Mass texting has been around for decades. It’s a convenient means for organizations to communicate with large numbers of people quickly. In years past, recipients could not really reply to this message. Even when they did, they would not expect a response. Businesses eventually realized that the monologue that was mass texting wasn’t in their best interests.
Enter conversational mass texting. It has all the core attributes of mass texting. The key distinction is it allows the sending organization to engage with any recipient one-on-one. That would occur when a recipient has responded to the mass text. Conversational mass texting is, however, only as effective as how it’s applied.
1. Don’t Initiate Mass Text Conversations at Night
Virtually every business aspires to become a 24-hour operation. This is on the assumption that greater availability means more engagement and thus more revenue. You should strive to respond to customer inquiries at all hours of the day. Still, you don’t want to be the one initiating conversational mass text in the dead of night.
Even where you have customers spread across geographic regions, stagger message times by location. That way, customers will receive the message when they are more likely to be awake. Starting a conversation at night can damage your brand. No one wants their phone beeping or vibrating at 2 AM, thanks to a non-urgent message.
2. Send a Single Clarification to All for Common Queries
If you send out a conversational mass text and start to receive an identical question from nearly everyone who replies, you just may have missed something. Perhaps a crucial element was left out of your original message. Trying to respond to each and every one individually may be impractical, especially if you are dealing with thousands or millions of recipients.
You can stop the endless stream of identical queries by quickly disseminating to the original group of recipients the clarification needed.
3. Identify Yourself
When sending out a conversational mass text, it’s preferable that you have your business or brand name as the Sender ID. Unlike a message from a phone number or shortcode, customers will see the name and immediately recognize the sender.
Nevertheless, having a brand or business name isn’t always possible. The last thing you need is your recipients blocking your number because they were not sure who the text was from. So in the absence of a name, the content of your message should be clear about who you are. Since they are already your customers, mentioning your business or brand name should suffice.
4. Stay on Topic
A text message is limited by the number of characters you can fit into it i.e., 160 characters. Of course, you can send a message that spans multiple SMS. Through concatenation, it would become one continuous message on the recipient’s phone. However, you should use the 160-character limit as a guide on how long your text should be.
Texts are most readable and actionable when they are short. Once they start to span hundreds of characters, recipients lose interest and engagement drops. Therefore, stay on topic and focus on the goal from the get-go. Each message should be meaningful. Do not send messages too often. Do not send messages that do not directly relate to a business purpose.
5. Confirm Satisfaction Before Marking a Conversation as Closed
Once you start back-and-forth texting with a recipient of a conversational mass text, see it to its logical end. Don’t mark it as closed without asking the other party whether they have received a satisfactory response. Check if they have anything else they’d like to know.
Keep your text responses direct, relevant, and helpful. The more ambiguous and unclear your replies are, the more likely the conversation is to drag on endlessly. When the goal of the conversation is reasonably satisfied for all parties, formally bring it to an end.
Conversational mass texting can transform your business’ ability to quickly and personally communicate to customers. Apply these tips to ensure you are doing it right.