Most leads require multiple touch points to convert. Using sms lead generation as a part of your lead outreach allows sales to instantly show potential customers their message.
Your business needs new customers to grow, that’s why new leads are so important. Unfortunately for many business owners, recruiters, and sales reps, this crucial part of their job is also one of the hardest. Endless hours of cold calling with no results can be a frustrating and demoralizing waste of time.
If this sounds like you, SMS lead generation with Textedly is your solution. Marketing and sales teams across the world are switching automated outreach to SMS lead generation so that they can connect instantaneously with prospective customers.
Text message lead generation has quickly become the preferred electronic communication. Sales is a numbers game and a staggering 95% of text messages sent are read by their recipient within 3 minutes after receiving it. Compare that to your email open rates.
Text messages are such a powerful marketing tool because they are simple, easy to use and lead to very high engagement. Almost a fifth of links sent via text message are clicked by their recipients, an unheard-of number in any other form of digital advertising. Follow the steps below to begin your own SMS lead generation campaign with Textedly.
The first thing to do is to pick a keyword that your new leads will use to initiate contact with you and join your list. In order to begin receiving promotional messages from you, your prospect must text your keyword to your assigned shortcode. Because this keyword will be used on your marketing material, it is important that this word is relevant to your brand.
Example: Barbara Jones is a personal injury lawyer. She could choose a keyword like “INJURY” or “LAWSUIT” to represent her practice or something more personal like “BARBARA”. This will allow you to put clear and effective calls to action in your marketing materials. An example of how this would read in an ad is: “Were you injured in a car accident? Text BARBARA to 33445!”
Once a prospect shows interest by texting your keyword to your shortcode, it’s crucial to text them back right away. That is the purpose of an auto-responder.
Your auto-responder should provide the information that motivated your potential customer to send a text in the first place. When you set up automatic text replies using Textedly, we also make sure that the automated texts include an easy way for the subscribers to opt-out of messages to comply with the law.
Your auto-responder sequence can include texts, website links, photos and more. It’s like having someone on call to respond to your text marketing leads 24/7. By quickly providing them with the information they need, you’ve given them the ideal introduction to your business, all without lifting a finger.
Now that you’ve got their attention and started the relationship, you’re going to want to stay in touch. It’s important to keep the momentum going with regular text messages. You’ll want to keep the focus of these followup messages on providing value and important content instead of simply promotional material.
There is a delicate balance to strike here. If you send messages too infrequently, you risk losing engagement with your audience. However, if you send too many messages, your leads may start to find it annoying and unsubscribe from future follow-ups.
There is no universal answer for what your exact follow-up strategy should be because it changes for every business and every audience. Think about your audience, why did they subscribe? Put yourself in their shoes and think about what kind of content you would want to see pop up on your phone.
Follow-ups create value because they strengthen the relationship between your brand and a potential customer without you having to do too much of anything. In fact, 50% of all sales happen after the 5th contact.
Andrew Portman is a financial planner who recently left to start his own firm. He has a few clients that followed him over from his previous job at a much larger corporate firm, but so far, lead generation has been much harder than he anticipated.
At first, he tried reaching out to potential clients using cold email, but that just results in a lot of unread emails and spam complaints. He then moves to cold calling and subjects himself to several hours of rejection every day, resulting in only a handful of lukewarm leads.
He even took a weekend to write a really valuable report called “5 Ways to Plan For Your Financial Freedom” and spent a small fortune having a one page website funnel built. He then sent it out through social and email. He notices site visitors come but they quickly disappear, but nobody calls him.
This scenario left Andrew beyond frustrated, he had totally lost sight of the work he loved and was instead caught in a downward spiral through complicated marketing hell.
The next month, instead of spending a lot on a fancy website, Andrew spoke at a conference and left the last slide with contact info and a message that said “Text FREEDOM to 14661 for my free report.” He sent mass-texts with customized snippets to those he personally spoke to and a separate SMS lead generation campaign to those that attended.
Because of a simple and clean lead generation approach, Andrew was able to see prospects texting to get his report, allowing him to keep contact with them and nurture his prospects. They opened texts early on. As his auto-responder delivered more information, he was able to cultivate relationships 1-on-1 and outside of a cluttered digital environment.
Allowing your customers to unlock offers and promotions by joining your SMS list is a very powerful tactic. This can lead to increased engagement very quickly.
Sending a link to a valuable piece of content on your website can earn trust and get your leads browsing your website! This is a very effective tactic for displaying expert knowledge.
You can also use your SMS marketing list to encourage your leads to engage with you on your other channels like signing up for email newsletters or following you on social media.
Sending a short video with valuable information is a great way to reward prospects for joining your SMS list and introduce yourself to them.
If your goal is to get a prospective client on a phone call as soon as possible, be direct and keep your message simple and personal.
By providing value through text messages, you can create a strong relationship quickly. When implemented correctly, an SMS marketing campaign has the potential to totally change the way your business finds new leads and converts them into customers. Sign up for a free trial with Textedly today to see how easy it is to implement your first SMS lead generation campaign!
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