Looking to give our customers another advantage over their competitors, emfluence is launching a new SMS service that allows you to send bulk text messages to anyone who opts in to receive text messaging from your company.

With SMS, you’ll be able to send special sales offers, surveys, contests, delivery and shipping notifications, and other direct communications right to the phones of your customers.

“Multiple studies have made clear that a great majority of customers want to be texted by companies they trust, and that’s why we’ve made it a priority to add it to our platform,” says emfluence CEO, Dave Cacciopo.

One such study surveyed more than 6,000 consumers, 85% of whom said they wanted to receive text messages from brands they trust. By any definition, 85% is a supermajority. Why does almost everyone seem to be in favor of being texted by companies? Because texting is very convenient. It doesn’t require logging in to anything, installing or using new apps, or opening new accounts.

As long as companies don’t abuse that trust by sending too many SMS messages, or messages that deliver no value, customers will appreciate being served and communicated with in such a convenient manner.

Getting Started with SMS in the emfluence Marketing Platform

SMS marketing requires access to the underlying infrastructure engine built and owned by carriers like AT&T and Verizon, and emfluence has partnered with Twilio to bridge that gap for our clients.

Once you activate your SMS service, the first step is to get your existing customers to opt in to receiving text messages from your company. You’ll need to be upfront about how often they can expect to receive texts from you. You also need to explain how to unsubscribe, inform them that message and data rates may apply, and give them access to your privacy policy and terms and conditions.

Want to get the most out of your efforts? Download our Top Ten Best Practices for SMS Marketing eBook.

As customers opt in, you can begin by sending them an automated welcome text that may include a special offer or opportunity so they get immediate value.

To opt in, you can ask them to text a keyword to a five-digit shortcode (though these are costly) or a ten-digit long code. Shortcodes are obviously easier for the consumer, but there are a limited number of them and carriers are starting to discourage companies from using them.

You can also have them opt in by visiting a landing page where all they have to do is enter a phone number. You can send them to that page using email, social media, printed marketing, live events, QR codes, and various other methods. Once they confirm their choice to opt in, everything’s all set!

With emfluence’s SMS service, you also get two powerful additional benefits:

First, you can add text messages to existing automated workflows. This is a huge win, because open rates for SMS messages are nearly 100%, and click-through rates are over 30%. So people who aren’t seeing or responding to the emails in your various automated sequences will see your texts.

Second, you can personalize your texts with 250 custom fields from your existing customer database. When you send bulk texts, you can include personal details so the customer perceives the message as being relevant and personal to them. Furthermore, this enables you to create valuable segments — which emfluence calls groups — within your SMS audience.

“A few of our early-adopting clients have already seen the SMS program reignite prospects that had previously gone cold. The ability to extract additional immediate value from existing marketing campaigns is really astonishing”, says emfluence Marketing Executive Monica Hoyer.

Within emfluence’s platform, you can see which contacts have replied to texts and what they said. If your sales cycle relies on reps who follow up with specific customers, this valuable data gives them an added benefit as they engage with leads and customers.

If you’d like to add SMS marketing to your current service, contact support or your Account Manager today.