How to send text messages from your CRM

We all know what an SMS text message is. I remember having to hit each number on my old Nokia phone multiple times for each letter, back in the early 2000s. Now, most people have smartphones with full keyboards that allow them to send text messages quickly, include images, other files, etc.

Because most people carry a phone capable of receiving SMS text messages, it’s easy to send text messages as part of a multichannel marketing campaign. And it’s advantageous to do so, considering that by 2020, estimates predict that 4.7 billion people worldwide will be accessing the internet via smartphones. Plus, the whole process can be automated by using a customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

Below we’ll discuss some tips and tricks for sending SMS text messages from your CRM solution.

Using triggers to send text messages

If you use CRM software with texting capabilities, you can use behavior-based triggers to automate the sending of the message. You can also pre-draft text messages so that when customers and prospects display certain behaviors, the system knows and sends the message automatically.

This is a great technique to send just the right message at just the right time, to the right individual. Trigger-based text messages help you increase customer engagement by sending a message related to the action they have just taken.

For example, if someone signs up for a free trial of your product and you capture their phone number, you can have a workflow in place to automatically send a text message welcoming them and providing any important information they need to know.

Incorporating text messaging into marketing campaigns

Digital marketing campaigns can involve an array of different touchpoints through different channels. These include:

• Emails
• Social media
• Videos
• Mobile
• SMS text messaging
• And more…

With the right CRM in place, you can easily set up a workflow to automate the initiation of each touchpoint.

For example, let’s say you send an email to a prospect with a link back to a landing page with a web form that offers a discount. Then, your prospect clicks that link and arrives at your discount page. However, they don’t complete the form to take advantage of the discount. The campaign workflow that you have set up in your CRM sees this and moves to the next step that you have defined: it sends an automated text message to that person offering them a way to take advantage of the discount without completing the form.

Setting up workflows to send text messages

With an all-in-one CRM, such as Agile CRM, you get full CRM capabilities as well as marketing, sales, and support automation on the same platform. Using such a solution, it’s quite easy and simple to set up a workflow to automate the sending of text messages. Such a workflow could be as simple or complex as you want.

With a drag-and-drop workflow builder, you simply determine the actions you want the workflow to take, when they take place, and based on which action. You can have a workflow that simply sends a series of three welcome text messages to new customers.

Or you could set up a highly-complex workflow that encompasses an entire multichannel marketing campaign. This could include a combination of any type of touchpoint you want to include in your campaign.

Text messaging for sales

Your sales reps normally juggle loads of prospects at the same time. It can be hard for them to keep up with it all and personally respond to every query that comes in.

With the use of autoresponder text messages, your reps can automate the sending of pre-drafted text message responses when common questions come in. Reps simply click the pre-drafted message they want to send, and the CRM sends it out automatically.

Sending bulk text messages

When you want to send a text message, your capacity is not limited to one-off sends. In some cases, you may want to send the same text message to a targeted segment of your audience. If you have a promotion around a specific product that you sell, you can send a bulk text message to a specific group of prospects that you have identified as being a good fit for that product.

You draft the message, define your target audience using system filters, and hit send. Then that message gets sent to everyone on your target audience list.

Plus, your CRM can track everyone who clicks on the link you provide in the text message. This allows you to measure the effectiveness of your text messaging.

Personalized text messages

Personalization in marketing is one of the fastest growing trends in marketing today. And you can leverage personalization to make your text messages more relevant and engaging to the recipient.

You can populate your message with your audience’s personal information using any system tag that stores certain types of behavioral or demographic data about each recipient.

For example, you can include their name, geographical location, industry, and more to make your messages more personal and relevant to the needs of each recipient. This results in higher levels of engagement and a higher return on the investment in your CRM solution.

Conclusion

With so many people carrying cell phones everywhere they go, choosing to send a text message as part of your marketing or sales efforts is a great tactic to engage your audience.

With the right CRM in place—and we suggest using an all-in-one CRM—you can easily automate the sending of text messages. Plus, the right CRM lets you personalize your messages, ensuring that your message resonates with each recipient.

If you’re not already using text messaging as part of your sales and marketing efforts, today is the day to start. If this concept is new to you, you can learn more about CRM software with texting capabilities.

Are you using text messaging in your marketing campaigns or in any other capacity in conjunction with your CRM? If so, let us know about it in the comments section below.