How To Use Text Marketing To Generate Leads & Build Relationships In Your Business

If you’ve received a text from a company you do business with or an influencer you follow online, then you’ve experienced text marketing. Among a noisy online world full of algorithms in social media, text marketing is a great way to get your message and marketing in front of your consumers in an unfiltered, direct-to-consumer way. 

In today’s episode, you’ll learn:

• What text marketing is
• Benefits of using text marketing
• Examples of how text marketing can be used in your business to generate leads and build relationships with your existing customers
• What you need to look for when choosing a text marketing platforms
• The difference between being assigned a phone number or using short, long or vanity codes
• Whether or not you need a call to action on every text
• How often and what types of texts to send

Text marketing is gaining momentum that parallels online marketing well and gives you a more intimate way to communicate directly with your customers. Dive in and learn more about the ins and outs of text marketing!

 Resources From Today's Show:

Grab a StoryBrand coaching session to create your BrandScript  https://calendly.com/amberglus
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Texting Platforms

Zipwhip: https://www.zipwhip.com/

Community: https://www.community.com/

Full Audio Transcription of this Podcast Episode:

(00:10):

Hey there friends. Are you one of the many women who started a business and quickly got overwhelmed by online marketing? You want your message and your marketing to be effective, but you don't want to spend all of your time on social media. Am I right? Well, then you're in the right place. Welcome to The School of Copy and Messaging, a podcast where we help you craft an effective message, create relevant content, and give you simple and effective marketing tools that don't require you to spend hours on social media. I'm your host, Amber Glus. I'm a certified story brand marketing guide who professionally has been in this business for 20 years. Personally, I'm a breast cancer survivor and a lover of all things coffee, who believes that Friends is still the best TV show ever. If you are ready to craft your message, promote it easily online. Let's get to work, grab a laptop or pen it's coffee time.

(01:07):

Hey friends. Thanks for joining me today. Today's episode is talking about all things, text marketing, we've all seen them, right? You've gotten the email from an influencer that you follow that says text us that this number for whatever exclusive information, a coupon, um, a free guide, you can download any number of things, right? And then if you are on their list, you probably get text messages from them on the regular. And some of them may be just encouraging. Some of them might be sales-related program-related any number of things. So we've all gotten those well. That is text marketing and that's what today's website. That's what today's podcast is going to talk about is what is text marketing? What are some examples of how you can use it? And what are some of the ins and outs that you might need to know if you've been considering text marketing and your business?

(01:59):

So I'm excited to dive into that with you guys today, but before we do, I want to tell you about Kajabi today's podcast is sponsored by Kajabi. Kajabi is your all-in-one platform for your website, your email marketing, your membership, your courses. It is the online entrepreneurs. Best friend. If you are interested in checking out Kajabi, there's a link in the show notes. You can get 14 days on me for free because I'm an affiliate. Um, I love Kajabi. You guys know I basically run it to power my entire business, and I really love their platform. So if you want to check them out for 14 days, um, the link is in the show notes where you can do that. The interesting thing about today's episode is, um, I think it's still kind of new age, a little bit, like not, everybody's doing text marketing yet, but it is becoming more and more prominent.

(02:53):

And so that's why I wanted to go into some of the ins and outs of text marketing today so that you guys have that information. Should you choose to use it for your business? So let's get into it. Um, the first thing I want to tell you guys, this is my like, you know, CYA paragraph. Um, the information shared in today's podcast is not meant to be legal advice. I am not an attorney. And before you do any kind of text marketing or any kind of marketing, really in your business, you should consult your own attorney and make your own decisions about whether or not those things are good for your business. So today's episode is not legal advice. I am not an attorney. I cannot give legal advice. You should call an attorney before you do any kind of marketing, text marketing, or otherwise in your business and take the advice of an attorney over me.

(03:44):

Okay. That's the, you know, paragraph. Um, so I'm going to give you guys some general information from a marketing perspective. This is not meant to be legal. Um, I want to make sure you guys understand that because there is a lot of legal stuff around text marketing that you need to be aware of. Um, so let's talk about that first on that note. Um, so again, check with your attorney before you do anything. Um, the thing I want to make sure you guys know in addition to understanding that there are some legal, um, rules and regulations and laws around text marketing, um, you can look those up online. If you literally just Google text marketing regulations, um, there are a lot of rules and things that you need to understand, but the, probably the most important thing that I'll kind of just more generally share with you here today is you must and I mean, must you guys, there are zero exceptions to this.

