Christina R. Metcalf (formerly Green) is a marketer who enjoys using the power of story and refuses to believe meaningful copy can be written by bots. She helps chamber and small business professionals find the right words when they don’t have the time or interest to do so. Christina hates exclamation points and loves road trips. Say hi on Twitter or reach out on Facebook.

What do you do when you get a text notification? If you’re like the average person, you drop everything and look at it. We have been conditioned to believe that texts deserve our immediate attention. Plus, most people don’t receive as much “junk” via text as they do in their email inbox.

This is great news for businesses if you use texting wisely. Before we cover all the amazing ways you can interact with customers on text, you must ensure they know, and agree to, you using their number to send messages and deals. You should never simply ask customers for their phone number as part of a transaction and then spam them with your messaging.

If you ask for their number, be very clear you plan on sending them giveaways and flash discounts (or whatever you will be doing). Give them the option of opting out at the time they give you their number and every time you send a message. Some people will love your flash deals. Others will opt out after a few. Always give them the option.

6 Ways to Engage Your Audience and Increase Sales Over Texts

Use these ways to make your texts valuable to your customers.

Flash Deals

This is the most obvious use of texts in business. Offer an amazing deal for about 24 hours, creating excitement and spurring action.

Thank You Messages

You should also thank customers for their patronage. Some businesses marry a thank you with a future deal and a reason to come back and buy again.

Introducing New Services and Products

Use texts to reach out and let customers know what’s new with your business. Providing them this new information should bring them back to your site. If you launch a loyalty program, make that announcement through text too.

Check-ins

If you have a few customers who have not purchased from you recently, reach out to them via text and share an incentive to visit again. It could be a small giveaway, an announcement of a new product or new hours, or a contest. Jump back to top of mind with this kind of text.

Special Offers and Reminders

We’re all very busy. It’s easy to miss an announcement on email or social media. If you have something special going on at your business, reach out to your customers and make sure they know of the great discount you’re providing. Some businesses create weekly discounts that rotate through stock. For instance, a spice company rotates a different spice blend on discount every week and texts which one is on sale to its customers. Customers know to expect the Tuesday text and look for their favorites to be on discount.

Holiday or Special Day Reasons to Buy

Whether you offer a discount with these special day reminders or not, they can be very powerful. If there’s a special day (or time of day) that your product is desired, send a text. For example, florists should send reminder texts with order links just before Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. These texts are an excellent way to get attention, convince procrastinators that you have the gift they’ve been looking for, and drive action for them to order. They’re already on their phone looking at your text. It’s an easy jump to get them to buy, especially if you include an image of your product.

There are many reasons why text messaging is a solid way to reach your customers. One of those reasons is that we’ve been conditioned to think texts are super important and need our immediate attention. Another reason is that with the right hyperlink the recipient is ready to take immediate action, which can result in more sales.

How to Text Your Customers

To text your customers, we recommend using a service like TextMagic – do not just group text your customers! They will be very unhappy and you’ll end up with more of a headache.

A Business SMS Service like TextMagic will allow you to:

• Bulk text customers – without them getting each other’s numbers or group notifications
• Convert your emails to text messages
• Reply to texts online
• Conduct surveys to improve customer experience
• Create automatic rules for processing incoming texts – including auto-replies & adding people to lists.