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Text blast marketing, or SMS marketing, is a dynamic and powerful tool for businesses and organizations. It allows you to engage your audience quickly and effectively by simultaneously sending bulk messages to many recipients.
To build the long-term acceptance of SMS advertising, marketers must create strong, enduring relationships with subscribers. This means using text blast marketing not simply as an advertising method but as a communication involving appointment reminders, news, receipts, answers to questions, and other two-way forms of interaction.
As this study confirms, the longer you use the SMS channel, the more effective it is.
Several universal truths that must be maintained for all text blast marketing are:
- Consumers MUST have given their explicit consent to receive messages from your business. This legal requirement deeply affects whether your consumers interact with your messages. 79% opted in to receive texts from businesses in 2024, proving that consumers do want your texts. Just ask permission first.
- 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase if the message is personalized. Every text message to consumers should be tailor-made and personalized, reflecting their unique preferences and interests.
- Text blasts must be sent to segmented contact lists, aiming for their tastes like budget, product, region, etc.
Note: You can get consent and sign-ups by running an offline ‘Text-to-Join’ campaign, encouraging customers to message a certain number to opt-in and collect their details. This is a great way to get your campaigns started.
Popular use cases for text blast marketing
Here are some popular use cases that demonstrate the potential of text blast marketing:
Sales promotions
People like receiving relevant offers and promotions that align with their earlier purchases and tastes. This is why text blast marketing is so popular among customers.
A Velocify study found that those who received texts were 40% more likely to buy something than those who never received texts.
Coupons or incentive distribution
Coupons can be a powerful marketing tool when used strategically. They can attract new customers, retain existing ones, and boost sales.
In 2017, Crocs asked customers in stores to send an SMS if they wanted a 15% discount coupon sent to their phones. In the first month, they received 94,000 requests for coupons! The mobile coupon market and consumer appetite for them have only grown leaps and bounds.
As the Jungles Scout Consumer report from 2022 reports, 50% of consumers surveyed said they would buy more products thanks to coupons than otherwise.
Service or product launches
Text blast marketing leverages the high open rates and immediacy of text messaging to engage customers directly and personally. Unlike other channels (for example, an email address they may not check frequently), the customer typically sees SMS messages as personal communication and reads them in minutes, ensuring that your product launch message reaches your audience promptly.
Baby Tula, speaking to SimpleTexting, claimed that by using text messages to inform customers about new product drops, they increased their sales by an eye-watering 1668%.
Send invites or reminders
Text message reminders are convenient and allow customers to respond immediately, or later when they can, no matter where they are. And text messages can be just as effective as phone calls when reminding customers about their appointments or offering them an invite to new events hosted by your business.
Texting has a wide range of applications across various industries, from law firms, gyms, and healthcare providers to Fortune 500 companies and social service agencies. This includes reminders to pay bills.
Collect feedback
SMS conversations, either a longer peer-to-peer SMS conversation of even a quick ‘yes or no’ message, are a great way to collect instant feedback from customers.
Smart Insights claims that that 31% of consumers respond to SMS surveys in about 5 minutes.
Texting laws you must adhere to
Adhering to texting laws is essential for businesses to avoid legal issues and maintain consumer trust. By following the regulations outlined below and implementing best practices, businesses can effectively use texting as a communication tool.
Obtain explicit consent
As per to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which is enforced by the Federal Communications Commission, businesses and organizations must obtain written consent from individuals before sending them any text messages.
Consumers must receive “clear and conspicuous disclosure” of the SMS they will receive and must agree to receive the SMS to their specific phone number.
Your first message must contain these details
Your first message to a new customer must include:
- Business name
- Reason for the SMS
- How often such messages will be sent
- Information about rates chargeable (if applicable)
- Privacy policy and terms
- How to opt-out of further messages
For example:
Hi [firstname], thanks for signing up for the [business name] product sales! We’ll send you personalized deals every week. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply TERMS to review conditions, STOP to cancel.
Provide clear opt-out options
Every text message should include an easy way for recipients to unsubscribe from future messages. Not just the first message. Each new message should have the option.
Maintain detailed records of consent and opt-out requests to demonstrate compliance if needed.
Note: CallHub automatically adds an opt-out message to your first SMS to stay compliant with TCPA regulations. The opt-out mechanism is still valid for following messages even if the text copy does not carry that bit.
