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What Is An SMS Broadcast?
An SMS Broadcast is simply a text message that is sent out to a large list of contacts.
Also known as bulk SMS or mass text, this type of message is largely used by businesses to communicate important information, send promotional messages, and send out notifications to a wide audience.
An SMS broadcast message is an efficient and cost-effective way to reach out to a large number of people as compared to other communication channels.
Such a message is sent out by using an SMS broadcast software that allows the user to create and upload a list of recipients, create a message, and send it to all the recipients at once.
What Is SMS Broadcast Software?
SMS broadcast software is a tool that allows businesses to send out mass text messages or BCC texts to a large group of people, i.e. individual conversation threads are created between the sender and all recipients. Here’s an example of an SMS broadcast:
Let’s say you run a retail store and you have to send a message to 200 customers about an upcoming sale.
Would you send 200 manual texts OR would you rather text all those contacts in a matter of seconds? that’s exactly where SMS Broadcast software can help, it empowers businesses to communicate seamlessly with their customers, eliminates errors and helps companies save both time and money.
SMS Broadcast vs Email Broadcast
SMS broadcast software is a tool for sending SMS broadcasts efficiently. SMS broadcast has cemented its place in the hearts of small businesses, owing to the benefits it brings along.
SMS has become the new email, and there are various reasons why businesses prefer the former.
Here is a comparison to help provide clarity about the medium you should choose to communicate and engage with your customers:
Mailchimp is an example of an Email broadcast software, while Emitrr is an example of texting software.
Given the above metrics, SMS is definitely the communication channel your business should be using as it can drastically improve your major business metrics and also have a direct impact on your company’s revenue.
Top Use Cases Of SMS Broadcast Software
Sending Sales Promotions
Sending Discount Coupons Or Vouchers
Promoting New Products
Verifying Accounts And Payment Methods Of Customers
Sending Appointment Reminders
Offering Customer Support
Conducting Surveys
Conducting Recruitment Activities
Communicating Important Information
Best Practices While Sending SMS Broadcast Messages
Now that you are familiar with the benefits of investing in SMS broadcast software, its use cases, and its process; it is time for some best practices to ensure that your campaigns reap profits.
- Always ask permission: Before you add a customer to your campaign list, make sure to ask permission. You can do so by sending them a promotional text that contains an offer. If they reply to you with the suggested keyword on your shortcode, it means they’re on board.
- Send personalized messages: It is important to make each customer feel special. You can do so by personalizing the message as much as possible. An SMS broadcast software comes with a plethora of options for personalization. Before drafting the message, ask yourself: what is in it for the customers?
- Flooding inboxes is a no-no: Set a frequency of you marketing messages that you want to send to your customers. The more frequent the messages are, the riskier it is. Too much flooding can lead to spamming of your messages.
- Timing is crucial: Do not send messages at the wrong hour. As per TCPA, the perfect time to send marketing messages to your customers is between 8 am to 9 pm. So make sure that you adhere to the same.
- Encourage participation: Instead of sending one-way messages, try experimenting with the message copy. Ask questions. Try initiating a discussion. When your customers participate, you’ll get to know about their requirements, and hence you will be able to pitch your product or service to them accordingly.
- Give an option to opt-out: ‘Reply STOP to opt-out’. This is a closing message that you must include in your SMS broadcast message. Doing so will give your subscribers an easy way out if they don’t want to receive notifications from your business.
- Keep the SMS segments in mind: Make sure that your SMSs are no longer than 3-4 segments. One SMS segment consists of 160 characters. It is best that you keep your message short and actionable.
Signs That You Need An SMS Broadcast Software
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself before signing up for a texting software –
Are you having trouble managing and improving your text message campaigns?
It’s very easy to lose track of various conversations, SMS broadcast software helps you easily tag, group and even assign conversations so that you are on top of all your customer queries. You can also access major metrics, run A/B tests and use automation to constantly improve your campaign performance.
Do you spend a lot of time sending one-on-one text messages to your customers?
SMS broadcast software helps you send broadcast texts to multiple customers at the same time, thereby saving time and effort. This also helps you save on the time and effort that goes into conversing with customers via calls or emails.
Are your customer churn rates high?
SMS broadcast software helps you attract customers and engage with them in a personalized way. In such cases, personalized offers work very well, and constant customer communication helps you keep your customers engaged
Are you in desperate need of speeding up your sales cycle?
SMS broadcast software integrates with your CRM and helps your representatives answer customer queries and close deals much faster.
Fact check: What is the customer churn rate?
Also known as attrition rate, customer churn rate measures the rate at which customers stop doing business with a company over a given period of time.Here’s how the customer churn rate is calculated:
Customer Churn Rate = {Customers at the beginning of a month – Customers at the end of the month} / Customers at the beginning of the monthAn acceptable churn rate is between 0.42%-0.58% on a monthly basis. This means losing 1 out of every 200 customers monthly. Anything above that should be analyzed and necessary corrective measures should be taken to resolve the same.
All in all, SMS broadcast software helps reduce the customer churn rate, shortens the sales cycle, improves engagement, brings in efficiency with respect to managing text message campaigns, and helps broaden the customer base.