(04:42):

You must have permission before you text somebody. Um, there's no, there's no exception. Okay. You have to have permission before you text somebody and how you get permission is incredibly important. It needs to be in writing and you need to make sure that you keep copies of that. Um, beyond that, there's, there's a lot of other things that you should be aware of and you should check with your attorney. Okay. So that's kind of the legal stuff. Um, let's talk more about just what is text marketing. So text marketing is communicating your message through your through text. So it's the same concept as what you would use email marketing for, um, really what you would use for creating content. It's just on a much smaller and different scale, but it is just another way that you can communicate your message to your customers or to potential customers.

(05:37):

So what are some of the ways that you might use text marketing could be used to generate new leads for your business, and it can also be used to foster existing relationships with your current clients. Another way, kind of another category that text marketing can be used for is internal updates and engagement within your own company. Um, so a lot of, a lot of companies are using text marketing for notifications, uh, reminders, um, employee engagement, uh, fun stuff about the company. Um, so lots of ways that you can use it, but those are kind of the three biggest ways that I see text marketing being used today. Number one, generate new leads. Number two foster relationships with your existing clients and number three internal company communication. Now, how, how could you use text marketing? Let's just talk a little bit about from the, from the mindset of an online entrepreneur, what are some examples of how you could use text marketing?

(06:41):

Um, I've got a couple here that, that I think will resonate with you. So the first is networking, of course, with colleagues, um, text marketing can, can be outbound marketing. It can also be part of your network marketing. So in today's business world, I think network marketing has gotten forgotten really, right? Like everybody is so, so focused on like, how do I show up on social media? How do I get more engagement on my posts? How do I create, you know, reels and stories and, um, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that I think because all of those things have become so prominent. Sometimes I see online entrepreneurs forgetting about network marketing and networking within their own sphere of influence in addition to their colleagues that are better in their same industry or in related industries. And let me just give you an example of this.

(07:43):

So if you are, um, working with, let's say another entrepreneur, who's in a similar field that you were in, um, a way that you could text communicate with them is just, you know, weekly, like check-ins with your own network. Like, Hey, how are you doing this week in your business? Um, this kind of starts to become a way that you can also get referrals. Um, once you've got some colleagues that you're texting with, and again, you have to have, you know, permission just to have their phone number in and be communicating with them in text and you can text them like, Hey, here's what I'm working on this weekend, my business, what are you working on? And then help keep each other accountable, texting that person, Hey, you know, what's your progress this week. Another thing you can use it for is asking for referrals.

(08:28):

Um, once you have those people in your contact list and you've gotten permission to text with them, ask for referrals. Um, let me give you an example if like, in my, for my business, if I was working with a web designer, um, and let's say this web designer and I were colleagues, we were exchanging text messages about our businesses. I might say, you know, Hey, I'm currently taking on new clients for copywriting, specifically for websites. If you have a client that you're designing the website for, and they don't have a copywriter, I just wanted to let you know I'm taking on new clients, and here's how they can reach me, uh, make sure that they know exactly how to refer you. And this is a really good way to get referrals is just to quickly text somebody and remind them, Hey, I'm taking new clients.

(09:16):

If you know of anybody who needs copy written for their website, if you know anybody who needs a lead magnet written up, um, I'm, I'm your person. So it's just a way to quickly stay in touch with people and foster those relationships so that you're getting referrals. Another thing that you can do is, um, advertising and promoting. So once you have people on your list and you have permission to text them, you can promote certain products. Um, you can advertise certain things that you're doing. And so you can send a quick text and just say, Hey, um, I'm doing 20% off for the month of July on my product. You know, all of my t-shirts custom t-shirts for 20% off this month, um, click this link to get your 20% off coupon. That's another way that you could use text marketing, um, registration, if you're an online business and you are, you have an upcoming webinar, um, texting your community and saying, Hey, registration is open for this webinar.

(10:14):

I'm running Wednesday. Just wanted to remind you and you can text them the link to register. Another way is reminders. Um, if you have something that somebody has already registered for sending them a reminder, like a day before, um, a couple of hours before, maybe 20 minutes before, and just reminding them through text, like, Hey, you registered for this. This is coming up is a really great way to utilize text marketing. Another way is personal communication with your current customer. So if you are, if you're on a texting list with any online influencers, um, you've probably seen this. So this is an example of this is when you're just texting something to say, Hey, I'm just so grateful for my customers. Thanks for being a customer, um, that may or may not have some kind of a thank you. Like maybe you're sending out a 10% coupon to your, to your customers just to say, thanks.

