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Imagine a toolbox with just a hammer. Or perhaps a refrigerator with only one ingredient. Or maybe a paint aisle at the hardware store with only one color.
All these solo acts could certainly do the job they’re designed for – pounding stuff, feeding us, or colorfully covering our surfaces. But, as they say, the more the merrier: DIYers will be able to accomplish more with additional tools, cooks can whip together better meals if they had more in the pantry, and painters can add some variety to their project.
The same line of thinking can be seen with modern texting services, which range in available features from no-frills mass text delivery to a whole suite of tools to enhance your bulk outreach efforts.
At the most basic level, you probably would and could perform adequately if you only had texting in your tool kit. But hopefully you don’t have to, since most modern services have realized that it’s important to offer customers more than just the basics.
If you’re shopping for your business’ first text service, or considering replacing the one you currently work with, you’ll see advantages in working with a provider that goes above and beyond. Here’s why it’s important.
- Help with “rules.” You may know that your database has to be clean and every customer has to opt in before you can start sending them texts. While this process can create additional hurdles, the end result is a legally-satisfying list of customers who all have give permission for electronic solicitations for your products or services. Texting services know these fine points and fine print inside and out and can provide tips on how to make sure your customer list is suitable to send out.
- Assistance in reaching customers beyond texting. Though mass texting may be the prime focus of a campaign, not everyone who wants your message can receive them. Some may be restricted by their wireless carrier or that individual’s particular plan. Look for services that provide ways to supplement your SMS campaign with mass emails, voice messages or social media posts. Some providers offer the ability to send out texts from an email browser.
- Help in customizing your delivery. You need an API! If you say ‘heck yeah’ then you know that one size doesn’t fit all, and every company’s system is unique. If your SMS provider has API options, you can adjust your program to send out plain texts; MMS messages, which can include video or images; or email.
- Continue the conversation. A mass text, by its nature, isn’t necessarily supposed to be responded to, beyond taking the suggestion action or clicking a link. But recipients aren’t supposed to text back. But if they want to, you should make it easy for them, and also easy for your staff. A short code, for instance, provides a way to allow recipients to text you back, but to a certain number. Your texting service can keep track of how many texts were sent to the specific numbers in a campaign, which can give you guidance for whatever kind of decision you were pondering.
- Meet different access/admin needs. The basic one-to-many format that mass texting can provide works great for a standard campaign. But a big company with multiple campaigns in motion and multiple team members responsible for crafting and sending out messages can create chaos fast. A good text service can offer different privilege levels, so only certain employees can access certain campaigns, or perhaps they can edit but not send, or add names to the database but not delete any.
- Provide more ‘how to.’ Even better than the toolbox that contains more than a hammer, or the well-stocked fridge is a set of instructions for different projects to make. This will enable you to follow plans to make something creative with your tools, rather than just winging it and seeing what you run into. A good texting service can provide white papers and other resources for using texts effectively for different purposes and different campaigns. For instance, you can use them to grow sales, grow subscribers, or improve your writing.
- Allow multi-platform alerts. When a disaster is unfolding at your business or institution, there may not be time to run to a workstation and organize lists, but it’s still important that your population know what’s going on. So a provider may allow emergency access, where lists can be accessed and messages sent from a key person’s smart phone. Or that a message automatically goes out to SMS list subscribers, email subscribers, and other subscribers.
The good thing about the quickly-developing world of mass texting is that there’s plenty of opportunity for businesses to get creative and find ways to be innovative. For more features of what to look for, visit www.trumpia.com.
