Lead generation is a key activity carried out in a business. For a business to grow, it needs to add new customers who can boost sales. Leads are people who may be interested in your products or services. Lead generation involves interaction with people to find out if they are interested in your product. Once you generate a lead, you can then engage with them to convert them into a customer who is willing to buy your offerings. Lead generation is what helps you boost your business. There are many ways to generate leads. Text messaging for business is a simple, easy, and cost-effective way of lead generation.
Text Messaging for Lead Generation
Text messaging involves the use of text messages or SMS (short message service) to communicate with people using their mobile phones. This is the most convenient way of communication since text messages are instantly delivered. There is no requirement for internet connectivity. SMS can be sent not only to smartphones but even to feature phones. A text message is a great way to do marketing since it is non-intrusive and preferred by customers, 97% of all messages are read making it a great marketing tool. The fact that SMS marketing has a 45% response rate makes it ideal for use in lead generation.
Text messages can be sent through a mobile phone. Businesses deal with thousands of customers and thousands more inquiries and leads. Managing SMS can be a bit difficult, which is why using business texting software is recommended. This is a highly effective and convenient way of using business texting services to reach out to inquiries and generate leads. Let’s look at how you can use text messaging for lead generation in your business.
Get the software for text marketing
Business SMS texting software can help you send SMS messages easily and the entire process can be made very quickly. You can even automate the process so that you don’t need to appoint someone to handle the software the entire day. Good software has various customization options that allow the automation of message sending and even replying to messages. This makes it convenient as manpower can be used for other productive activities. A good quality software would offer a range of features like:
Mass text messaging allows you to send a text message blast to all your customers in one shot with just a click of the mouse.
Autoresponder is a powerful feature that allows you to make settings so that the software automatically replies to a message from an inquiry. This allows you to use SMS for interactive messaging without having to devote extra manpower to it.
You can send mms messages with pictures and videos to provide more details to customers who need it.
You can integrate your SMS and email marketing strategies together allowing you to carry out your marketing more effectively.
Connect your SMS messaging with your social media feed. Messages that you sent are automatically posted to your Facebook and Twitter social media accounts. This allows you to do social media marketing easily.
Shortcodes are special numbers that can be used to generate more response from your inquiries and leads.
Keywords can be used to make the process of engagement with customers easy. When someone replied with a keyword, the software would carry out an action appropriately. For instance, if someone sends a keyword INFO, a preset message providing additional information can be sent. If the keyword BOOK is sent, online booking can be made. This is a very important feature of texting software.
It is not only mass text messages that you can send but you can even personalize the message by including the recipient’s name and any other details. This makes the customer feel that the message is sent only to him. It is a good marketing strategy.
You can run contests and offer coupons and vouchers that will allow your leads to visit your store and make a purchase to redeem the same. This is a powerful promotional strategy.
You can use a short link in the message to your website using which leads can visit your website for more details. You can track the number of visits through this link. It will help you evaluate how effective the strategy is.
Get a database ready
You need a database of inquiries to start the process of lead generation. You can use an existing database generated during tradeshows, exhibitions, website visits, etc. You can even use a text to join option where any customer who sends a keyword JOIN will automatically be added to the database.
Start messaging
Once you have the software and database, you can start sending messages. You can now kick off your lead generation activity to help get customers and boost your sales.