(11:08):

Or maybe you're just sending out some encouragement today and saying, Hey, I just hope you're having a great day. Um, maybe you're sending out an encouraging quote. That's just something that's really, you know, nice to send to your community. Doesn't have to be selling anything it's just encouraging. Um, so that's another way that you can use texting. Uh, drip marketing. Texting is a really cool way to do drip marketing. Again, you have to have people's permission. Let's say you have a series of like a sales funnel online that you typically would email like two or three different emails that would lead into something into, you know, somebody registering for a webinar or downloading your freebie or, um, signing up to be a member of your group or whatever your thing is that you're promoting drip marketing is, is really cool way to do through text works the same as email.

(11:59):

It's just on a very shortened scale. Um, but similar to sending out, let's say a series of three emails that would remind people why they should sign up for your thing. You do the same on text marketing. And so maybe one day you send a text and you just say, Hey, just want to remind you, um, you know, have this webinar coming up. And I know that it would really be beneficial to you. I'm going to be talking about how do you create a website that converts customers, here's the link to register. And then maybe three or four days later, you send something that's like, if you've been wondering about whether or not your website is working for you, um, sign up for this webinar. We're going to talk about how to do an audit on your own website. And then maybe the third thing is, Hey, just a reminder, this webinar is tomorrow.

(12:42):

This webinar is also going to help. You know, how do you put a point of sales system on your website that is easy for your customers to lose? So you don't miss the sale. Um, I'm just making all that up, but that's an example of just drip marketing, similar to how you would do it with email, but on a much quicker shortened scale, doing it through text marketing. That's another way you can use texting. The next thing is alerts. And so if you want to alert your, your audience to something, texting is a really good way to do that. Especially if it's urgent these days, you know, people may or may not be seeing your social media posts because of, you know, hashtag algorithms. And so who knows, right? If people are seeing what you're posting, they may not have checked their email yet today.

(13:28):

And they may not for a couple of days, that's becoming kind of the norm with emails, but text messages. I didn't look up any statistics on this, but text messages for the most part get looked at not only frequently throughout the day, but usually fairly immediately upon receiving one. And so if you have any kind of an alert to send out to your community, texting is a really cool way to do that. Um, this is used in, this is used by a lot of entrepreneurs. Um, you can use it in the form of selling something like, Hey, the, the, you know, doors are closing to my membership today, make sure you sign up. Um, but it also can be used for something else like your internal community. Like, Hey, we just had a customer who had this question we answered. And here's, here's what we learned.

(14:14):

Other people may have the same question, little things like that, that just you can alert your community to that are quick, is really helpful to do through text marketing. If you're an online entrepreneur who creates courses, this is a really cool way to add some accountability to your online courses and to your, your like homework that people should be doing that week is just sending out a text reminder about, Hey, you know, this week we're working on module two, don't forget by the end of the week, your goal is to have, you know, your sales page was written, okay, whatever that might be. It's also a really cool way if you are willing to. And if you have the capability to do this, text marketing is a really neat way to get question and answer sessions with your community. So let's say you have a course and the students in the course get access to you through Voxer or through text messaging.

(15:06):

It's a really great way for them just to text a quick question and say, Hey, um, you know, I had a question on this. They don't really understand it. Can you, can you give me a little bit of guidance? Make sure my, my warning for that is making sure somebody is monitoring your text platform. If you are offering that to your customers, you never ever want to have the ability for somebody to text you a question, and then it goes unanswered because nobody in your team or you if you're a solopreneur is checking that text platform for weeks on end, that sets up a really poor customer service experience for your clients. So if you're going to add something like that, where you're sending out, um, the, or you're giving the ability for your customers to send out questions, make sure that that platform is monitored really every 30 minutes to an hour, at least once a day, just to make sure that you're not giving your customers a bad experience.

(16:01):

So text marketing can, can be used for a lot of outbound, like sales and marketing, but it can be used for inbounding engagement as well, similar to Voxer. So a lot, a lot of entrepreneurs use Voxer. Um, texting is becoming a little bit more prominent Voxer for those of you who don't know what Voxer is, I'm just going to go off because I don't know if, if everybody here knows, um, Voxer is an app you can download. And it's kind of like a mixture between texting and a walkie-talkie. It's pretty cool. If you haven't downloaded Voxer, you can like record a quick message and it gets sent to somebody in an audio message and then they can listen to it and respond. It's really similar to on Instagram, how you can send a voice message on Instagram. It works kind of the same way.

(16:45):

You can also text on the Voxer app. Um, so you can text or you can send an audio message. It's really cool. And I actually am gonna talk more about Voxer in an upcoming episode that I have about some really cool tools to help you do marketing in the modern world. And Voxer is one of those. So I'll go into that more in a future episode, but just wanted to make sure for anybody who doesn't know what it is, it's an app you can download. It's a communication app. You can text through it and you can leave voice messages to people back and forth. But Voxer, as well as text marketing has started to become more prominent for inbound communication and inbound engagement as well. And so this idea of having a community, especially if you have courses or memberships or some kind of a workshop that you run using something like texting and Voxer are really good ways for your community to reach out to you.

