A Guide to Text Sales [Strategies, Examples, Software]

You're trying to find new ways to engage your prospects and gain your customer's loyalty, but you've noticed emailing is no longer cutting it. Fewer people are opening the emails you're sending, and more and more are unsubscribing. It's becoming quite the problem.

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And you think you know how to fix it, text sales. But you don't know how exactly to use it, so they don't suffer the same fate your emails did.

That's how you ended up here. So, buckle up because you've ended up in the right place. In our guide to text sales, we'll cover what it is, different types, strategies, and much more.

What is Text Messaging for Sales

Text messaging for sales, or text sales, are texts a business sends to customers or prospects to aid in sales. These text messages can be sent for various reasons, including following up with prospects, sending promotions, confirming or reminding customers about meetings, etc. They can be a very effective sales tool when used the right way.

A common statistic that's touted in pretty much every blog on SMS on the internet is that texts have a 98% open rate. This stat doesn't have a source that we could find, but it's probable since the number of texts sent over the years land in the trillions.

If your clients are anything like us, they'll be much more on top of answering their personal text messages than personal email. (They should be checking both when it comes to working devices, but we're not here to call anyone out if they check one more than the other).

Although much like email, there are certain laws around consent to send messages, bulk messaging, etc., that you'll have to follow. In more detail, we go through some of these laws in our articles Comprehensive Guide to Business Online Texting and 5 Sales Strategies Using CRM with Text Messaging. But we recommend speaking to a legal professional about the laws in your country and your area surrounding this type of communication.

With text messaging, you can achieve what you want to achieve with the email and to a certain degree, social media as well, but in a much more effective way (if you heed our advice, that is).

Before we get to the advice, though, let's elaborate a little more on text sales by digging into some of the different types.

Types of Sales Text

Sales Text Messages Strategies

Now that you've got some ideas on what you'd use sales texts for, let's focus on how you'd use them. Here are four strategies that we'll go through:

1. Automation Text Sales
2. Customize Your Sales Texts
3. Make Yourself Useful
4. A/B Test Until You Find What Works

Automation Text Sales

Using software, like a CRM, to automate your text messages is a great way to be able to schedule text messages for your audience:

• You can schedule sales text messages for different times of the day, depending on when your customers are most likely to receive the message. It might differ depending on the profession, so if your automation software allows for segmentation, don't be afraid to take advantage of that to send the same or similar messages to different customers at different times, depending on what is likely to be most effective for them.
• Scheduling text messages also makes your job easier because you won't need to be hanging around your SMS software all day, waiting for the right time to send messages – or even worse, have to send them all individually. Instead, you can essentially set and forget them.

So, automating text messages is a good strategy to employ to make sending sales messages easier and less time-consuming for the busy salesperson.

Customize Your Sales Texts

If you just send generic messages to your customers about every little thing, they'll tune your messages out, and you'll be back where you were with the emails.

Instead of doing that, you should focus on customizing your texts for your customers. You can do this by

• Making sure the messages you send sound personalized. Obviously, you won't be able to personalize every message you send to every customer. But they don't need to know that. Instead, they should feel like you have. So, use personal language (although remember to stay on-brand with your voice) and only send them relevant messages.

How do you do that?

• With the former, personal language, may include things like using familiar language, addressing specific needs they've mentioned, maintaining a friendly tone, etc.
• And with the latter, and sending them messages relevant to them. Remember that word we used above? Segmentation? Well, that's how.

Segmentation allows you to have different lists of your customers that can be sent different messages triggered by different events. You can create these lists by identifying common needs and interests between the groups. If you have software like a CRM, this can be a lot easier to organize as you won't have to do it all manually.

Text sales customization can efficiently make your customers feel seen, heard, and understood while still giving them information to push them along the sales cycle.

Make Yourself Useful

This might seem like a given, but your idea of useful might not fully align with your customers'. They probably don't want to be bombarded with texts on every new product and promotion you've got going on daily.

However, as we mentioned when we described nurturing sales texts, that doesn't mean you can't provide your customers' information, and then you can send them promotions and new products (although only if you think they could use them).

This is an exercise in building trust. Provide your customers with links and information that's useful to them in their life (and deals with what your business has expertise in, so the information seems more legitimate), and they'll start to trust you.

Then, if you send them promotions and new products that are relevant to them, they'll be more inclined to check it out and consider it helpful.

You can also provide value to your customers by sending them reminders of important dates (for deals and promotions, events, meetings, etc.). However, again you don't want to bombard customers with these, and they'll be more inclined to find it helpful and not annoying if you've built trust with them using the other avenue.

A/B Test Until You Find What Works

If you're unfamiliar with A/B testing and how important it can be when you're delivering CTA copy to your customers, it's creating different wording for an identical copy that has the same call-to-action (CTA) goal, sending them to different audiences, and seeing which one performs the best.

This tactic is often associated with marketing, but it can also be useful for those in the sales department. Using it, you can identify the best ways to speak to your customers to get the desired results. What sort of copy do they respond well to? What sort of copy doesn't get a response at all? And, God forbid, was there any copy they responded poorly to?

