As a business, a text message is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get in touch with a mass group of your clients simultaneously. It is also one of the most personable ways to get in touch with your clients. However, it is very easy to be mistaken for a text message scam by your clients, so they will be more likely to simply delete your message without thoroughly investigating.

Several surefire ways will make it easier to identify fake text messages that may be out to scam you. Let‘s look at a few examples:

First, you have to get people to notice you to opt-in to receive your text messages. There are, after all, regulations that deal with what you can do with a customer‘s phone number once you have it. But if you incentivize customers and encourage them to sign up for your text messaging list, the options are nearly endless.

Text message marketing in which your "ads" go directly to a customer‘s mobile device or mobile phone first requires that you build a "lead magnet." You need to construct some sort of incentive that makes people want to sign up for and receive your SMS message. One common method in the world of business text messaging is to ask customers to sign up to your SMS list, promising that you‘ll send them promotional discounts and exclusive first-looks at your products.

One note: business text messaging is not a group text. Instead, it will be more akin to a customer newsletter in which the customer can opt-in or opt-out at any time. In fact, you can think of SMS marketing as a form of email marketing just with a different device.

Once you‘ve established a list on your texting platform, you now have to think about the kinds of promotions you want to send your customers. This will depend on the type of business you have. For example, do you offer a Software-as-a-Service feature? Maybe you can offer your customers a monthly discount. Do you have a new product to offer? Bulk text messages can be a great way to draw attention to that product especially since your SMS customers are the ones who are most likely to be interested in the product in the first place.

Your bulk SMS campaign might be a great idea for marketing, but this is only scratching the surface of its true potential. Think of the other ways you can incorporate a mass texting service into your business:

• Customer support
Having your team members respond to customer queries in real time? It‘s a great way to show your target audience you care. Bulk SMS often has the connotation of one-way conversations, but you can use your mass texting platform to bolster the quality of you customer support. This will boost the loyalty each customer feels toward your brand.

• Customer engagement
Not every customer query that comes through to your MMS messages as a business has to be about finding customer support. Rather than sending them meaningless auto-replies, you might think about customer engagement instead. Talk to them. Send them the occasional multimedia message that shows off what you‘re doing. Treat MMS messages like a conversation. Highlight new customers. You might be surprised when your customers start responding back and that makes them happier to buy from you in the future.

• Bolstering customer relationships
In psychology, we often bolster relationships with more frequent interactions, even if those interactions are short and sweet. To get the most out of your business texting services, try to bolster those relationships by creating special offers for your customers. You‘ll find that continually offering them value will not only make them receptive to future SMS messages, but will ultimately build more trust between you and the customer.

• Customer segmentation
A good text messaging platform can handle customer segmentation. Why is this one of the most key of all the marketing strategies you‘ll consider? Simple. Customer segmentation makes your texts sound personal. For example, you might find that an emoji to your younger audience is a great way to handle your communications. But when you send an alert to your older customers, they might only care about the discount you have to offer them. Of course, these are only broad strokes recommendations. That‘s the beauty of customer segmentation as one of your key marketing strategies. You‘ll discover what customers most respond to when you check your own data.

Even though these are great ideas for SMS text messaging in your business, don‘t forget that SMS messaging has more uses. You can use it for appointment setting, appointment reminders, appointment cancellations in short, an SMS marketing platform can also serve a bit like a personal assistant.

What‘s more, your business doesn‘t have to have a huge team behind it. You don‘t need complicated internal communications to pull this off. You can be a single-person business like a hairdresser who needs SMS marketing to schedule appointments and give the impression that you run a large team.

It‘s more than a group message. Good SMS marketing campaigns will fuel your business‘s growth. Remember to incentivize customers to sign up by offering them something in return. From there, build a list, personalize your messaging to different customer segments, and continually offer them value. You‘ll likely find that as your list grows more popular, it starts to take on a life of its own.

And the best part of all? When you use a service like slyText, you‘ll be able to manage a growing SMS marketing list with ease.