(17:38):

In addition to you, being able to reach out to them for internal communication or marketing, but it's a really cool way for them to reach out to you while you still maintaining boundaries. So, you know, in the modern online world, you guys, let's just be honest, calling people on the phone is kind of going out of style. Um, I'm a little bit old school and I still appreciate a good old-fashioned phone call. I will say it's still one of my pet peeves in life. That if somebody doesn't call me back, especially a service-based business, if somebody isn't calling me back, it's like, it's like my number one, pet peeve. You guys like, I will not, I shouldn't say ever, but most of the time I will not do business with a service-based business that doesn't call me back. It drives me absolutely insane. And I know it's going out of style and I know there's a ton of other ways to communicate today.

(18:26):

So I get that. But if you offer somebody a phone number, okay, and you have a way for your customers to call you, then by golly, you should be able to call them back. That's all I'm saying, okay, I'm going to get off that soapbox. If you don't want people to call you, then put a text, you know, say text only, or boxer me and put your Voxer on their total. Obviously, I'm still a little bit passionate about this is a really cool way though, between Voxer and texting for you to have inbound engagement with your community, with your students, with your customers, without having to kind of interrupt your own personal boundaries. And so it's a little bit less invasive. That's the word I want. It's a little bit less invasive. And so this is a really cool way, um, for you to allow your community, to communicate with you without having to give out your phone number and without having to work all hours, right?

(19:17):

Because if somebody calls you at seven o'clock at night, that feels invasive, it feels a little frustrating, and you're like, I'm not even working. Um, but your community members that may be when they have time to engage with you, but a Voxer or a text is really less invasive. And you can kind of let that go until you have time or have your time, time blocked to respond. So you may send a Voxer. Um, and then in the morning that entrepreneur's going through and spending an hour, you know, responding to messages or something. Um, so that's just a way that your, your customers can engage with you on their timeframe, but without really being invasive to your own boundaries, that was a lot anyways, another way that you can use text marketing, I already kind of mentioned this example, but using it to increase your email list.

(20:06):

And so this is where you're saying, text me at this number to get this free gift, to get, you know, this lead magnet, or register for this webinar. Um, it's something quick people can do now, a really cool thing. There are some platforms that say like, you can put on your marketing, like on your email or on social media to take a picture of the QR code and it will instantly send them to a registration page. Um, the reason this is helpful is just your customers are busy. You guys, as much as, as much as we hate it, sometimes how busy people are because when you're marketing to them, it can feel like your message is falling on deaf ears because people are so stinking busy. That's just the way it's just, it's true. It's the way of the world. These days, people are so busy.

(20:52):

And so you as an entrepreneur, it's your job to make it as easy as possible for your customers to engage with you. And so if you're sending them a text and it is just really quick, right now, I can click on this link, put in my name and my email, and register for this webinar. That's a lot easier than me having to remember that I have to come back and do that, you know, sometime later, because you know, the likelihood of me remembering is, is less positive. So if it's something you send in a text and I can just do it real quick, right now, that's just a way for you to set yourself apart a little bit and your community and help your customers get on your list, make it as easy as possible for your customers to do business with you. That's what this is all about.

(21:37):

Um, the next thing is an intern. Some internal ways that you can use text marketing, uh, customer questions, a really cool way to just text a question and just be able to send somebody in the right direction. You may not be able to answer in-depth stuff over text, but again, it's just a way for your community to feel like they can get ahold of you. Um, and then you can kind of send somebody to the right department or person from there. Um, again, be sure when somebody is responding to those though really, really quickly, if that's something that you're going to do and then internal communication, a couple of ways I've seen this used in companies right now, there's, there's a lot of companies who will text their employees, important company updates. You know, I don't know, Hey reminder, Monday's a holiday. Nobody has to come to work Monday.

(22:25):

Uh, that's not true by the way, Monday is not a holiday yet. I'm just using that as an example, or Hey, you know, company meeting today at three o'clock just to remind, and that's especially important. If you have a lot of employees who are working remotely all over the place, sending them a quick text message is a really great, great way to send them reminders of things that are coming up and thanking your employees. Uh, you know, Hey, everybody gets a $5 Starbucks gift card today. Thank you so much for your loyalty. Like anything like that. There's just internal communication. That's a really cool way to communicate with your employees internally. Um, maybe letting them know what's going on in the company, just updates. Like, Hey, we, you know, got mentioned in the news today and just stuff like that's a really great way to keep your employees engaged and give them reminders.

