your SMS marketing campaigns, your audience will lose interest. So yes, business texting is the best way to communicate with your consumers, but you must create valuable content in order for them to stay interested and opted in.

Business texting has been the most highly used marketing took for many industries like insurance firms, restaurants, service professionals, and medical professionals. That’s just to name a few!

Text My Main Number is one of the top text messaging platforms and knows what works best when launching an SMS marketing campaign that delivers value to the recipient. For those who don’t know what adding value to a text messaging marketing campaign means, we’re going to review some of the best business texting marketing campaign ideas to get you started.

Top Business Texting Marketing Campaign Ideas

We’re going to help your brand meet their marketing goals through business texting. In our experience with various industries, we’ve seen some great results which we will detail below industry by industry.

Business Texting Marketing for Insurance Firms

Many insurance firms depend on leads and referrals to gain new clientele. Up to now, email marketing campaigns have been one of the top ways to reach out to prospects and existing clients.

With the decline of open rates over the years, insurance firms have now turned to landline texting to share content and communicate with their target audience. With SMS messaging they’ve noticed that there is a more personalized connection and recipients are more responsive.

Insurance firms who are looking to increase their revenue are sending text messages with offers such as:

  • “Text ‘Free Quote’ to 555-555-5555 to get a quote within 24 hours”
  • “Hi John, this is Mark at Pathway Insurance, I noticed you are eligible for a discount on your policy. Reply to this text to schedule a phone call with me to review.”
  • “We are offering a 10% discount to all clients who refer our services to their friends and family. The discount will be applicable to both you and your referral.”

SMS Marketing for Restaurants

While social media promo ads, Groupon, and other coupon apps and websites have been a great marketing tool for restaurants, there has been redemption decline over time. People get excited about restaurant offers when it’s shiny and new. That’s why they’ve begun using landline texting for marketing campaigns. Some of the SMS marketing methods include offers like:

  • Creating flyers to place on the tables with a keyword that customers can use to opt-in and receive a discount on their next visit.
  • Send alerts with new menu items and offer a discount when they order that specific item.
  • Send surveys to recent restaurant visitors to see what menu items are a favorite. You can include a promo offer for those who take the time to fill out the survey.
  • Send discount offers for customers who come in on specific days/times (this works best to offer during times where the restaurant is normally slow).

Landline Texting for Service Professionals

Service professionals such as car mechanics, HVAC technicians, handymen, landscaping professionals, etc. are taking advantage of the convenience of using the Text My Main Number’s easy admin panel to create groups and send text messages with specific offers to each group.

The top business texting use for service professionals is sending alerts. Those alerts end up being a great marketing technique because they bring in revenue. People tend to forget when to schedule maintenance and services so you can send alerts that say:

  • “It’s that time of year again! Reply to this text message to schedule your annual maintenance on your HVAC unit.”
  • “We are offering $20 off of mowing services this Wednesday only! Reply with the best time of day to come by this Wednesday and we will reply to confirm the time.”
  • “Your car is due for a tune-up, reply to schedule a convenient time and receive a 10% discount.”

How Medical Professionals are Utilizing Business Texting

Medical professionals also need revenue boosts and sometimes it’s difficult to choose the best outlet for marketing. When using landline texting to reach out to patients, you want to keep your messages personalized and the frequency in which you send them low. No one wants to receive a thousand text messages because it becomes like receiving spam in your email inbox which is the main reason why there has been a decline in open rates for emails.

For medical professionals to boost their revenue, they can send text messages that say:

  • “Hi Susan! It’s time for your 6-month check-up. Reply now to schedule your appointment.”
  • “Hi Joan. We see it’s time for you to pay us a visit. We’re offering a 10% discount on botox this week, so we figured now is a good time for you to come in. Reply to schedule your appointment.”
  • “Hi Michael, since you’ve been a client for over a year, we’d like to offer you a free therapeutic massage when you refer a friend who schedules and completes an appointment. Have your friend text ‘Massage Me Now’ to our business phone to schedule their appointment.”

Text My Main Number offers a variety of articles on our blog that will help all industries increase their opt-in rates and sales. We also offer free training so that you know how to use our business texting platform. Give our free trial a run and you’ll see that adding landline texting to your marketing plan was definitely the way to go!

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3 Holiday SMS Marketing Strategies That Will Guarantee an Increase in Sales

Are you a retail business that is very ready to beat your competitors and boost sales for the holidays? If so, Text My Main Number has the key to boosting your sales using SMS Marketing.

