As a financial company, you know that up-to-date information is your industry’s lifeblood. If you want to keep growing your business and effectively serving your audience, you need to figure out how to send them relevant information as quickly as possible.

Below, we’ll discuss why SMS is the perfect channel to send financial text alerts and exactly how you can get started.

SMS is the most immediate channel

The most important benefit of using a text messaging service is that SMS is the most immediate marketing channel. When you need to send out important, time-sensitive information, text messaging is your best bet. Within 15 minutes of sending out a message, 97 percent of the recipients will have opened and read it. This is especially incredible when you consider the reach of some other marketing channels:

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• Eighty-four percent of Facebook advertisements via news feed aren’t read.
• Seventy-one percent of tweets aren’t read.
• Eighty-eight percent of emails are never even opened.

If you want to make sure your messages get read immediately, a mobile text alert is the only option guaranteed to be effective.

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Why the SMS channel is best for sending alerts

Beyond its immediacy, there are plenty of other important reasons that you can’t ignore the power of SMS. The first is the enormous opportunity that still exists in providing text message services. A vast majority of the world’s most popular brands aren’t reaching out to their audience with SMS marketing. If you’re able to implement a mobile text alert campaign in a way that offers your audience value, it differentiates your brand in a big way.

Another reason that SMS is perfect for sending alerts is because it drives engagement. Text messages enjoy more than double the average amount of conversions and have a response rate just under 50 percent. You’re not going to just reach your audience; you’re going to get people to take action.

Finally, people simply prefer receiving advertisements and alerts via text message over any other channel. A recent poll found that an overwhelming 75 percent of people prefer SMS to other options, such as mobile Internet or applications.

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Ways to use SMS for a mobile text alert campaign

Now that we’ve gone over why it’s so important to use SMS for engaging with your audience, it’s time to take a look at how you can actually implement mobile text alerts. Generally, there are two distinct ways to get in touch with your audience via text message.

The first method is using mobile keywords. If you want to send out stock alerts, for example, you can simply have your audience text the word "stock" to your mobile shortcode. A shortcode is simply a 5- or 6-digit mobile number that can handle text messages and automate your subscriptions. If your company’s name is Money Inc, you could have your audience text the word "stocks" to MONEY (66639).

Mobile keywords and shortcodes are extremely useful because they allow you to create a variety of subscriptions based entirely on your users’ preferences. You could have them text any stock symbol they’re interested in receiving updates on, and you’ll be able to send it to them automatically. It makes a complex process simple.

Your other option is to simply use an automated SMS sender. If you have an existing database of mobile numbers, you can simply import them into the sender (they must opt-in first) and create a mass text message to send them. If you wanted to use some other method for your audience to opt in, this would be ideal.

Who’s providing live financial alerts

To help give you some ideas on how to send a financial mobile text alert, here’s how some of the largest financial institutions in the world are leveraging SMS:

• Capital One Investing lets you opt in to any stock, exchange-traded fund or mutual fund, receiving a daily or weekly update on things such as price, volume, and P/E ratios.
• Charles Schwab allows you to receive updates whenever market news impacting your portfolio occurs.
• E-Trade instantly sends you stock tips and information on recent press releases, SEC filings and more.

The benefits of using a service such as Trumpia

If you’re looking to start using mobile text alerts, you want to hit the ground running immediately. Leveraging a partner such as Trumpia makes it easy to do so. We offer all the tools and options you need. Our APIs are reliable and scalable, making it easy to collect subscriptions on any websit. Our mobile keywords allow you to quickly build and manage your distribution lists. A powerful customer database allows you to merge manual subscriptions to automated keyword subscriptions, allowing you to drill down and edit each user’s unique preferences.
If you want even more information on how we can help you with your financial SMS campaign, take a look at our free five-minute demo here.

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