(23:13):

So that's just a quick example of how you could use it. If you are somebody who has employees internally, the next thing we're going to talk about is why is text marketing a benefit? Again, there's a lot of legal stuff around text mark gaining. So make sure that you talk to your attorney. The number one benefit in my opinion of text marketing is direct to consumers in a more engaging way. So let me say that again, text marketing is direct to the consumer in a more engaging way. Uh, now we talked about, you know, social media. You'd never really know how many people are. If they're going to see your posts because the social media algorithms going to determine that email well, um, you can get caught in spam filters. Um, people may or may not read their emails or they may intend to, and then forget and just delete it.

(24:07):

Some of that is, is just not as engaging. I still believe you should be doing email marketing, but sometimes, you know, people don't always read your emails, your job. If you haven't listened to the episode about how to do email marketing successfully, go back and listen to that. The main thing is it's your job to be in front of your customer when they're ready to buy that's. That is the number one reason why you should be doing email marketing. Even if sometimes your open rates look low, even if people aren't responding or engaging, it's your job to be in front of your customer. When they're ready to buy an email marketing is a really good way to stay top of mind. Well, for the same reason, text marketing is really beneficial. It's a really great way to stay in front of your customers in a way that is direct to the consumer.

(24:52):

So you don't have to worry about the algorithms determining whether or not it's going to show your information to somebody like social media. You don't have to worry about getting stuck in a spam filter is that this is going, if somebody has given you permission to text them, your text is going direct to their cell phone, and they're more likely to read it. So that's one of the main benefits of having text marketing in your marketing tool case. Okay. Tool kit. Um, now again, there are a lot of rules that you need to make sure that you check with your attorney and understand. Um, so let's talk about some tips. We talked about a lot of ways you can use text marketing. Let's talk about some tips when doing text marketing first, keep it short. Okay. Keep it short. Um, by nature, when we see a text message, we expect it to be short.

(25:42):

Um, if we see a long text message, especially from somebody who's not in our contacts, instantly my mind as a consumer is like, whoa, I don't have time to read this. So keep it short. Um, second, keep it conversational. So text like you would, if you were talking to this customer, now that could be different based on who your customer is. If you were an attorney and you would never use, you know, OMG with a client talking to them, then don't put it in your text. Um, another thing to keep in mind is the way that your client needs to receive this information. So I would not, I would not recommend a doctor texting a patient and saying, Hey, just a reminder, you have this condition and you know, you should get lots of exercise and drink water and eat the right foods and this, and here's an explanation of what this, what you like, what are these symptoms that you're having?

(26:45):

And why? Like, no, you're not going to do all of that over text. Right. Um, but so you have to understand how is your customer best-receiving texts from you? Like what is going to be beneficial for them to receive? So in that case, the Doctor may send something that just says, Hey, thanks for visiting us today. Here's a survey. Tell us how we did at your visit. Or they may use it for, um, online check-in, you know, here's the link to do online check-in or appointment reminders, but it would not be appropriate for them to use it for, um, communication with a patient when discussing a diagnosis. Right. So I'm just giving you that, like total, just extreme example of knowing how to use texting in your business. But if you're somebody who, you know, your clients, if it's a very casual relationship with your clients and you're used to using some kind of like slang words, um, you talk a little bit less formally than certainly then it's okay to put it in a text that way don't be formal in a text when you wouldn't be formal in person.

(27:51):

Okay. So just mimic how you would treat your clients in person. That's how you want to speak to them. So to speak, uh, when you're actually texting. So just text the same way that you would talk to your clients. The questions should I have to be, do I have to be grammatically correct in texting again, this comes back to, I see people ask this a lot and this comes back to who's your client. If your client is going to want you to be grammatically correct, then you should. Um, if you wouldn't, if you would be concerned about being grammatically correct in your email marketing, you should be as concerned about it in your text marketing. So if your customer though, um, I think I've used this example before, but if your customer is, is going to be fine with you putting, you know, hashtag blessed in an email as kind of adding character and mannerisms to your email, then certainly you could do it in your text marketing too.

(28:45):

But if that wouldn't be something that you would typically do with your clients in your email marketing, then don't put it in your text marketing. So when you're texting the rule is to communicate with your customers in text marketing, as you would, if they were in person with you or sending them an email, okay, the same rules apply. So if there's slang in your industry, that's kind of fun. Totally fine. To put that in text marketing, even if it means being not grammatically correct. It just depends on your customer. If your customer is going to receive that well, great. If not, then don't include it. Something else to keep in mind for tips for text marketing is should I include a call to action each time? Um, there are probably lots of opinions on this. My opinion, in this case, is no. Now for most copywriting and marketing, I would tell you to include a call to action every time.

