Today, business enterprises operate in a very competitive world. For this reason, companies are constantly finding new ways to reach out to target audiences to overcome competition. If you want to connect with more customers for your business, don't turn your back on short message service (SMS) and voicemail marketing just yet.  

Connecting with customers through SMS and voicemails is still effective. As such, businesses in all sectors continue to use these strategies to expand their reach. You should also follow suit to enhance your marketing efforts and connect with a wide audience.  

An Overview Of SMS And Voicemail Marketing 

SMS marketing is a form of advertising method business owners use to deliver promotional messages to customers via text. This is why it's also known as text marketing. You also need to note that SMS marketing is a form of opt-in advertising. This means clients have to subscribe or sign up for it. And as the name indicates, SMS marketing is shorter than most other marketing strategies like email marketing. For this reason, it's more engaging.  

Ringless voice mail drops form one of the most effective direct marketing strategies. It's a marketing strategy where business owners send pre-recorded audio messages to consumers' voicemail inboxes without the phone ringing. 

In this case, you'll record audio messages and use software to drop them to customers' voicemail boxes silently. Simply put, the user won't be notified once the messages get delivered to their inboxes. As such, customers will read your messages at whatever time they want.  

Reasons To Invest In SMS And Voicemail Marketing For Your Business 

SMS and voicemail marketing are some of the most underrated business promotional methods. Nevertheless, their benefits shouldn't be ignored.  

In addition, given the number of people engaging with companies via mobile devices, SMS and voicemails can be effective ways to expand your reach. If you're unsure whether SMS and voicemails should be part of your digital strategy, here are some reasons using them for marketing remains effective in 2023.  

Expands Your Reach  

The long-term growth of your business enterprise will depend on how many leads you generate. When you get more customers for your business, you have a higher chance of making more sales. To achieve this feat, you need to expand your reach. This is why investing in voicemail and SMS marketing is necessary.  

As noted earlier, you use software to deliver voicemail messages to customers' voicemail boxes. The software automates your messages and minimizes manual processes. Therefore, your customer service agents can reach out to more target customers in a day.  

SMS marketing can also help expand your reach. Today, a large proportion of the world's population owns mobile devices. Hence, promoting your business through text messages allows you to reach more prospects.  

Enhances Customer Responses 

One of the best ways to measure the effectiveness or performance of any marketing strategy is to analyze customer responses. A promotional campaign is effective if more customers respond to it. Therefore, business owners and marketers try by all means possible to increase customer responses. 

Although you can implement various strategies to enhance customers' responses, what matters most is using friendly ways to connect with them. Many customers hate being disturbed by promotional messages. Most won't respond to your promotional messages if you keep disrupting them. 

Voicemail is a friendly communication method since it doesn't involve telephone ringing first. Customers will read your messages at the most convenient time for them. Convenience is one of the reasons customers will respond to your text messages. 

SMS marketing allows you to reach out to prospects wherever they are. People always walk with their mobile devices wherever they go. You also need to note that customers don't necessarily have to be connected to the internet to receive your text messages. Therefore, a client can read your messages even when on the move. 

If interested in your offering, they'll likely reach out. So, if you want to enhance customer response, leveraging ringless voicemail and SMS marketing can be your best solution.  

Promotes Agents Productivity

You may want to outsource your call center services as your business grows. This will help you reduce the company's labor expenses. It'll also allow internal employees more time for other tasks. But the hired customer service agents should be productive. Agents' productivity will have a direct impact on how you generate leads. If they're more productive, you'll likely generate many leads for your business.  

One of the excellent ways to improve call center agents' productivity is to invest in voicemail and SMS marketing. Being automated, voicemail enables agents to complete more daily tasks, which then increases their productivity.  

Besides, voicemail technology helps agents save time. For instance, with dialers in your phone system, agents can identify non-responsive calls. As such, they won't waste time listening to busy tones, which ensures they connect with more customers in a day.  

Supports And Integrates With Other Marketing Channels 

If you want to reach more prospects quickly, all the channels should integrate well within the marketing mix. Every customer has their preferred mode of communication. Therefore, integrating your marketing channels can help expand your reach.  

One of the most important reasons you'd want to leverage the power of SMS and voicemail for your business is that they can support other channels like email. For instance, you can use them to remind your customers to read email messages you sent them about your new product or service. You can use SMS and voicemails to follow up with customers.  

Helps You Learn More About Your Customers 

It's important to know how customers think about your business. Getting customers' views enables you to make changes or improve your services. 

SMS and voicemails are great channels for collecting customers' feedback. And because you can send a message to thousands of customers, SMS and voicemail can help you gather enough feedback. This can help you form a genuine overview of your business.  

Increases Customer Engagement 

Increasing customer engagement is one of the effective ways to promote your brand's visibility. When more customers interact with your business, it helps promote your online ranking. As a result, your products or services become more visible to consumers.  