You can make A/B testing as specific or general as you need. If you want to test your whole text audience, you can segment them into random lists for A/B testing. If you want to test copy on only particular segments (that you made using our second strategy), then you can split that segment into smaller random segments and A/B test that way.

When embarking on this kind of testing, you may feel like you're wasting your time and your audience's trust with trial and error. But, with each test, you'll learn more. And, because these are customers who've consented to these texts, you'll already have some information on them and, therefore, a starting point. Using a CRM will give you even more information on them. A/B testing isn't for you to decide what does and does not work, but what does and does not work best.

Best Sales Text Message Examples

Now that you've got the types and strategies down, we'll show you some examples we've come up with for different types of sales texts, indicating which strategy is being used (or can be used).

Sales Texting Software

You're probably thinking, I've got a lot of customers. I do not want to juggle all of that and text them all manually. And we don't blame you. Luckily, there's sales texting software out there that you can use to help you. Different technology can be used to organize contacts, create segments, automate messages, et cetera, et cetera.

Three examples of sales texting software are

1. SMS Messaging Platforms
2. VoIP
3. CRMS

SMS Messaging Platforms

There are a variety of different SMS platforms that you can use for sales. Typically, these platforms can automate and send messages (as mass texts, in bulk, or individually) so you don't need to manually send messages from your phone. Different platforms will have varying features, price points, etc.

For instance, the platform SimpleTexting includes features like scheduling texts, toll-free texting, SMS keywords, integrations, etc. (A more comprehensive list of their features can be found on the features page of the website.)

TextMagic, on the other hand, doesn't list SMS keywords or toll-free texting on its features page but does include enterprise SMS solutions and carrier lookup number validation (as well as features like scheduling and (Zapier) integrations).

So, when looking at an SMS messaging platform, you'll have to consider which features you need, the price point, and whether it integrates with other apps you need it to.

VoIP

VoIP stands for voice-over-internet protocol. it uses the internet rather than your typical telephone wire to make calls with an IP phone, Analogue Telephone Adapter (ATA), or computer.

You don't just need to use your VoIP for calling, though. You can also use it for texting, mass texting, or individual conversations.

There's an overlap between SMS messaging platforms and VoIP software. However, keep in mind that with VoIP software, you get the benefit of having your phone calls AND your texts hosted in the same place. And what could be better than that?

How about all your sales communications being in one place?

CRMs

The great thing about a CRM is that it connects everything in dealing with your sales communications. So, you'll be able to organize lists, segment lists, automate texts, the whole nine yards. But you'll also be able to access any notes, data, or other information about your clients. This can help you personalize automated messages more and craft better individual messages for your customers. You can text the answer to questions you didn't know the answer to in meetings, solve problems before they happen, etc.

And you can do it all from one place while making calls and sending emails. It's streamlined. It's organized. It's easy.

CRMs like Ringy include features that overlap with those in SMS messaging and VoIP, plus the other benefits of a CRM. So, it's the best of all worlds, or at least the software platforms we've listed.

FAQ

Are text messages contractual or binding?

We're not qualified to give legal advice here at Ringy. But we would say that it depends on the laws where you are, what's said, how it's said, etc. If you're unsure if a text message you've sent or sent to you is legally binding, speak to a lawyer or legal professional qualified to evaluate it for you and provide legal advice, like how best you should respond.

How to text sales prospects?

When texting a sales prospect, first, you'll want to ensure you're following any laws around this type of communication (as we mentioned previously).

You'll want to introduce yourself, your business, and your purpose in your opening message.

However, you'll want to follow the steps mentioned below. Especially focus on identifying the purpose of your message. Don't be afraid to be specific about it. Is your goal to identify the decision-marker? To book a meeting for a later date? To get your prospect's contact information so you can reach out again? To find more information about them? Simply to introduce yourself? You get the point.

How to write a sales message?

There are a few steps to writing a great sales message

1. Identify the purpose of the message
2. Develop it into copy using your brand's voice
3. Add any personal touches that you can
4. Edit the copy to ensure it flows properly and is grammatically correct (and reads as you want it to)
5. A/B test it

When creating your sales messages, keep in mind that you need an introduction, the meat of the message (the purpose of it), and some form of a conclusion. It needs an intro, body, and conclusion, just like you were taught to do with writing in school, but a condensed version, because you don't want your sales messages to be too long. You want them to be short and sweet and to the point. Your customers aren't going to want to read essays.

Note: If you aren't sure of the legalities surrounding what you can and can't send via text, make sure you speak to a legal professional on the subject before sending your texts.

Conclusion

So, there you go. That's what's what on text sales. Let's run through it one more time.

Text sales are SMS communications you have with your customers to help bolster your sales. Four strategies for using those sales include

1. Automation Text Sales
2. Customize Your Sales Texts
3. Make Yourself Useful
4. A/B Test Until You Find What Works

And although you have a few options when it comes to sales texting software, we would recommend using a CRM like Ringy. Request our demo to see how it works, and try our free trial, so you can see how it works for you.