(29:38):

I actually don't think that that's true when it comes to text marketing and I, and here's why I, if you can picture yourself, you sign up to receive texts from your favorite flower store because they often run discounts and they have certain flowers each month that they give you tips for taking care of those flowers. Um, and they have a flower of the month and you, you like hearing that stuff from them. So you sign up to be on their text marketing every time the flower store sends you information, such as you know, this month, our flower is the rose. And here are three tips about taking care of roses. Make sure you prune them, make sure you water them. They need partial sunlight. I have no idea if that's true, by the way, I have, I don't have a green thumb, but imagine getting that.

(30:23):

And then, and then at the bottom it says, you know, come in to purchase this bouquet today. And then the next week you get a text. That's like, you know, here are some tips on taking care of, um, daffodils and come in and buy this bouquet. Like if you saw that every single time, in my opinion, um, with text marketing, because it should be short and because of the nature behind how to use it, I just feel like a call to action. Every single time, it gets a little bit exhausting. It's just my opinion. You may do it and it may feel fine and people may resonate with it. And other businesses or other marketing professionals may completely disagree with me, but I feel like that gets a little bit exhausting. Um, so personally for me, I would not include a call to action on every single text message that you send out.

(31:10):

I would pick and choose. You know, maybe a couple of times a month, your text includes a pretty specific call to action. And maybe then you filter through, um, a good dose of just encouraging texts, maybe some quotes, uh, maybe some helpful information. And a couple of times a month you have a, you know, call to action to download a lead magnet, register for a webinar, or something like that. That's just my opinion. I wouldn't include one every single time, but the only way to know for sure is for you to try it and see how your audience responds, uh, no right or wrong there. Just see what works best for you. Um, here's my last tip and it's really important. Um, if you hear nothing else about text marketing today, please hear this. If you decide to try and text marketing, always put your name on every single text you sent.

(31:59):

Here's one thing that drives me a little bit crazy is I am on the text marketing list for multiple entrepreneurs because I like to hear what they say. And in some cases, I'm just learning how other people are doing it. Um, I get so many of those and I don't know who they're from because they don't, they don't put their name. Here's the thing when you sign up so most of the way we're going to talk last year about some platforms and how does this actually work. But before we get into that, the way that most of these text platforms work is you will put something in your marketing that says, text me here to receive my text updates. Again, it could be, or to register for a webinar or download a freebie or whatever it might be, but they're, your customer is going to text the number to a number or text a word.

(32:49):

Sometimes it's a word you can text, um, you know, the word marketing to this number, and I'm going to send you marketing updates, that kind of a thing, okay. This is a way for your customer to opt-in to your text marketing list. So you're, they are giving you permission for you to text them again, incredibly important, check with your attorneys on this. Um, but you have to have explicit written, written permission to be able to text your customers. So they're doing that when they text, you know, the word marketing to a number. Now you're on my list. It's going to send you back something that says, click here. And then you're going to say, yes, I agree. Now you're on my list. Okay. Now I can text you. Here's what happens because they're texting that outbound number when you text them back and say, okay, thanks.

(33:36):

Now, you're in my community. If they don't save that number and the response that you send back to them, doesn't have your name on it two weeks from now, when they've signed up for two or three other text marketing things, and you send them a text and it doesn't have your name on it, they have no idea who it's from. No idea. And this drives me crazy. I have seen I I'm on like four or five different lists where this is happening to me. And I have no idea. Who's texting me. I'm like, and you guys like the more and more text marketing becomes more and more prominent. This is going to start happening. Okay. People are going to sign up for a text marketing list. They're not going to put the number in their phone. And then you're going to text them next week.

(34:17):

And they're going to be like, who is this? I don't even know who this is. So make sure each time you send a text that you put your name at the bottom so that they know who it's from now, probably after you do that a couple of times, the person's probably going to say the phone number in their contacts, and then they're going to know, but just in case, like, honestly the ones I've signed up for, I think I've saved that number. Like once in my phone, the rest of the time I didn't save it. So when that person texts me, if they don't put their name, I don't, I don't know who it is. That's texting me. So make sure you put your name, the bottom of every single text. The next thing that I want to just talk about is the platforms. So what are some platforms for using text marketing?