Respect their privacy
Ensure that personal data is handled with care and in compliance with relevant data protection laws. Use secure messaging services, especially when dealing with sensitive or personal information, to comply with privacy laws.
Only send message during these timings
You should ideally only send texts from around 9 am to 8 pm in the recipient’s time zone on week days – so they get the message at times they are comfortable with. If you have customers in different time zones, you’ll need to take multiple time zones into consideration.
Legally, the TCPA prohibits “any telephone solicitation, including text messages, before 8 am and after 9 pm.” in the recipient’s time zone (known as “quiet hours”). However, certain states have more restrictive rules.
Text blast marketing: Most efficient way to adopt
A/B test your messaging
Not getting the results you expect?
Test different messaging strategies, such as using different tone, language, or call-to-action, to identify what resonates most with your audience.
These tests should include A/B testing, which involves changing just one factor in your simultaneous campaigns (e.g., different messaging but at the same time, different time periods, etc.). Make sure your set of contacts is comparable for this test.
The reactions to each message will help you test different messaging strategies, adjust the timing and frequency of your messages, and segment your audience for targeted messaging.
Adopt MMS marketing
Do you want to just generate awareness, or do you want your audience to take action?
If you want them to respond, making your text more impactful with an image (or video) can be more effective. MMS tends to have a 30% click rate, as opposed to an average of 16% for SMS.
On CallHub, you can send WAV, MP3, MP4, 3GP, MOV, JPG, PNG, GIF, and PDF files.
You should segment your audience and send MMS to those more receptive to it while using SMS for the rest.
However, MMS does cost more than SMS. On CallHub, outgoing MMS texts cost $0.06/text. Incoming MMS texts cost $0.04/text.
Create a workflow for every action/inaction
How to ensure consumers have a smooth and uniform experience at a time of their choosing?
Use CallHub to ensure your replies to consumers are automatic, instant, and relevant—no matter when they reply.
For every campaign, you can set up a process that checks for specific keywords in replies and sends pre-decided replies the minute a reply comes in. Right there when creating the campaign.
For example, send the complete address of the business to those who reply with ‘Address.’
You can also send nudges and reminders to those who did not reply to the original message.
Further, you can use WorkFlows to track and chase after those who did not respond, or other similar further actions to enhance your campaign.
Allow replies
75% of respondents in a study said they get frustrated if they can’t reply to marketing messages. So your intent for text blast marketing is not just to advertise your products or services. It is to initiate conversations with customers.
CallHub’s mass texting tool allows you to pre-assign replies with trigger keywords and enables automated responses for them – giving customers an ability to reply and get the information they need. You can assign multiple trigger words for every message.
Further, you can use peer-to-peer texting to have more indepth conversations with specific consumers.
For example, you send all customers a regular survey through SMS. And if anyone replies with the trigger word ‘DISLIKE’, then you can use Workflows to add them to a separate contact list. Then have a staff member use peer-to-peer texting to have a personal conversation with the customer.
Make sure every message has some real value
Avoid having your text blast messages just be a body of text that benefits neither the recipients nor you. Whether it is an invite, a coupon, or feedback, every text message you send must carry some value to either party.
Sending valuable messages will prevent you from being marked as spam and keep your audience from hitting that ‘STOP’ button.
Clean your contact list
You must take extensive measures to vet contact lists before you begin a new campaign, and maintain clean contact lists periodically. This means that you remove unengaged, unsubscribed, invalid, or duplicate contacts from time to time.
The contact list clean-up for texting campaigns involves reviewing and removing permanently unavailable, blocked, or consistently undelivered numbers.
The CallHub texting tool will show you the status of your messages. So you can always regularly select and delete regularly undelivered contacts. You can also follow the steps below to bulk remove the contacts:
- Filter your sent messages on the tool by status; Failed, No Route, or Unauthorized, etc.
We recommend filtering particular error codes for a list-cleaning exercise to avoid deleting temporarily unavailable/undeliverable numbers.
- Click on ‘Export.’ Open the file on your computer and delete all columns except the phone number column, and save the file.
- Go to contact lists and select ‘Delete Contacts.’ .
- Upload this exported and edited file and click ‘Remove Contacts’ to confirm this action.
Again, deleting contacts is a permanent action. We will not be able to recover these contacts for you. Please ensure you have a backup and double-check before deleting contacts.