Once Thanksgiving is over and everyone is done with eating their biggest meal of the year, spending time with their family, and eating leftovers for the remainder of the week…it’s time to start the holiday shopping! If you’re sending promotional offers using your business texting platform, get ready for an influx in orders.

In an effort to help online and brick and mortar retailers boost sales for the holiday season, Text My Main Number has designed a list of the best SMS marketing strategies that are guaranteed to increase sales!

3 Holiday SMS Marketing Strategies That Will Guarantee an Increase in Sales

Research has demonstrated that consumers spend the most holiday shopping dollars online and not in stores. While Black Friday is probably the most popular day to start the holiday shopping craze, Cyber Monday beats it by a landslide. In fact, people spent over 6 billion dollars last year on Cyber Monday.

Holiday shopping continues throughout the next several weeks leading up to Christmas Day. So, if you have a retail business and you haven’t put together a holiday marketing plan, use this article as a guide to get you started with business texting which is the preferred method of communication to consumers.

We want you to avoid losing out on the big money that exists in holiday shopping by using the # 1 method of communication; landline texting. If you have a text-enabled business phone number, you can use this time of year to send promotional offers via text messages to your consumers.

Let’s go over some of the best SMS marketing strategies to increase sales.

1. Collaborate with a Competitor

Sounds ridiculous right? Well it’s not. It’s brilliant! Think about it. If you collaborate with one of your competitors to combine holiday promotions, you will increase your consumer audience because both your customers and theirs will be at your reach. The key here is to partner with a competitor who has a larger customer base.

Before reaching out to your competitor to offer a partnership, go on their website and find a product or service that would go well with one of your own. You’ll want the promotional offer that compliments a product or service for both brands so that it makes sense.

For example: If you sell cell phones, collaborate with a competitor who sells cell phone cases so that the combined offer makes sense.

If you sell mugs which is one of the highest trending items to sell this year, reach out to a competitor who sells tea or coffee to create an attractive holiday gift offer.

Once you’ve decided which competitor to link your holiday gift offer with, it’s time to leverage from the power that exists in business text messaging. Since landline texting is such a resourceful tool to send promotional offers and alerts to your consumers, it’s an excellent platform to use to announce your exciting partnership. In a matter of seconds, you will be able to reach your now larger audience to encourage them to click and buy your promotional gift offer.

2. Free Giveaway

A free giveaway is not new for SMS marketing plans. While it may seem counterproductive because you’re trying to increase revenue it’s actually one of the best ways to bring in sales.

Choose an item you may be overstocked on to choose as the free giveaway item which can end up being something that customers re-gift to their family, friends, or even a coworker.

Here are a few strategies that will help make your free giveaway offer even more appealing:

Make the offer exclusive: When you announce a limited offer, it creates a sense of urgency to the consumer. They want to make sure to take advantage of the offer before it runs out. Additionally, you can make this offer even more exclusive by only offering it to those who subscribe to receive text messages from your business.

Replace discount offers with a free gift offer: Free always sounds better than a percentage off of a purchase. People would rather receive a free gift than 10% off their purchase. So instead of using your business text messaging platform to send a discounted offer, announce a free giveaway.

Create a minimum sale amount per order: In your landline texting campaign for the holidays, you can set a minimum order amount before they qualify to receive a free gift. In other words, you’re offering an incentive when they spend a specific amount.

Design a Holiday Gift Guide for your SMS Marketing Campaign

According to research, nearly 20% of consumers start their holiday shopping research in September, and a whopping 40% start in November. Most importantly, online shoppers like browsing through gift guides and start selecting their purchases in December.

The best way to announce your holiday gift guide is using your landline texting admin panel to create a targeted group to send the announcement to. Use wording like:

“Our Holiday Gift Guide is Ready! Click on the link to take advantage of our exclusive offers now!”

Consumers who are accustomed to searching through gift guides, typically have a specific person in mind to buy the gift for. So, take advantage of this mindset and create a niche-specific gift guide. Since children and women are the most popular target audience to buy for, you may want to create a gift guide that is specific to these groups.

Set up your SMS Business Texting Campaign for the Holidays

Text My Main Number is offering a free 14-day trial for businesses who would like to text-enable their business phone number. This holiday season is the best time to test the benefits of using a text messaging platform by launching an SMS marketing campaign that will increase sales and subscribers.

