Text message marketing is gaining traction with businesses looking to overcome our jaded feelings about email. Text messages have a higher open rate and can deliver high-value, targeted messaging to both potential and recurring customers.

Companies are eager to work around the abysmal open rates of email. Text messaging has a far higher open rate -- ranging from 93% to 98% in various digital marketing studies, giving businesses the chance to reach consumers faster and more reliably.

While companies aren't abandoning ads or emails just yet, a comprehensive marketing strategy now must include an SMS marketing campaign. Online texting for businesses has arrived as an effective marketing channel, so now is not the time to ignore this method.

Mobile devices are in close contact with your customers. Those who opt in to receive mobile alerts have a better open rate over email and are more likely to interact with a business or organization in real-time.

Nurture these contacts intelligently and carefully. Marketing messages sent via text can easily overwhelm your customer's phone, causing them to opt right back out by the second or third text of the day.

Text messaging offers high-value content -- think extra special offers or critical appointment reminders. It's a way for your customers to feel like they never miss the best deal or their chance to snag a last-minute opening.

Nurturing relationships is huge for your bottom line, but what are some creative ways you could utilize mass notification systems in your marketing campaigns? Prioritize high value, convenient content that solves a customer‘s problem or offers special incentives to interact. Here are some great examples.

Last Minute Openings
If you run a service-based business, you could use text messages to let your customer base know when a last-minute appointment opens up. You could offer incentives off if customers jump into the newly opened spot or give customers a chance if you've been booked up for a while.

Follow-up Reminders
Things change, and life changes. The real-time nature of text messages allows you to mark those changes in a way that eases your customers' troubles. You're less likely to have no-shows for appointments or lose revenue due to abandoned carts. You can even onboard new customers more quickly.
You can also send appointment reminders or remind them to leave a review on social media. Integrate it with your email marketing campaigns for depth and urgency. Alert customers that they must bring certain items to their next appointment -- such as a mask in current conditions or a new payment option to replace one that has expired.

Exclusive Offers
SMS marketing is so important that you need to keep your customers happy with those texts. Give them exclusive offers via a short code only available to those users who have opted in to text messaging to keep them happy to see your notifications.
Ask your customers to show a text message at your store or follow a special link from their mobile to help you keep track of opt-ins and who is actively responding to this marketing strategy. In fact, dedicating segments of your digital marketing to your mobile users helps keep them engaged.

Loyalty Rewards
Traditional loyalty rewards revolve around annoying keychain tags or impossible to find email notifications. If a customer can opt in to loyalty rewards through text, a business might entice them through a call to action.
Highlight when someone has reached enough points to qualify for something free. Alert them to expiring loyalty rewards. These texts help ensure the customer never feels like they've wasted rewards.

Special Events
If you want to get more customers at your popup or gain traction with a contest, text alerts are the way to go. Because they have such a high conversion rate, your customers are more likely to act than if an email gets buried in their spam folder.
Business owners could host last-minute contests for mobile users as another mobile-only incentive. They could also use mobile marketing to fill last-minute seats or offer incentives for those bringing guests.

New customers who've given permission for texts can quickly become part of the business's culture, driving up repeat sales and loyalty.

As more and more consumers opt in to business texts, companies can use these in all sorts of creative ways to boost engagement. High-value communications with real incentives and convenient reminders keep customers interacting with the company between purchases or visits.

As a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, texts give core customers a way to ensure they never miss the best deals, events, and openings. A small business could use text marketing to stand out in a world of giant corporations and a vast sea of eCommerce.

Considering that around 90% of adults worldwide (Pew Research, back in 2015) have a mobile phone with access to text messages, businesses would be amiss not to use SMS to keep in touch. Don't turn off the generation that hates phone calls but craves personalization.