Best time to send SMS marketing texts
A 2024 study by Attentive has revealed the following statistical suggestions on best timings:
- For revenue: 12 pm to 8pm
- For engagement: 5pm to 8pm (post dinner)
- For purchases: 8 am to 11am (people are more likely to buy in the morning)
You will have to fine tune this by scheduling messages for the time zone of the recipients when setting up your campaign in CallHub. CallHub automatically ensures that messages only go out during legal hours.
Choose between 10DLC and shortcodes
10-digit long codes (10DLCs) are local 10-digit phone numbers (for example, 111-101-1000) capable of supporting a high volume of text messages and ideal for small businesses looking to run effective SMS marketing campaigns.
- 10DLCs offer numerous mass SMS features at an affordable cost, making them an excellent SMS solution for many businesses.
- 10DLC numbers provide high messaging throughput and high deliverability rates without significant expense.
However:
- Registration with the mobile carriers takes around 1-5 business days.
- 10DLCs can not send large numbers of messages as quickly as dedicated short codes.
- 10DLCs may not have as high message delivery rates as dedicated short codes.
An SMS short code is a 5-6 digit number, rented for commercial use and provided by carriers that allow your company to send and receive a high volume of SMS.
They are best for dedicated marketing campaigns, text-to-join campaigns and large-scale sales by institutions that require specific branding over cost considerations.
Examples of how short codes are used include OTPs, promotions and discounts, and alerts.
- Since short codes are designed for massive numbers of texts, they do not get flagged as spam as readily as a normal number.
- Short codes are easy to remember and memorable for the receivers – which is better for marketing.
However:
- A short code, even a shared short code, can be significantly more expensive than 10DLC numbers, and may prove unprofitable for long term use.
How to choose the ideal text blast marketing service
Along with all the features we have already discussed above, your ideal text blast marketing service should have the following technical features as well:
Integration with CRMs
You need to integrate with your CRM since it allows you to:
- Easily import contact details, addresses, and other information about your customers.
- Update records with new information.
- Segment your contacts for better message and follow-up targeting.
CallHub’s communication platform allows you to integrate with popular CRMs like SalesForce, NationBuilder, or Zapier. You can do this easily through plugins, and import and sync data with them during and after your campaigns.
Personalized messages
Your service should allow you to automatically add data from your CRM about the customer. This includes details like their first name, location and purchase history.
As per this Mckinsey report, a whopping 78% of customers prefer personalized communication, and it made them more likely to make a purchase through text blast marketing.
You an easily personalise your messages in CallHub by using tags, which appear below the text field when you are composing your SMS. Just a click of a button at the right spot and the message is instantly personalized with tags, or unique words.
Rent 10DLC numbers and shortcodes
Your service should allow you to rent both of these services, and set up the same for you hassle-free. You should also have the freedom to rent several of them, as your campaigns need them.
In CallHub, for 10DLC, you have to submit your brand and usecase, and once the carriers approve, you can rent a 10DLC number on the spot as you set up a campaign. Please note, it would take 3-4 days for carriers to approve your brand.
Similarly, you can choose to rent a short code through your ‘numbers’ section on CallHub. Though this is significantly more expensive and is a 45 day process of submissions.
Automated DNC lists/opt-out management
Your service should make sure you don’t dial people who are in the ‘Do Not Contact’ list, and those who opt-out are automatically added to this list.
In CallHub, along with this, you can add numbers to the DNC manually. And CallHub additionally ensures you never send a message to any known litigators, who will sue you as a nuisance.
Retry attempts for failed deliveries
Messages can fail to deliver because the person happens to be in a unreachable zone, had an unpaid bill or just as a glitch by the carrier. You need the ability to automatically retry these numbers after sometime, so you don’t lose any contacts.
CallHub lets you do this, and choose the frequency at which you want the number to be retried.
Schedules start/stop by each contact’s timezone
This is critical since you have obey the law, not annoy your customers and also ensure that messages reach them at an opitimum time.
You need your service to start text blast marketing campaigns automatically when customer is in the right time zone, and at the right time. And stop it once the time limit is reached.
According to recent studies, text blast marketing sees with 90% of messages being read within minutes of delivery. This unparalleled immediacy and engagement make this marketing an incredibly powerful tool for businesses looking to connect with their audience.
So follow our suggestions, consider CallHub texting platform for your needs, and let’s jumpstart that ROI!