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3 Surefire Ways to Attract New Text Message Subscribers

Are you one of the many companies who signed up to text-enable your business phone number? If you are and you have no clue how to get people to subscribe to your list of contacts, this article is for you.

A text messaging platform is one of the most cost-effective and efficient form of communication with your consumers. With SMS marketing on the rise, it’s also high on the return on investment because it’s proven to be the preferred method of receiving promotional offers.

Text My Main Number has worked with numerous organizations, educational institutes, and businesses like your own, and experience has shown us exactly what it will take to get your leads and existing customers excited about texting with your company. Below we will share the top 3 ways to attract new contacts to subscribe to receive text messages from your business.

3 Surefire Ways to Attract New Text Message Subscribers

If you haven’t seen the latest statistics regarding the influx in business text messaging, here are a few facts you should know:

  • 90% of the people who use smart phones and other mobile devices are within reach the entire day.
  • 72% of those users look for new messages on their devices from the moment they wake up.
  • The redemption rate of coupons sent using business text messaging is between 70-80%.

The bottom line is, it’s time for you to put together a robust SMS marketing campaign to increase your list of subscribers. Your subscribers will not only soon find out that they prefer redeeming promotional offers by simply clicking on a link they received via text but will also appreciate the fast communication with your company that business text messaging offers them.

Now let’s get into how to boost that list of Text Message subscribers.

1.      Keyword Promotions

Text My Main Number has a variety of industries using our text messaging platform so we know that whether you own or manage a non-profit org, a real estate agency, a restaurant, a school, a salon, and just about any industry under the sun; SMS campaigns to increase your list of Text Message subscribers start with attracting your audience to text a keyword.

You can ask them to text a keyword like “Signup” to your business phone number, and if you add a discount offer for doing so…even better. You can invite them to subscribe via:

  • Email
  • Social Media
  • Print advertisement
  • Live feed on Instagram or Facebook
  • Radio
  • Television
  • Podcast

Promotional Signups

As we mentioned above, when you attach a promotional offer to your invitation to sign up to your business text messaging, there’s a higher chance of enticing people to sign up. In exchange for them to opt-in, you can offer a discount on their next purchase online or in-store. Including text that assures them that text recipients receive exclusive offers going forward will encourage them to stay opted-in to receiving messages from your business.

Clear Calls-to-Action

Those who are experienced in the SMS marketing game know that when it comes to business text messaging, including a clear call-to-action that is compelling will force the recipient’s hand so to speak. The easiest way to convert a lead into a customer is by making it very clear what it is they need to do next. For example, you can include wording on your marketing material such as:

“Click here to sign up,” or

Include a button on your social media ads that says:

  • Subscribe now
  • Learn more
  • Get started
  • Join our list

Once you see your list of contacts building above your expectations, feel free to visit our blog to learn more about the best practices in SMS marketing.

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3 Things to Consider When Choosing Between SMS Marketing and Social Media Marketing for Your Business

When you think about launching a SMS marketing campaign, what platform comes to mind?

Do you automatically think social media platforms when you’re creating a plan to increase your brand exposure?

What you should be thinking is which platform will deliver the highest return on investment.

When you’re marketing budget is limited, executing marketing campaigns can become a challenge. Especially when you know that high-end graphics, images, and videos is the way to go when trying to pull in the attention of your target audience online. Creating content can become expensive.

Texting for free fits any budget.

SMS Marketing vs. Social Media Marketing

Not only because we are the provider of a text messaging platform do we say this but…it really is one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing.

Not only is SMS marketing inexpensive but sending free texts happens to be a communication channel that works well with all industries, including:

With social media marketing you’re going to incur costs that don’t exist as expense line items with SMS marketing. For example:

With social media marketing you will pay for:

With SMS marketing you will pay for:

Choosing the Right Text Messaging Platform for Your Business

Like anything else that is new to anyone, you’re going to want to test the waters to see which platform you want to use to send text messages to your customers and prospects. Unlike with social media marketing, SMS marketing is not time consuming nor will you need to hire someone to manage the platform for you. When looking for the right text messaging platform for your business, your only concern should not be the money you will invest. You’ll also want to consider the amount of time you’ll need to invest to execute your marketing campaigns. You’ll want to ask if:

Deciding Between Social Media Marketing and SMS Marketing

Cost is not the only reason why more and more businesses are switching to text messaging services to plan and execute their marketing campaigns. Besides delivering added value, you’re also using the most common form of communication to reach your audience. According to the 2019 Mobile Usage Report:

  • More than 90% of the people surveyed stated that they check their phones within half hour of waking up.
  • More than half of mobile device users check their phone 5 times per hour.
  • There are over 5 billion mobile phone users, and only half of them use social media.

