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 August 6-7, 2024 | Rosemont, Illinois

SMS for ICGs

Text marketing, also known as SMS marketing, is exactly what it sounds like: sending marketing messages to customers via text message. Many businesses already use text messages for promotional purposes.

Previously, we talked about the importance of a well-maintained, frequently updated email list. The thing that makes a mailing list more important than even a strong social media presence is the fact that it is yours. You could lose your social media account, the social media company could shut down, or users could abandon the platform for a newer, cooler app that doesn’t really fit the needs of your business, and all that work you did on social media would be gone.

But no matter what happens, that list of emails is yours. The same goes for the phone numbers your customers have trusted you with.

Text marketing, also known as SMS marketing, is exactly what it sounds like: sending marketing messages to customers via text message. Many businesses already use text messages for promotional purposes. It is better than email in that regard, especially for urgent or time-sensitive information, such as sales promotions.

But there’s so much more text messaging can do for your IGC. Content marketing is all about adding value: not just bombarding consumers with advertising and promotions, but giving them some knowledge or convenience that they feel improves their lives. Imagine being able to remind customers to water their plants a week after they purchase one, or being able to text them at the beginning of the season to let them know it’s time to start planting.

All of this, of course, is contingent upon customers opting in. The FCC has stringent rules, laid out in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, about text messaging that all businesses must follow. Texts can only be sent between 8 AM and 9 PM (receiver’s local time), for example, and consumers must explicitly opt-in to text messaging and be allowed to opt out.