One of the most popular strategies to promote a business is SMS for sales. And with 83.72% of the world’s population owning a smartphone, we can see why.
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However, there is a common mistake many business owners make when using SMS lead generation services. “And what is that mistake?” you ask. It’s not managing their leads effectively.
Whether you’re focusing on student engagement strategies, targeting small groups of businesses, or large B2B companies It’s important that you manage your leads, or else, more often than not, they’ll be abandoned and you won’t achieve that customer acquisition and retention you were hoping for.
You can manage your SMS sales leads in a multiple of ways, and once you learn how to do so, a better response rate will be guaranteed.
So, grab yourself a pen and paper, or get that whiteboard set up, because we’re going to tell you all the must-know information about SMS leads management. Our purpose? To help you increase sales.
What Is SMS Lead Management?
First, let’s learn what SMS lead management is, exactly. Similar to traditional leads, SMS leads are individuals who have opted in to receive information about your products or services. The main difference between traditional leads and text message leads is that mobile subscribers have no forms to fill out; You need to use a mobile marketing platform to gather these leads.
Keep in mind this does not mean that you won’t need lead management or engagement strategies; If you do not manage your mobile leads effectively chances are they will be ignored. It’s important to approach SMS lead generation with the same problem-solving attitude and enthusiasm you would exude for someone who had filled out a contact form on your website – simply address their needs!
Sales for SMS: Why Manage Your Leads?
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“If you build it, they will come.” This quote is often referred to people who use SMS marketing techniques and automatically assume they will receive bundles of customer engagement. Instead, we believe this phrase accurately describes those who manage their SMS for sales proactively. When you effectively manage your sales SMS lead generation efforts, you can expect many benefits, including an improved customer experience.
Here are 3 reasons why it is crucial to manage your SMS sales leads:
1. You need to maintain and evolve your subscribers’ engagement to avoid losing them to your competition. Think of it from their point of view. If your messages aren’t grabbing their attention you will lose their interest.
2. Mobile subscriptions are increasing by the day as the majority of traffic to retailers and sales are carried out through mobile devices. Customers are using their mobiles to view multimedia content, research project-based learning software, take quizzes, and even as a tool for journaling. Plus, there’s also been a rise of mobile bookings.
3. Numbers don’t lie and the research shows that SMS leads have a high conversion rate. According to case studies carried out by Postscript, SMS messages see conversion rates as high as 9.1%, with clickthrough rates as high as 30.3%. So, you must prepare yourself for this influx of traffic before it happens.
How Do I Manage Leads in SMS sales?
Now that we understand why SMS leads are so important, let’s talk about the various ways to implement them.
When carrying out sales for SMS, you have to understand that there are multiple tactics to manage your leads. Depending on your industry and target customers, some engagement strategies may work better than others. .
For example, if you’re selling an enterprise communication solution to companies, you may find that your clients are influenced by a corporate culture. For them, a full-on sales call might be a more effective way of selling your products. With this in mind, your SMS’s call to action (CTA) would be to schedule a call with you.
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If you want to get the most from your efforts, you have to know which methods reconcile best with your business. A great way to explore this is to scan and benchmark your competitors. It’s a learning process, so take into account their mistakes and apply their successes.
For instance, if you have a podcast focused on instructional strategies and classroom management tactics for teachers, be sure to assess your competitors’ podcasts. If they have 10,000 listeners a month and you only have 1,500, chances are you could improve customer satisfaction with a more engaging podcast marketing strategy.
It would help if you also defined what your lead generation strategies would look like before you get started. For example, if you’re looking to increase revenue operations sales leads, make sure every marketing effort encourages revenue operations.
Below are five ways you can effectively manage your SMS lead generation efforts.
- Use an SMS Marketing Platform
You need to use a mobile marketing platform if you want to manage your SMS leads effectively. SMS platforms help you collect relevant information and data to better connect and manage your leads.
Suppose you’re an agency selling small business branding templates. In that case, an SMS platform will help you collect useful information such as your customers’ names, small business phone number of each customer, and other relevant data.
