The 5 Biggest Benefits of Text Messaging for Business
Texting has undeniably become a preferred channel for consumers to communicate with businesses. Businesses will send 2.2 trillion texts in 2024 alone, and that number is projected to grow 55% in the next four years. Business texting’s convenience is unmatched, making it a go-to for the 97% of people who own phones.
This shift in consumer behavior has led to a significant expectation for businesses to use texting as well. In fact, an astonishing 91% of consumers express a desire to receive texts from their favorite brands.
But what exactly can brands expect to get out of texting their audiences?
Whether you’re looking to adopt texting for the first time or trying to hone your SMS strategy, here are the top five benefits of text messaging for business—plus actionable tips for leveraging them effectively.
1. It saves your team’s time.
Almost all (97%) companies that launch texting initiatives find they communicate with consumers more efficiently. A few innate features of texting position it as a better channel for reaching your intended audience:
- Texts are brief. They don’t take much time for your team to write or read.
- It’s easier to multi-task. Team members can only handle one phone call at a time, but can manage several chats at once.
- Business SMS platforms offer efficiency tools. Tools like SMS templates and automations can take over simple, repetitive tasks.
Both the channel itself and the enterprise-level tools SMS platforms offer help your team save time and focus on what matters the most—forming strong relationships with your audience.
2. It’s a faster way to connect directly.
SMS empowers your team to resolve queries and share timely information faster than ever. Texting is efficient, as we mentioned above, and provides a direct line to your audience. With consumers spending an average of four hours and 25 minutes on their phones daily, they read and respond to almost every text.
- Texts have an average 82% open rate
- Texts have a 45% response rate
- 90% of customers respond to a text within 30 minutes
Ultimately, there’s no better way to capture your audience’s attention than by texting them.
3. It’s personal.
SMS messages have a 209% higher response rate than phone calls, emails, or Facebook messages, in part due to their personal nature; texts arrive on users’ phones, which they use to connect with loved ones. Plus, modern texting software offers powerful tools to personalize large numbers of texts at once. These features include:
- Merge tokens. You can add merge tokens to one-off texts and templates. Heymarket will automatically insert recipients’ information into outgoing texts.
- Automations. You can target automations to send at key moments at the customer journey, creating a highly curated experience.
- One-to-one messaging. For complex queries, customers can message a live team member, starting authentic conversations.
The personalization tools and tactics your team employs, the more benefits you’ll reap. For brands that use targeted SMS flows, their ROI is 4x higher. (Find tips on personalization below!)
4. You can automate it.
Today’s business texting platforms offer complex, effective SMS automations that teams can use to save time and hyper-personalize customers’ journeys. Here are a few of the most popular automation types:
- SMS auto-replies. Auto responses can answer simple FAQs and set expectations for customers who reach out after hours.
- SMS drip campaigns. With drip campaigns, you can send a series of personalized messages that nurture relationships for the long run.
- Chat-based SMS surveys. Some business texting platforms offer automated surveys that walk recipients through a short series of questions.
These are only a few of the powerful automation tools your team can use to streamline text messaging for your business.
5. It can become part of your business app ecosystem.
Your favorite business apps hold a lot of critical contact data. SMS integrations connect your business texting platform with your other favorite platforms, empowering you to personalize texts and create cross-platform automations. You should be able to share data between your SMS platform and:
- CRMs, from Salesforce to HubSpot
- Internal chat apps, from Microsoft Teams to Slack
- eCommerce platforms, like Shopify
- Customer service systems, like Zendesk and Help Scout
- Cloud Call Centers, like Aircall
You can also use a Zapier SMS integration to create a unique sync between your business SMS platform and any other app.
Tips for maximizing the benefits of business text messaging
The benefits of texting in business range from its speed to direct connection to consumers. By applying certain best practices, you’ll achieve even better results. Here are three tips that will help you amplify the benefits of business text messaging, regardless of how much experience you have under your belt.
Segment your lists
Texting is already a personal channel. To resonate with your audience more—and boost those response rates—you need to hyper-personalize texts. One effective strategy is to target messages to specific, smaller audiences. Segment your SMS contact lists into categories like loyalty status, location, or indicated interest.
Personalize with custom fields and merge tokens
You can easily add custom fields and merge tokens to templates; your texting platform will insert each recipient’s relevant information into outgoing messages. At the very least, messages should contain the recipient’s name. With help from segmented lists, you can make even more granular personalization choices. For example, consider this hyper-targeted message sent to a list of customers whose loyalty points are about to expire:
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Build these crucial automations
Beyond SMS auto-replies, there are several more complex automations that every business should create. Consider setting up these critical automations for three key teams:
- Follow-ups for sales teams. Using a cross-platform automation with a tool like Salesforce SMS, trigger a follow-up text to send after demos or other important lead touchpoints.
- Campaign enrollment for marketing teams. Ask customers to text in with a specific keyword, and your business text messaging platform can automatically add them to a special SMS marketing list.
- CSAT surveys for customer service teams. Your business texting platform should offer chat-based SMS surveys. Your team can send one after resolving a customer question, and it will automatically ask a short series of predetermined questions.
Unlocking more benefits of text messaging for business
Integrating texting into your business communication strategy offers several benefits, from saving team time to integrating seamlessly into your current app ecosystem. By adopting proven best practices, your team can lay a strong foundation and quickly progress to implementing more advanced strategies.
