- What Is Cold Texting?
- Why Are Cold Commercial Text Messages Illegal?
- What Can You Do Instead of Cold Texting Prospects?
- Use Keywords for Prospects to Opt-in
- Include a Click-to-Text Button on Your Site
- Make Sure Your Phone Number Is Highly Visible
- Integrate with Your Existing Tools
- Why an Effective Marketing Strategy Eliminates the Need for Cold Texting Scripts
- With the help of Esendex – You’ll Never Again Need Cold Texting
There’s a huge reason why businesses enjoy texting prospects and customers. It all comes down to the 98% open rate – something you won’t find with email, mass phone calls, or other forms of marketing. For some companies, it’s enough to make you want to cold text customers and leads to increase business.
This is not something you should move forward with. You may or may not know that cold texting is illegal in the United States. You can only send marketing texts to people if they have permitted you.
Don’t let this keep you from using text messaging for sales and marketing purposes. The open rates and the click-through rates of texts are a whopping 390% more than with email. However, as with any channel you utilize for outreach, knowing how to approach it is essential.
This article will give you insight into what could texting is, provide cold texting examples, and let you know the best way to start texting your prospects.
What Is Cold Texting?
Curious about what cold texting meaning is? If you’re familiar with cold emailing or cold calling, cold texting is similar. The central premise of cold texting is to reach out to someone you do not currently have a relationship with.
Let’s say you find a prospect’s phone number online or buy a contact list. If you were to send out SMS messages to that person, this would be a cold text. However, this is not allowed. If you wish to reach out to people via text, you need their explicit consent.
Why Are Cold Commercial Text Messages Illegal?
You may be wondering why cold texting is currently illegal. To put it into the simplest terms, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made it mandatory for businesses to get consent from people before sending them texts. This is one of the differences between cold texting and cold calling or emailing. The latter two do not require consent before contact.
One of the most common means of communication for businesses is email. On the other hand, texting is a more personal channel. Most people use text to talk to family and friends. In addition, people are less forthcoming with their phone numbers than they are with their email addresses.
There are many ways to interpret why cold texting is illegal in the United States. Regardless of your opinions about the rule, engaging in cold texting can land you in hot water.
What Can You Do Instead of Cold Texting Prospects?
Since cold texting isn’t an option, you should know your available alternatives. The main option is moving forward with warm rather than cold texting.
Here’s a statistic that will take you into some alternatives to cold texting. More than 74% of people will text a message if they know that an actual human is responding to them.
How do you take advantage of that? Make it simple for potential customers to sign up to get your marketing texts. Below is how you can do so:
Use Keywords for Prospects to Opt-in
Keywords are business-relevant words associated with texts. When someone sends a keyword to a business number, it can automatically subscribe to your marketing texts.
In addition, you don’t have to stick to a single keyword. Consider a variety of keywords, each of which is customized based on the reasons a customer might wish to contact you.
Let’s imagine for a moment that you work as an accountant. Maybe one of the keywords you create is “TAX HELP.” When someone who may be future customer texts you that term, they will be automatically added to your contact list. Then you can send out useful information through text to nurture the person into a client.
SMS SHORT-CODE: Message one: TAX HELP Message two: Hello! Thanks for signing up to get text alerts. We’ll be sending out tax tips and advice to help you!
Include a Click-to-Text Button on Your Site
Next, you should add a click-to-text button to your company website. This will open up the messaging app of your prospect when they click on it. Someone visits your website, taps the click-to-text button, and the SMS application launches. It already has your number filled in, and a pre-written message is ready.
Once they send that message to you, you can reply to it. This is a great way to follow up on leads and make an effort to turn prospects into customers.
Make Sure Your Phone Number Is Highly Visible
This might seem an obvious directive, but you must be sure it’s easy to find your phone number. Prospective customers need to have a simple way to contact you.
Is that the case now? You’re good to go if your number is visible and accessible to text. This is something to improve if it takes a ton of browsing through your website.
Your website is one of many locations where you need to provide a clear and visible phone number. It should be on your social media accounts and marketing materials. Whether running an email campaign or sending out flyers, make it straightforward for a consumer to contact you by phone.
Integrate with Your Existing Tools
If you already have a way of compiling your information on prospects, Esendex can help you with integration. For instance, you used Salesforce to gather all your lead information but need a better way to follow up with those people once the data is available.
You can use our services to filter contacts and put them into different groups based on the prospect’s needs. Smooth integration between your tools is a great way to ensure success. You can contact us to see what solutions will work best for your business needs.
Why an Effective Marketing Strategy Eliminates the Need for Cold Texting Scripts
Here’s the thing – cold texting is not legal. That might seem like a bummer, but really, cold texting also isn’t necessary. The only difference between cold and warm texting is that warm texting requires you to get prospects to contact you first. If you’re offering excellent services or products, that requirement will be a cinch.
Text message marketing is a straightforward tactic. It is also one of the most effective methods of taking a prospect and making them a customer. You have to make sure you have permission to send them promotional texts before you start.
With the help of Esendex – You’ll Never Again Need Cold Texting
After you have permission from prospects to text them, what next? When you work with Esendex, the answer is sending and receiving mass texts on a global scale. Our SMS API is fully programmable to meet the needs of your particular brand. It can be used to connect with customers, engage customers, and boost both sales and revenue.
The SMS API offers extended and short-code texting options and can send SMS and MMS messages. That means you can add audio, gifs, emojis, pictures, and links to your text messages to ensure you get eyes on your marketing.
We work hard to be the best SMS service provider in the industry. Our trusted SMS API offers excellent performance that can drive all your communication strategies. We offer world-class support with fast troubleshooting and response times via phone, email, or chat. Contact us today if you’re ready to learn more about how Esendex can help you.