With that said, there are many different platforms to choose from, and some work better than others. Most importantly, you will need to perform an environmental scan and pay attention to what competitive brands are using.
A virtual agent selling VA services may need to use an SMS platform more frequently versus a high schooler looking to promote their student achievement levels to increase matriculation. Make sure whichever you choose will align with your goals and capture your audience.
- Build a Custom Segmentation Strategy
When you’re dealing with an SMS marketing platform, you can easily build custom segments to send targeted messages and offers to your subscribers to ensure customer engagement.
Custom segmentation is essentially grouping your SMS leads based on similarities (demographics, interests etc) to deliver more relevant communications . This means having personalized content, creating custom segments for certain marketing efforts, and custom audiences for other marketing efforts.
Build custom segments based on:
- Geolocation: where someone lives or works.
- Intent: what do they want? Do they want quotes or pricing information?
- Contact: who do they know? When you send offers and news to custom segments, it’s likely your SMS subscribers will be more receptive.
- Send Automated Drip Campaigns via SMS
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You can also use an SMS marketing platform to send drip campaigns, which is sending automated messages over the course of several days or weeks (this is a good way to check in with prospects who haven’t converted yet). It’s also great for influencing potential customers who’ve chosen not to engage with you right away.
Here’s an example of a drip campaign:
Day 1: Message sent to new leads containing pre-qualifying questions such as “What’s your biggest need?” and “How would you like to be contacted?”. These questions help qualify the lead and decide which of your engagement strategies to use. You’ll also want to include a CTA so they know what to do next.
Day 4: Message with a link to a “starter” product or service such as a free trial of your learning experience platform. This is a great way to get more information from your leads while also offering some options if they’re just looking for a quick solution.
Day 10: If you haven’t heard from them yet, send another automated message encouraging them to schedule time for further discussion. The more dynamic the message, the better chance you have of ensuring customer engagement and converting leads. You could also direct them to your other channels such as social media.
- Include a Clear Call to Action
Make sure to include a clear call to action, for example, “Click here to receive 20% off your purchase!” or “Buy now and receive access to our webinars to reach your learning goals!” – make it very obvious and noticeable through colors, copywriting, etc. This will encourage more leads and sales!
Make sure to use power words that will engage your subscribers! You can do this at the end of your sales SMS. Power words are basically keywords that grab attention and make it seem more urgent. They are great to use across your email campaigns and social media as well.
Here’s a great list of power words:
- upcoming
- free
- new
- now
- act now
- exclusive access
- limited edition
- Track Your Leads
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Tracking your leads is extremely important. You need to know which marketing efforts are working and which ones aren’t in real-time. This will help you make educated (and cost saving) decisions on what to implement next!
This way, you can tell which sales SMS platform works best for your business; You may find that you get more sales through Clickatell than through Nexmo. That’s totally fine, and it means that your SMS marketing efforts will be better optimized with Clickatell going forward.
Customer journey mapping tools will help you create a customer flow and associate each touchpoint with its marketing channel. This will give you an idea of where the customers are coming from and what’s working best to meet your metrics.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it – our top tips for managing your SMS leads with some easy instructional strategies you can try yourself. Managing your SMS leads can be challenging, but using the methods we mentioned above will make it a heck of lot easier.
Just remember to put in the time and effort, and you will notice an increase in customer engagement and retention, too. You can’t just place an SMS landing page on your website and expect leads to start pouring in. You need to incorporate multiple strategies and monitor the results, so it’s important that you don’t get discouraged.
It’s a learning process; If the first strategy isn’t effective, try the next one. We have no doubt that, in time, you’ll go from novice to marketing maven. Good luck and happy selling!
Grace Lau is the Director of Growth Content at Dialpad, an AI-powered cloud communication platform for better and easier team collaboration. Currently, she is responsible for leading branded and editorial content strategies, partnering with SEO, hybrid cloud architecture, and Ops teams to build and nurture content. Here is her LinkedIn.