(34:58):

How do you do this? What are some of the details you need to know for that? There are a ton of platforms these days, you guys that allow text marketing. So the first thing is to do some Google research. I don't want to go into all of them today because there really are like a lot of them, which is cool because there are so many options today. Um, so that's really nice, but do some research and I want to give you some information about what should you be looking for in that? I'm going to tell you the platform that I feel like kind of works the best, but the first thing for you to really understand is the platform that's going to work best for me may not work best for you. Like, it really depends on what you want to do with it. So I want to talk about a couple of things that you should ask.

(35:42):

Um, when you're looking for a text marketing platform, first ask, if they allow you to send links to videos, um, videos, right in the text, ask if they let you send pictures if they let you use emojis, um, because those are the things that, that lets you be a little bit more personal with your audience, right? Like it lets you if you want to send a fun emoji or a meme, um, within your texts, you want to be able to do that. And some platforms allow it. And some people don't, um, some of those platforms are going to have rules for what links you could include. And so you want to make sure that you understand, are you allowed to include a link that would send your customers to a registration page? Um, you know, that's important for you to know so that you understand what you can and can't do on that platform.

(36:32):

A couple of other things to make sure that you ask them first is, do you have a limit on how many texts can be sent a month? Um, do you have a limit on how many people can be on your contact list? And if there is a limit, how much does that cost? Because you've got, you have to be careful. Some of these texting platforms charge you by the number of people on your list. And so if you have a huge list and you sign up for a platform, it could be really expensive if they charge you by person, by the number of people on your list. So make sure you know, going into it, how do they charge you? And is there a limit on how many people you can have on your list when you text? Um, the next thing is, is there a character limit on the texts that you can send?

(37:16):

That's going to be important to know. Um, because again, texting by nature should be short, but you want to be aware, does your platform only allow 20 characters and others allow, you know, a hundred? So it makes sure that you understand going into it, does the platform you're looking at, have a character limit. The next thing to ask is, is there a contract or can you just sign up and pay on a month-to-month basis? The reason this is important is especially if you're new to text marketing, you may start working with the community, um, or working with a company, thinking it's going to fit what you need. And you may get into a situation where a month from now, it no longer fits because now you've learned, you know, that you want to do a couple of extra things with your text marketing, that that port platform doesn't allow.

(38:05):

And as you grow into new ways to use it, you don't want to be locked into a contract with a company. That's just my personal choice. Um, you want to be able to, to move around if there's another platform that has what you need, because as your business grows, your needs are going to grow, right? And so you want to make sure you have a platform that is flexible so that if they don't offer what you need, you can go find another one that does instead of being locked into a contract. So that's important to just keep in mind. Um, the next thing to check out is the CRM system. So does it have a backend CRM system? And if it does not, does it work with your current CRM system, like be thinking about, okay, I have the, I have a way for people to text me, they give me permission.

(38:53):

They got on my list. Now, what, like, what are you going to do with this list of people who now have said, yes, you have permission to text me. You have to keep that list somewhere, and you have to think through, if you keep it on the tax platform itself, how are you going to integrate it with the rest of your business? How do you make sure that it's integrated and, and you can keep track? So you want to make sure that you understand, do they have a CRM system or some way of keeping track of those contacts in their platform. And if they don't, what options do you have? Um, is it, you know, using a spreadsheet, or is there a way you can integrate it with your current CRM system? So that's just something you really need to think about. And at first, it's easy to think, oh, that's not a big deal.

(39:41):

I'm gonna, you know, I'm new. I don't have anybody on my list. And maybe the first month you get a hundred people and that's not too hard to handle, but you have to think long-term six months or a year from now, if you have a few thousand people on that list, you need to have a platform that can handle managing that list, or that at least integrates with whatever CRM system you're using that would allow you to manage it. So that's something that you kind of have to think futuristically about and be aware of when you're choosing a platform. The next thing is, is there a trial period? Can you, can you at least get in and try it? Can they give you a demo? Um, I highly recommend that because sometimes the user interface is not great on some of these platforms and you want to choose one, that's easy for you to navigate easily for you to use.

(40:26):

You don't want something. That's going to take you a ton of time because it's really cumbersome. Um, so ask for a trial period and see if you can get in there and kind of mess around with like, what is it actually like to use this platform and make sure that you feel like you're comfortable with it. Okay. The last thing I'm going to talk about when you're choosing a platform, understand the logistics of how they send texts there's and I'm not going to go into the weeds on this because it gets really technical, but a couple of things you need to just make sure you're understanding some platforms, use what they call codes to send their text messages through their platform. So this is when, if you've received a text from a company and instead of coming from a full phone number, it comes from like a three or five or seven-digit code.