SMS and voicemail marketing can be a great way to increase customer engagement. It allows you to provide live updates to customers about your business. It also allows you to walk with customers throughout their shopping journey because you can respond to their queries through texts. 

However, you must deliver valuable content to your prospects. In other words, the messages you deliver to customers should be useful to them.  

Provides A Cost-Effective Marketing Solution 

Marketing is necessary for the success of your business, but sometimes it can take much of your budget. And it may reduce your company's profitability. Therefore, you should find cost-effective methods to promote your business. You can achieve this by investing in voicemail and SMS marketing. 

SMS and voicemail allow you to send messages in bulk, which is very cheap. This marketing model also allows you to use cloud messaging services.

Without a doubt, using SMS and voicemail is a highly cost-effective marketing strategy.  Compared with other promotional campaigns like posters, printed business cards, roadshows, and television advertisements, the cost is minimal, yet the reach is wide.  

Increases Your Sales

If you want your business to remain in operation for the foreseeable future, you should increase your sales. You can pay for all expenses and boost your cash flow strategy when you make more sales. And this goes a long way in promoting your profitability.  

SMS and voicemail marketing can be a great way to increase your sales. For instance, it allows you to target a wide audience. As such, you can generate more customers who will buy your products and services, ultimately increasing your sales.  

Besides, as noted earlier, SMS and voicemail marketing has a high response rate. When a customer responds, it shows that they're interested in your offerings. With good nurturing, such people can buy from you, again increasing sales.  

These are some of the benefits of investing in SMS and voicemail marketing. Given these eight advantages, you should consider including SMS and voicemail drops in your marketing strategy.  

Tips For Effective SMS And Voicemail Marketing 

When you want to establish an SMS and voicemail campaign, it's important to have a well-defined marketing strategy. A good promotional campaign should follow all the important marketing best practices, which include the following:  

Set Your Marketing Goals 

Setting goals is one of the most important steps when creating an SMS and voicemail campaign. This involves listing all that you want to achieve with your marketing campaign. These can be to boost your visibility, generate more leads, and increase sales. Whatever your marketing goals are, they should align with your overall business objectives.  

The goals you set will act as a guide to your marketing team. For this reason, they should be clearly defined and measurable. As such, your marketers can track the progress and performance of their marketing efforts against the set goals.  

Define Your Target Audience 

Another important step in developing an SMS and voicemail marketing strategy is knowing your target audiences. These are people interested in your offers and are likely to purchase from you. 

You may waste resources if you direct your promotional messages to the wrong people. You can create the right content marketing for your prospects by defining your target audiences. It also enables you to create personalized marketing materials for specific customer interests or preferences.  

You can implement various strategies to know who your target customers are. These include studying your competition, conducting surveys, creating buyer personas, and using Google Analytics. Any of these strategies can provide insights into consumers' needs, which you can use to personalize your text and voicemail messages.  

Create Relevant Content 

You should also create relevant content for your SMS and voicemail marketing strategy. Customers are constantly looking to find solutions to their issues. For this reason, ensure you create content that offers solutions. This means that you must first identify what problems your target audiences want to address. Only then can you create informative content for your target audiences. 

In addition, the content should be brief and concise. Most customers have a shorter concentration span, especially when consuming promotional messages. As such, creating long texts and voicemail messages will likely leave them with negative experiences. Consequently, most of them won't consume your content. 

Ensure you create short but informative content. The most recommended length for text messages is 160 characters. And voicemails should last between 20 and 30 seconds.  

Deliver Messages At The Right Time

Another important step when establishing an SMS and voicemail marketing strategy is to decide on the right timing. Delivering messages to customers at the wrong time may affect your response rate. It's important to deliver your messages at the most appropriate times. 

If you offer services or products to other businesses, you should send your messages during business hours. This ensures the recipients open them. But if you think most clients are too busy during business hours, you should find other convenient times like lunchtime or commuting hours.  

These are the major steps you should consider when establishing an SMS and voicemail marketing strategy. Following them can help you create an effective promotional campaign and increase your visibility.  

Takeaway

Marketing is one of the best ways to scale up your business. It helps enhance the visibility of your products or services to target audiences. As such, you can get more customers, increase your sales, and make huge profits.  

SMS and voicemail marketing are some of the most effective ways to market your business. It involves connecting with prospects via texts and pre-recorded audio messages. Today, most people like communicating with messages rather than phone calls or emails. Therefore, leveraging the power of SMS and voicemail marketing can help you reach a wide audience.  

As detailed in this article, investing in SMS and voicemail marketing has many benefits. Some include expanding customer reach, enhancing customer responses, and boosting customer engagement. This shows that SMS and voicemail marketing is still relevant even today. You can consider it to promote your business and connect with your target customers. Be sure to follow the best practices when creating your promotional campaign.