How To Grow Your Business With Group Text Messaging

Competing for your customers’ attention amidst notifications from friends, family, work, school, and other businesses is a challenge, but not impossible. Business SMS makes it easier to get in touch with clients (or potential ones) and start a conversation.

SMS messaging is a reliable and efficient way to communicate with customers. Text messages are asynchronous yet personal, delivered straight to the recipient’s phone (not to a separate messaging app) and fewer people silence text messages than they do emails or app notifications. This makes SMS an ideal way to reach customers in a timely manner. SMS messages are also less likely to be caught in spam filters, making them more likely to be seen by the intended recipient. In addition, most SMS messages are usually read within a few minutes of being received, and on average have a higher click through rate than email. In short, SMS can be a powerful tool for growing sales. SMS allows businesses to reach out to potential and current customers with targeted messages that promote products and services in a genuine way.

Sending SMS messages is also a fairly easy process to scale: with messaging software that allows you to send group text messages, or messages in bulk, you can create and send a bulk SMS campaign in just a few minutes. While this may not be suitable for all text messaging situations, it can be extremely useful for automating marketing campaigns, triggering event-based follow-up messages (like an abandoned cart or form reminder text), and sending the same message to multiple recipients in a certain demographic group.

We’ll cover exactly how group business text messaging can help scale your marketing and sales efforts, how you can get started with group texting, and best practices for sending mass SMS messages.

What is group business text messaging?
How can I incorporate group texting into my marketing and sales strategy?
Steps to get started with group text messaging
Best practices for sending bulk SMS messages to customers

What is Group Business Text Messaging?

Group business text messaging, or bulk SMS, is a type of text messaging that businesses can use to send one message to multiple recipients at the same time. This is different from traditional one-to-one text messaging, where each message is sent individually to each contact.

With group text messaging, businesses can send the same message to as many contacts as they’d like, all at once. This can be done automatically using a group text messaging service, such as Twilio, SimpleTexting, EZ Texting, or another application to person (A2P) SMS service provider. Though many messages are sent at once with group text messaging, it’s still possible to personalize each message. Most SMS service providers will connect with your customer relationship management (CRM) software, and will be able to pull information such as first name, last name, company, etc. to automatically personalize your outreach.

How Can I Incorporate Group Texting Into my Marketing and Sales Strategy?

Group text messaging can be used for a variety of purposes, including appointment reminders, promotional campaigns, event notifications, shipping updates, and more. SMS messages can be tailored to each part of the customer journey, from discovery to purchase to support. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Send promotional messages to customers, such as discounts or coupons
Use group text messaging for appointment reminders
Use group text messaging for event notifications, such as webinars or industry events
Use group text messaging to update customers on shipping status
Use group text messaging for customer support inquires

Group text messaging can be a powerful way to reach and engage your customers. By incorporating group text messaging into your marketing and sales strategy, you can scale your outreach efforts, close more deals, and improve customer communication.

How To Get Started With Group Text Messaging

If you’re new to group text messaging, don’t worry – it’s easy to get started. Here are a few steps to get you started. Plus, you can also check out our other articles on SMS pros and cons as well as auto-reply text message templates for various marketing and sales situations.

Decide on your group text messaging service provider. There are a number of different group text messaging service providers, such as Twilio, SimpleTexting, EZ Texting, and Slicktext.com.
Set up an account with your group text messaging service provider. This usually just requires entering your contact information and creating a password.
Choose a plan. Most group text messaging service providers have different plans depending on how many messages you need to send, and how often you need to send them.
Import your contacts. You can either manually enter your contacts, or import them from an existing list, such as your CRM database.
Make sure you’re following SMS regulations. When sending group text messages, it’s important to make sure you’re following all the relevant SMS regulations in your country or region. In the US, it’s important to take a look at A2P 10DLC requirements.
Write your message. Keep your message clear and concise – remember, you only have 160 characters to work with, and text messages are not meant to be emails.
Proofread and send your message. Once you’ve written your message, make sure to proofread it before sending. Once you’re ready, hit send!

Best Practices For Sending Bulk SMS Messages To Customers

Now that you know how to get started with group text messaging, here are a few best practices to keep in mind when sending bulk SMS messages to your customers.

Only text people who have opted-in to receiving messages from your business.
Keep your messages clear and concise. Remember, you only have 160 characters per message, so make every word count.
Personalize your messages. Bulk SMS doesn’t mean your messages have to be generic. SMS service providers will often integrate with your CRM software, making it easy to personalize each message with the recipient’s name, company, etc.
Use a call to action. Make sure your messages have a clear call to action, such as “click here,” “reply now,” or “call us.”
Test, test, test. Before sending a group text message to your entire list of contacts, it’s always a good idea to send a test message to a small group first. This will help you catch any errors and make sure your message looks the way you want it to.
Monitor your results. Once you’ve sent your group text message, take a look at your results. How many people opened and clicked on your message? How many people unsubscribed from your list? Monitoring your results will help you improve your group text messaging strategy over time.

Close More Deals With Business SMS

Ready to get started? Try out Kixie’s business SMS solution completely free for 7 days (no credit card needed to start testing). In addition to business SMS, with Kixie you can scale your entire sales operation with smart inbound and outbound calling solutions, a multi-line power dialer, event-triggered auto-SMS messages, and more.