(41:19):

Maybe it comes from, you know, 3, 1, 2, 6, 7. I'm making that up instead of an actual phone number that's called a shortcode. And so some platforms use those codes instead of an actual phone number. Um, there's a couple of reasons why they do that. There are some benefits to it. There's also some, um, some cons to it. And that's all probably a whole episode in itself, but make sure you understand when you sign up for a platform, how do they, how do they send it? Do they use shortcode? Do they use long code vanity code, or do they use an actual phone number that, that gets assigned to your account? You want to make sure that you understand that part of how their system works. Personally, I prefer having a phone number. Um, I, this is just a personal choice again, no right or wrong.

(42:07):

You guys, uh, it's just my personal choice. I think when you get something from a code versus a phone number, it looks spammy and not as personal. And to me, it instantly says marketing and I, it's just the way that I do business, the way I do my marketing, I want it to be more personal. And so for me, I just feel like the shortcodes are more spammy. Now, why would somebody want to use a shortcode? Um, in my opinion, there's, there are some reasons the number one reason is it's easy for your customers to remember. So if, let me give you an example, um, a podcaster such as myself, if I were to use shortcode and I said, and this is not real, you guys, I'm just using this as an example. So don't text this to me. Um, if I were to say, text the word marketing to 7 1 6, 7, that is a lot easier to remember than saying, to text the word marketing to, uh, 6 6 0 4 3 2 7 2 2 2, right?

(43:09):

Like you probably already forgot that number. So that's a, that's a benefit of using a short code is it's easier for your customers to remember, okay, text this word to these three digits or these four digits. So in that regard, shortcode can be beneficial. Um, now there's some, there are some drawbacks. And so you, if you go this direction, when you sign up with a platform, you really need to make sure you understand the pros and the cons. Um, a drawback is some of those companies that use shortcodes, because they're used for lots of different companies on their platform. The words that you can use that trigger somebody getting into your list, um, can't be the same. So if they're working with a company that already uses the word marketing, I have to choose something else. And so now that that can be true for some companies and not true for others.

(44:00):

If you have a specific code that's assigned to you with certain platforms that have the ability to do that, then it may not be a problem case. So there's a lot, there's a lot behind that. But the main thing to know is you do have the option with some platforms of using shortcodes. There are shortcodes, there are long codes, there are vanity codes. Um, and that's, that's why it looks different when it comes to your customers. It comes from a shortcode instead of a phone number. Now, I personally prefer the phone number. You may research this and prefer a code, no right or wrong. It's just a personal preference and depends on what fits you and your business best. Okay. Um, so check into that. When you look at a platform, ask, what do they use? Do they use shortcodes? Do they use the phone number you are assigned?

(44:50):

How does that work? It's just something you need to ask and be aware of. That was a lot, really, really packed full of information today. I hope you guys had a notepad out if you didn't download this episode and you could listen to it later. Uh, but that gives you the nitty-gritty on just what is text marketing. We went over some examples of how you could use text marketing. And then we talked about some of the benefits we talked about, um, some tips for using it and some questions to ask as you look into a platform. Um, now there are two platforms I'm going to recommend. I am not an affiliate of these. Um, these are just the ones that I feel are the, I guess, easiest is probably the best word. Um, so the first one is community.com. That one is really popular. Um, this one uses a phone number that's assigned to you.

(45:44):

Um, so I like that one community.com. I'll put these in the show notes for you guys too. The second one is zip whip, zip w H I P zip whip. Um, that's another good one. So there's a lot of them. You guys check into them, do some research, literally just Googling like, um, community, texting apps, texting apps, that kind of thing. We'll give you a list of, you know, a ton of them that you can research. Um, but use kind of this as a guide of some things to be on the lookout for when choosing one that might help you choose one, that's going to fit your business. Best. Texting is a really important piece of having just in your tool bag for marketing today. It's not a must and it doesn't fit every business. But if it's something that some of those today resonated with you, it may be good for you to consider adding it.

(46:34):

Now, if you're a freelancer, Friday's Freelancing Friday episode is going to be about what do you, as a freelancer, need to know about texting. Um, if you're working for a client who wants to do texting, uh, what are some of the ins and outs in addition to today's episode, that you should know, what should you be familiar with? And do you, do you even want to add it to something, to a service that you do? And so that's going to be Freelancer Friday episode this week. We're just going to dive a little bit deeper into this from a freelancer's perspective of what you need to know when it comes to text marketing. So if you're a freelancer, make sure you check out Friday's episode. All right, you guys, I hope you found this valuable and I hope you have a great week.

(47:16):

Thanks for listening today, friends, and spending a piece of your day with me to get more information on my copywriting and content marketing and messaging services, go to Amberglus.com. You can also learn more on Instagram with me @AmberGlus until next time go share your unique message with the world.