If text message marketing seems like the right fit for your business, then it’s time to get started with the Text My Main Number text messaging platform. We are offering a free trial to anyone who would like to give text message marketing a run. It’s not only an easy set up process, but you’ll be able to get started in minutes!

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5 Text Messaging Methods That Will Improve Your Auto Repair Shop Marketing

There are millions upon millions of cars are on the road and at one point or another, they will need repair. Whether it’s standard maintenance or an unexpected fix, there will come a time where drivers will have to bring in their car for service. How do you make sure it’s YOUR auto repair shop they come to?

There are numerous ways to pump up your auto repair shop’s marketing plan, but Text My Main Number would like you to focus on the # 1 communication platform to reach your audience.

Enabling your business phone number to send and receive text messages will allow your auto repair shop to:

Personalize Your Relationship with Customers

Most car owners treat their vehicles like one of their children. In fact, a lot of people even name their cars because that’s their way of creating a connection to it. When someone cares about something on that level, they will always have questions and concerns on the best way to care for it.

Can you imagine what a connection an auto repair shop owner will build with customers whose questions they can answer quickly about their cars? That’s an entirely new level of elevating customer service.

You can even increase your customer base by positioning yourself as an expert in the industry and have potential customers coming to you for answers. If you’re able to answer their questions, chances are you’re the repair shop they’ll trust to bring their car to when it needs service.

Use your social media profiles to post tips and tricks to maintaining your car, before and after car repair photos, testimonials, and more to show your target audience everything you do and know. Perform a quick Google search on the best auto hashtags so that you can draw in people who are searching auto topics online and looking for answers. It’ll be your profile they come to, and you can add a “text us your questions” button to your social media page to make it easy for them to use text messaging to connect with you.

If you provide good social media service to your audience, they will trust your brand and recommend it to others.

Use Business Texting for Promotional Offers

Business texting has become quite a resourceful tool for both auto repair shop marketing and customer service. It’s the most engaging way to maintain a relationship and when you add a discount to the messages you send out; you have an increased chance of getting someone to reply or click on the links you send out.

Sometimes people get lazy with scheduling auto maintenance, tune-ups, and other repairs. But if you use business texting to send them friendly reminders to bring their car in for service with a coupon attached…they will come.

Build Loyalty through Business Texting

People trust their friends and family’s advice when it comes to who they trust to service their cars. Word of mouth referrals are the crux of the auto repair shop industry. If you continuously provide good service to customers, they will spread the news and that builds loyalty.

Offer your customer deals and promotional perks for referring your auto repair shop to their friends and family. This is what you would call a customer loyalty program and it can become extremely effective to your business profits.

SMS Appointment Reminders

Don’t miss out on revenue because a customer forgot about their appointment. You may not have been able to reach them by phone when attempting to confirm, but via text message, you will have a much greater chance of getting your customer’s attention.

Text messaging is the most common form of communication so letting your customers know that it’s time to visit your auto repair shop for service or reminding them about an upcoming appointment will significantly decrease your percentage of missed sales.

Request Reviews via Landline Texting

Next to word of mouth, online reviews are the next most trusted form of trusting an auto repair shop’s service. If they weren’t told by a friend or family member, they want to read about it from someone who has had an experience with the business.

When people do a Google search for “auto repair shop near me,” the top review sites like Facebook, Yelp, and Google will come up with the repair shop’s contact information and reviews. The higher you rank, the better.

Invite customers to write a review about your auto repair shop business using landline texting by sending them a link via text message that they can click on and quickly leave feedback about their experience. The more reviews you get, the better you’ll rank on search engines.

Seamless Auto Repair Shop Marketing

Text messaging has changed the way people communicate and businesses have had to adapt. Auto repair shops have been used to traditional marketing for decades and to transition to digital marketing has been a challenge for most repair shop owners. Not because the process is difficult, but simply because the concept seems overwhelming to those who fear technology.

Text My Main Number gets you. We are so sure that text-enabling your business phone number is the answer to improving your marketing and increasing your sales, that we will offer you a free 14-day trial to get you started! Our team is readywhen you are to answer any questions and get you set up. Our free training will also help you use our text messaging platform to its fullest extent to ensure your success.