Top Things To Look For In An SMS Broadcast Software
Here’s a checklist to help you find the Best SMS broadcast software that perfectly aligns with your customer communication and engagement needs.
Capterra Reviews
While comparing the best SMS broadcast software, reviews are the best way to pick the one that best suits your needs.
A technology review platform like Capterra will help you compare your SMS broadcast software options across various characteristics such as ease of use, value for money, pricing, customer service, etc.
Pick the software that best aligns with your unique use case.
Integration with your CRM
The broadcast text message service that you pick must integrate with all your third-party applications.
This is an important prerequisite to ensure the free flow of information for the smooth operation of your business.
Support offered
Customer support is a crucial factor that you must consider while picking an SMS broadcast software.
From email to helpdesk, from forums to FAQs, from phone support to live chat representative; make sure that all your support requirements are available for the SMS broadcast software that you choose.
Pricing
Compare the pricing of all your top options and understand whether they offer flat rates or per-user pricing.
Check the number of users the software offers at a particular price, what features it includes, whether it offers training or not, and deployment options.
Training
When you prepare yourself to send marketing campaigns to your customers through the software, you also need to train your team to efficiently use that software.
Pick a broadcast text message service that also offers training in the form of webinars, live training sessions, documentation, videos, and in-person training sessions.
User experience
Pick a software that allows you to add multiple numbers and multiple locations.
The software that you choose must have only one inbox for the entire team to avoid any confusion.
User access level
Let’s say you have to add another user temporarily to run a campaign or on a contractual basis, but don’t want to give them admin access.
In such a case, there are a lot of SMS broadcast software that offer different user access levels. Choose a software that allows you to manage access levels for various users.
Ability to schedule texts
Pick a broadcast text message service that offers you the option to easily schedule messages to send out at a later time or date.
Remembering when to send messages to a particular set of customers can be a bit daunting. Look for a software that can do that job, and can send out messages for you when you cannot.
All you’ll have to do is keep a draft ready, select your dates and leave the rest to the software.
Supports long-code and short-code messaging
While looking for the best SMS broadcast software, check whether the software offers short-code and long-code numbers for you to choose from and also supports messaging from those numbers.
You need short-code numbers to send promotional texts, emergency notifications, and even appointment reminders. Long-code numbers are ideal for two-way communication and sending low-volume messages.
How To Send Messages Through SMS Broadcast Software
As a business, sending out text message campaigns should be easy, affordable, and scalable. Sending out messages to your customers through SMS broadcast software is a three-step process.
Simply put, if you want to send out mass texts or text blasts to your customers, all you need to do is upload your contact list and type the desired message. You can either send the message directly or schedule it to be deployed at a different date or time.
Top 5 SMS Broadcast Software To Streamline Your SMS Marketing Efforts
We have curated a list of the top 5 SMS broadcasting software, based on their reviews, features, and pricing to help you make your decision.
These are:
- ClickSend
All the ratings have been taken from Capterra to help you make an extensive comparison and then select the one that best suits your SMS marketing needs.
This table will give you a complete overview of your options:
FAQs Regarding SMS Broadcast Software
How is an SMS broadcast different from a group text message?
When we talk about group text vs mass text, there is a slight difference with respect to the way the messages are received. In the case of an SMS broadcast message, the recipients will receive the text message individually. You will be able to send messages to multiple contacts without a group message. In the case of a group text, all the recipients will be a part of a group and every message sent or received will be visible to all members of the group.
Is SMS broadcast software expensive?
The pricing strategy of each SMS broadcast software varies depending on the usage of the business. The major players that offer broadcast messaging charge monthly, with starting prices as low as $29. Nevertheless, the more messages you send, the more cost-effective it will be for you.
Can I send an SMS broadcast through my phone?
Yes, absolutely. Whether you have iOS or Android, you can easily send out broadcast messages through your phone. You just need to have the broadcast text message service installed on your phone.
Which type of number can I use to send broadcast messages?
You can send messages through your existing business number (long code). Also, you can request API for a short code number and use it to send promotional messages to your customers.
Is there a limit on the number of messages I can send in a campaign?
No, there isn’t. You can send as many messages as you want through SMS broadcast software. How you’re priced will depend on the number of messages that are being sent across.
Send SMS Broadcasts Using Emitrr
Send bulk/broadcast SMS in less than 10 minutes using your current phone number through Emitrr’s text message marketing capability. We make group texting easy and fun, you can easily personalize your messages, and follow up with responses through drip campaigns. Not only that, but you can track the performance of your campaigns and monitor the response rate. For a detailed tutorial on sending SMS broadcast messages through Emitrr, check out this video:
Conclusion
When you have to send marketing communications to multiple contacts at once, broadcast messages can save the day for you, not just in terms of time taken but also the cost. From understanding your target audience to measuring the success of your campaigns, SMS broadcast software is a great tool to invest in.
With texting quickly becoming the most preferred communication channels among users all over the world not using texting to engage with your customers can prove to be a costly mistake, schedule a demo today.
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