Many companies resort to social media and email campaigns to help promote their business. Email campaigns can be highly effective, help you connect with your customers, encourage reviews, and acquire new customers. Therefore collecting your customers’ emails is a great start to building more revenue.
However, email campaigns are quickly being replaced with text message technology for communication.
As far as stats go, SMS messaging is now the number one way to expand the reach and get your message across.
Here are a few reasons we believe SMS messaging when asking for reviews can be more effective than email campaigns (not to say you should give up on them!) and is perfect for implementing into your marketing strategy.
Higher Open Rate
People are addicted to their phones. There is research that proves we need to interact with our phones even when they are visibly in the same room.
It’s also fair to say, most people with a cell phone interact through texting. This makes SMS marketing a distinctive way to reach your customers to market or ask for a review to help improve your online reputation.
In fact, SMS texts get a 99% open rate. Further, 97% of them are opened with 15 minutes of receipt. (Redeye). Think about how high that is. Since they are opened so quickly, there is also a very high chance they will see a text asking for a review and respond.
More Likely to Get Response
People are always on their phones. Whenever people receive a text message, it’s difficult to resist the urge to read it right away. If you send a text message with a link, you’re likely to receive a response. In fact, SMS has eight times the response rate of email. (RetailDive).
Using a link to a review site increases the likelihood of responding since it’s a quick way to answer or comply with a CTA (call-to-action).
With such a high response rate, you can expect a higher influx of reviews when implementing an SMS marketing strategy. It will prompt your customer to leave a review after a service or purchase.
Email campaigns are about a 20% open rate and a lower click rate – all depending on the campaign, possible discount or incentive, or creativity. Email campaigns are much more challenging to encourage a customer to leave a review versus SMS.
Simple Copy
With email campaigns, you need to get creative. It takes lots of thought for successful campaigns and potentially a copywriter.
With SMS messaging, you can keep it simple. Since the messages are short and you don’t want to bombard your customers, most messages are short, sweet, and to the point. Often they quickly direct you to a review site.
Even better, you can use a link to a review site that you need additional reviews to help boost your online reputation.
Unlike email campaigns, you can keep it simple with SMS marketing strategies.
SMS is Perfect for Reviews
If you’re looking to increase your reviews, consider a texting campaign.
It’s an instant and fast way to prompt them to write a review. It increases the chances of following through since the link points to a review site, and it’s difficult to ignore a text message. You might be hesitant to take the plunge into SMS marketing to acquire reviews. However, you can lean on review management software to organize, implement, and execute a successful text message marketing plan.
Online reputation software, like ReviewInc, monitors all online reviews on all platforms. It allows for immediate attention to help reduce negative consequences. Your customers can get their issues resolved while protecting your online presence.
Online review software, depending on the version, can be costly. Alternatively, you’d be investing time to hire an employee to manage reviews, or you’d need to take time yourself. Either way, there’s a cost. But one won’t require your time.
Review management software can be the key to executing a perfect SMS strategy to drastically increase customer connection and build up your online reputation.
Don’t let review management hold your business back!