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The Power of SMS Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations

When people think nonprofit, they think mission. They think hard work. They think cause. No one ever thinks about the SMS marketing strategy, business development, or leadership it takes to bring it all together.

The initiatives differ from one nonprofit to the other, but the main goal is always to succeed and in order to do that, you must focus your nonprofit marketing strategy on the experience you’re providing to those who donate. Let’s face it, when you’re a nonprofit, it’s the donations that make it all happen.

In this post, Text My Main Number intends to share how you can utilize landline texting to empower your nonprofit marketing plan by using SMS to build and maintain a solid relationship with your supporters.

SMS Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations

Delivering a message used to mean sending a letter out and waiting for the recipient to receive it in their mailbox. From there it graduated to sending electronic mail that would land in someone’s email inbox within minutes and would be read when the recipient next checked their inbox on their computer. Now, people read their messages from the palm of their hands and while smartphones allow you to check your email from an application, it’s text messages that are read within minutes.

We’ve evolved.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just the younger generations who use texting as their main form of communicating with others. In fact, people between the ages of 45-64 are using their mobile phones at the most rapid rate. Even users aged 70 and above use their mobile devices to text each week.

SMS marketing offers features for nonprofit organizations that are both beneficial and convenient. If donations are what keeps the org going, then outreach is of vital importance and it would only make sense that you use landline texting to deliver your messages. You can send text messages using your business or toll-free phone number and you can pretty much guarantee that your message will be read almost instantly.

Benefits of SMS Marketing

When you invest in anything, your main goal is the profits it will return. When a nonprofit organization marketing plan includes expenditures of any sort it’s with the intent that their supporters will be inspired to donate. Why? Because money floats their boat. A boat filled with initiatives that help those in need of their services.  

Typically, the resources for nonprofit organizations is limited so using an affordable communication platform like Text My Main Number’s text messaging platform to launch SMS marketing campaigns is a wise choice. Chances are, it’s also the marketing method that will produce the most return on investment (ROI).

Here’s why SMS marketing is the way to go:

So, the point we’re trying to drive is that penciling in landline texting to a nonprofit organization’s marketing plan can only help you spread the word about your causes, reach a larger audience, build stronger appeal, and increase your number of supporters.

How Nonprofits are Using SMS Marketing

When a nonprofit wants to make an impact in the way they spread the message about one of their initiatives, they are usually looking for people who can:

  • Contribute their time
  • Offer a service
  • Help spread a message
  • Sponsor an event
  • Donate money

To attain these actions, you can use landline texting to send messages from the business phone number to:

Schedule and Confirm Volunteers

Sometimes it’s difficult to field volunteers because they sign up to help and then you can’t reach them. To cut down the possibility of them forgetting what day, time, and the location to where you will need them you can utilize text messaging to communicate.

FAQs

Before people contribute their time or donate funds to a cause, they usually have a ton of questions to ask. Nonprofits can decrease the percentage of unanswered inquiries by using a text messaging platform to manage all inquiries. People will have the ability to text their questions to your toll-free number and your team can answer them from any device through the Text My Main Number admin panel. 

Communicate with Donors

Personalize your relationship with donors by continuing communication throughout the process. You want them to truly connect with the mission and help them feel like they’re a part of the resolve. Send them MMS messages with images of the volunteers at work, video testimonials from the people who are being aided, and anything else that will encourage them to enduringly connect to the cause.

Some of the other landline texting uses for nonprofits include:

  • Promoting news about the mission
  • Sending supporters links with more information
  • Sending staff important updates
  • Creating and managing events
  • Sending reminders
  • Requesting confirmation
  • And much more!

The Takeaway

Getting started with landline texting for your nonprofit is not only the quickest and most efficient way to streamline communication, but it’s easy! Text My Main Number likes to keep their relationships with clients personalized and will walk you through setting up your business or toll-free phone number to receive and send text messages. Free training is available to all new clients and with a free 14-day trial, you will have more than enough time to implement and test the productivity of the most popular communication channel that exists.   Have questions on how to get started? Contact us today!

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SMS Marketing for the Holiday Season

With competition between retailers being at an all-time high during the holiday season, businesses are turning to SMS marketing to have an edge over their competitors. Using the # 1 form of communication can only bring in more sales than any other form of advertising holiday promotions.

