How Text Messaging Boosts Marketing Engagement Rates - eBook from Marchex.com

The Challenge of Communicating with Prospects

Marketers sometimes struggle to identify, qualify, and nurture the countless leads that come in at the top of the sales and marketing funnel. Marketers must contend with 10–100x the number of prospects that sales teams do at the top of the funnel depending on the business and industry. Automated texts can unburden marketing teams considerably by streamlining initial contact with a high volume of potential customers.

SMS intelligent automation can qualify, nurture, and reengage leads for marketers. Text is a great option for revenue teams to engage with prospects because customers are more likely to respond to incoming texts than emails. SMS is a casual form of communication that most people use in their everyday lives, so utilizing this more personal channel can help your brand build trust with customers in a way that is harder to achieve with emails.

Using Text Messaging Throughout the Marketing Funnel

Text can be used in drip campaigns, in which incoming leads trigger an automated text response for prospects to engage with in real-time before they lose interest and take their business elsewhere. Customizable triggers take the burden off marketing teams who must reach out to a high volume of incoming leads at once. Beyond the top of the funnel, automated triggers can also be set up to re-engage and activate cold leads who have not taken the next step toward purchase.

Automated drip campaigns can be further customized with A/B testing. Some SMS platforms allow users to save and reuse message copy that proves effective with customers. When an A/B test is complete, users can deduce which messaging worked and save the copy for later use. A/B testing can be even more fine‑tuned through customer segmentation features on certain texting platforms, allowing marketing teams to see what messaging works on which audience.

How Some Marketing Teams Use Text

Online retail platforms can utilize mobile messaging and text bots to accelerate conversion rates of prospects who provide their information. Companies can deploy text bots to target prospects who have opted in for promotions and enjoy an exponential increase in their response rates. Many retailers and businesses can qualify the vast majority of their leads by bots alone. Bots enable conversion rate optimization at each funnel stage. Once qualified, leads can be handed off to Sales teams to continue the conversation.

In another marketing use case, an online shoe retailer wanted to grow its customer rewards program to extend their reach. Their evangelist program was experiencing limited new membership, with only about 500 individuals signed up.

The company soon learned that SMS marketing was the best method in which to engage and build positive relationships with their evangelists. The marketing team sent out consistent, relevant texts to their evangelists, and increased the program’s membership exponentially—from 500 to 6500 participants. The result? Increased sales during key times of year such as Black Friday.

Next Steps

Marketers have an overwhelming task. They must engage with a high volume of prospects at the top of the sales and marketing funnel in a timely manner to keep the prospects engaged. Automated SMS messaging can lift this burden by interacting with new leads immediately as they come in and qualifying them for revenue teams. Text not only frees up bandwidth for marketers—it is a more effective method for engaging with consumers as well. Consumers are far more likely to open a text than an email and find the channel more intuitive, as they use it in their personal lives on a regular basis. Text messaging can take a heavy weight off your marketing team’s shoulders and allow them to qualify more leads and keep them engaged throughout the purchase process