Now that 2021 is here, it’s time to take advantage of one of the most important communication trends for influencers, entrepreneurs, artists and small businesses. This trend is a form of communication you probably use all the time anyway in your personal life. That’s right, folks: it’s time to start sending text messages.
Incorporating texts into your audience communications gives you an incredibly powerful new channel that will boost engagement with you and your brand. It can help you promote your existing content and products, and opens up the doors for new revenue streams. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
But there’s an art to text messaging with your followers, fans and customers, too. Your audience might love your texts — but if you don’t walk the right line, they might hate them (and maybe even hold it against you or your brand). Sometimes it’s a delicate balance of figuring out how much to say, what to say and when to say it.
Whether you’re brand new to using text messaging to communicate with your audience, or else just ready to take your strategy up a notch, here are some tips to make sure you’re hitting the mark in 2021. We’ve divided them up into two categories: (1) crafting your text messages, and (2) managing your texting strategy.
Text messaging is a fantastic way to communicate with your audience, but just like with your other social media channels, what you write in those texts matters. A lot.
Follow these tips to guide how you craft your text messages:
You only have a few precious seconds of your audience’s time, so make sure your text messages are concise, brief and to-the-point. While some phones and services can handle more, the standard length for SMS text messages is still 160 characters, so that should be the limit you aim for. Make sure you shorten your URLs too when you include a link — use a service like bit.ly or something similar.
Your text messages to your audience need to add value to their lives.
This is literally the only way they’ll be successful. Give them a tempting reason to sign up for your texts, and then good reasons to stay subscribed. The goal behind text messaging is to make your audience feel closer to you and your brand and to make them feel catered to — like they’re in a special club. What exclusives can you tempt them with? Use text messages to offer something your audience can’t get anywhere else: special deals, promos, sneak-peeks, breaking news, exclusive content or experiences.
You should include simple but compelling Calls-to-Action (CTAs) in your texts that give your audience a clear next step they can take. Whether it’s signing up, clicking on a link, giving feedback, or more — don’t let your audience read a text and then walk their eyes away. Keep them busy!
To pump up your response rates and clicks, make your offers feel urgent, too. If you’re offering a promo, consider making it a limited-time deal or tell them that there’s only a certain number of items/experiences available to claim. If you don’t motivate your audience and give them a good reason to act now when they read your text, the likelihood of them taking the action you want will plummet.
When every word counts, use powerful words whenever you can. (Fun fact: the most persuasive word in the English language is “you.” You know it’s true, right?) Make important key words stand out, too. Don’t be afraid of emphasizing a word or two with all capital letters when it counts. Just don’t use All Caps all the time, or PEOPLE WILL THINK YOU’RE YELLING AT THEM.
Speak in your own authentic voice. Make it clear right away who they’re texting with. You want to sound like the same person or company they’ve already come to trust through your social media channels. You’ve worked hard to build a brand, and your text messaging is just another branch of that same brand.
Just like any form of persuasive communication, the more you can use your audience’s kind of language, the stronger a connection you can forge with them. When it comes to texts, this includes things like using emoticons, abbreviations/text speak, punctuation, grammar, slang, gifs and more. There’s no hard-and-fast rule here. It is all going to depend on your brand and who your audience is — their ages, their professions, their communities, their education levels, etc. Start studying the words and phrases they use in their comments, DMs and text messages, and when it’s appropriate, work some of those into your own messages too.
Use their first names in your text messages so that your audience feels like you’re talking directly to them, even when you send out blast messages. Also, only send audience members text messages and offers that are relevant to them. Use segmentation to split up your audience lists when needed so that the right group of people get texts that are tailored to them and their needs.
We’ve gone through some tips on what your text messages should contain. But it doesn’t just matter what you write in a text message — it also matters how and when you send those texts.
Think of it this way: If your followers give you their phone numbers, they’re putting a lot of trust in you. Chances are good it took you a long time to gain that kind of trust. But as in all relationships, trust is broken a lot more quickly than it’s gained. To keep that trust and make it work for you and your audience, you need to respect their boundaries.
Here’s a few guidelines to keep in mind:
Ok, this one should hopefully be obvious to you already, but just in case: only send text messages to people who’ve given you permission to do so. For one thing, depending on what country you’re in, text message spamming is against the law. (For those in the U.S., here are some guidelines from the FCC, for example.) Make sure you follow appropriate protocols in getting their number (The best way is to give them your own dedicated phone number and then have them text you first, although you can collect phone numbers other ways, too). Have them opt in to agree that they want to receive texts from you, and then give them an option to unsubscribe too. (i.e., “Text STOP to stop messages at any time.”)
It’s one thing to update Twitter all day long, but you can’t do the same thing with text messages.
By giving you their phone numbers, your followers have given you precious access to a communication channel they don’t share with just anyone. So, don’t start blasting them text messages all the time.
Multiple texts a day or even texts every day are the quickest way to get a “STOP.” You won’t just lose text audience members who unsubscribe to texting — it may affect how they start thinking about you and your brand, too. Less is more, friends.
It doesn’t just matter what you send, but when you send it, too. Sorry, but no one wants to hear from an influencer, coach or even a celebrity at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday. You could be their number-one guru, but if you wake them up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday they may hold a grudge against you forever, depending on how late they’d been up the night before. Normal business hours are the safest bet, but also factor in what timezones your audience might be in as well.
Remember that text messages inherently have more urgency in them than other forms of communication, like email or DMs. When you text someone in real life, usually that’s because you want to hear back from them pretty quickly. On the other hand, once you open the gates to let texts from your audience flow freely into your life, that doesn’t mean you need to read and reply to them as soon as they come in. You’d never get anything else done. If you’re not sure how to manage it all, follow standard productivity tips and set aside certain portions of your day to read/respond to texts, just like you might for emails or DMs. Yes, you should reply relatively promptly to texts when needed. But remember that you get to define when that’s appropriate and what “promptly” means for you and your life, too.
Make sure your text messaging communications offer value! Give your audience a good reason to sign up for and keep getting your texts, make every word count, and be strategic about how many texts you send and when you send them. Master these tips, and your audience will love being a part of your new texting world — and you’ll love watching your empire grow.
Are you ready to get your own public phone line and more?
Toosa, a powerful new audience communication platform, will be launching soon. Don’t miss out! Get on the waiting list now for updates and find out how to be one of Toosa’s first users.