If you’re not familiar with SMS marketing, then chances are you’re not aware of the fact that you can turn your business phone number into a money-making machine. Text My Main Number facilitates a landline texting communication platform that allows prospects and customers to send and receive text messages to and from your business phone number. We can even set you up with a toll-free number if you prefer to use one over your local business phone number.

The holiday shopping season is here and it’s time to execute your promotional offers. In this article, we’ll review how to use SMS marketing for the holiday season to guarantee a boost in sales.

SMS Marketing for the Holiday Season

Let’s start with hard facts. 98% of holiday text messages will be opened. So not only is landline texting an inexpensive way to send promotional offers during the holiday season, but there’s a much higher chance it will actually be read over an email offer. In other words, the ROI is not to be ignored.

Let’s go over some examples of different ways you can use SMS marketing to advertise your holiday promotions.

Promotional SMS Holiday Shopping Reminders

There’s no other shopper like a holiday shopper. They start early on and usually a month or two before the season begins. This is the time that retailers should begin reminding consumers about their upcoming deals, promotions, and early bird specials. These active shoppers love planning out their holiday shopping schedule and browsing for the right gift for each person on their list. Keep your brand on their mind by sending reminders about your upcoming promotions and remember to offer an incentive.

In-store Holiday Deals

Not all holiday shoppers like to shop from the palm of their hands (although they do love receiving the SMS marketing offers that way). A good percentage of your customers actually enjoy going into the store to touch and feel the gifts they’re going to buy for their loved ones. Create a special in-store holiday event for your local shoppers and provide an additional discount for this target audience which is sure to bring the crowd in. You can control the number of people that come in with a flash sale that will provide an additional discount for shoppers who come into the store during a specific timeframe.

MMS Persuasion

Pictures and videos have a big persuasion with consumers who like shopping both online and in-store. A fruitful MMS marketing campaign should include holiday imagery that displays special holiday gift items and joyful faces. For example, you may want to include video of a family opening gifts around the Christmas tree and focus on the reaction of your subjects as they open their presents. Your potential customers will be inspired to buy from you to produce the same reaction from the people they’re buying presents for.  

SMS Marketing Updates

Use SMS marketing updates by sending text messages about how inventory is going on your most popular items. Inspire a sense of urgency by announcing when a favorite item is running low in stock. You’ll want to offer an exclusive discount for those who buy while the item is still available. Notify your shoppers about overstocked items too and include a link to buy now with a discount offer and you may soon have a new best seller! This method works great for e-commerce website because you’re offering a discount to those who click and buy.

Increase Your List of Subscribers with Business SMS

When you’re developing your list of subscribers, SMS should be your first point of contact. You can use a variety of messaging tactics to initiate interaction with your target audience and engage your existing customer base. In addition to offering discounts via text messages you can encourage people to opt-in with the promise of sending them exclusive deals for doing so.

You can also use business SMS to promote a friends and family sale or event to all of your employee’s loved ones. Who doesn’t love a great holiday party? Start by announcing this upcoming event in-house and tell your staff to share the link with their relatives once they receive the text message. It will serve as both an invitation to your special event and as a way to begin growing your list of subscribers. Friends and family will feel a stronger connection to your brand because not only do they know someone who works for you, but also because you extended an invitation to share a special event with them.

SMS Promotions for Last-minute Holiday Shoppers

Ahhhh you gotta love those last-minute shoppers who want to buy a little bit of everything to cover their entire Christmas list in a New York minute. You’d be surprised at how many people shop from their mobile devices while on the run. Sending SMS promotions to those shoppers who use their time on the road to order their holiday gifts is a great way to bring in sales. You may want to make a theme out of it and announce a “Commuter Holiday Discount” and provide a special URL for this category of shoppers. You can track how many sales come in from your last-minute shoppers to get a gauge of whether you should use this type of promotional discount year after year!

Why Holiday SMS Marketing Works

Building relationships is an excellent way to increase your loyal customer base and it all begins with SMS marketing which is the top communication channel. Retailers should not only want to grow their list of subscribers but also provide offers that will have consumers coming back for more even after the holiday season. Start your relationship building by getting your audience excited during their favorite time of year for shopping. Use the holiday season to show them increased engagement on a personalized level and making them feel exclusive with SMS marketing offers that they simply can’t turn away from.   For more information on how to start an SMS marketing campaign for the holidays, contact the Text My Main Number team to start a free trial and a quick training on using the number one communication platform for retailers and their consumers.