Why should businesses use SMS with Salesforce?

The term SMS for Salesforce refers to a marketing strategy used by organizations to send text messages to leads, prospects, and customers for transactional, informative, or promotional marketing activities such alerts, reminders, and special offers. Salesforce SMS messaging is not just for companies; it's also for organizations. For instance, the local administration might message citizens to inform them about upcoming inclement weather.

Businesses can utilize SMS messaging from Salesforce for a number of purposes, even though most people only think of promotional activities.

Typically, there is an opt-in phase in SMS messaging for businesses. In order to receive updates, offers, deals, and other updates directly on their phone, consumers can text an automated system. A business text messaging tool like GirikSMS saves the sender's phone number in the CRM at the time of the initial message. A confirmation text is then often sent by the software. As and when relevant information becomes available, the number is then fetched from the CRM to send text messages. Subscribers are always free to choose not to receive any more messages.

Why is SMS messaging important?

Consumers may find the multitude of marketing messages they receive overwhelming. For marketers, the decision also poses a problem: which channel is more effective for reaching your target audience?

Among the many options available to marketers, SMS messaging is unique:

• High open rates, much more than those of email marketing.

• Instant communication. Because most individuals read their text messages within a few minutes, there are opportunities for proactive engagement.

• Direct and intimate. An SMS message is sent straight from the brand to the receiver's pocket, bypassing any platform filters. It is therefore the most intimate route.

• SMS messages have a universal reach because almost everyone has a mobile phone.

• With a high return on investment (ROI), it's a very cost-effective marketing tactic.

What benefits does SMS messaging offer?

The fact that individuals are more inclined to trust text than other marketing methods is arguably the stand-out advantage of SMS messaging. Spam accounts for less than 5 percent of all texts received; the vast majority of SMS are authentic. Consequently, SMS texts have a 98% open rate, according to statistics on SMS marketing. This is far higher than the 20% open rate of emails, which is among the most successful strategies now in use.

The speed at which SMS messaging enables you to interact with your contacts is another advantage. In contrast to the hours or even days they might have to wait to answer via other means, the response time for SMS messages is less than 2 minutes.

How can businesses utilise SMS messaging from Salesforce?

SMS messaging is more than just texting people. A company should follow these best practices for SMS messaging if it wishes to capitalize on this lucrative market:

Deliver value

Texting is private. If someone has accepted you into their inner circle, you should make the offer worthy because most individuals only text their close friends and family. To make your contacts want to open a text message from your company, segment your audience and send only the most relevant texts.

Make the offers and details you send via text message exclusive as well. SMS messages lose their attractiveness if your contacts can find the same bargains on your website, in print ads, or in your emails. Make sure your contacts will benefit from opting in.

Monitor outcomes and take appropriate action.

You must monitor the success of your SMS messaging activities if you want it to have any impact. Keep track of the number of opt-outs you get from each text and use that information to identify the kind of content that gets the most responses.

How can you choose the SMS messaging tool that suits you the best?

You can start by asking the following questions.

What features does the tool have?

What is the software capable of? Is it possible to arrange a sequence of texts? Does it give you analytics so you can monitor and analyze responses? Is it native to your CRM?

How easy is it to integrate with your existing system?

It's likely that your business has established an infrastructure to ensure seamless operations. How simple is it to integrate a new tool into that system? Will your activities be significantly disrupted by the tool's implementation, or will it have minimal impact?

How simple is it to use once set up?

How user-friendly is the product? How simple will it be for internal teams to start using? And what about new employees? How well does it work with the systems you have now?

How can businesses send SMS messages from Salesforce?

Sending and receiving messages from Salesforce requires more than just the standard Sales or Service Cloud license. Third-party SMS software allows you to further expand your capabilities. These are your choices.

Utilize the built-in SMS messaging tools in Salesforce.

Salesforce offers two SMS add-on products: Digital Engagement and Mobile Studio.

The main distinction between the two is that Digital Engagement is designed for customer service interactions, whilst Mobile Studio provides SMS tools intended to complement other marketing channels. Additional noteworthy differences between the two are as follows:

Digital Engagement: This service provides web chats, one-on-one conversations, and automated SMS and costs $75 per user per month. Users can send an unlimited amount of messages in a single chat (within 24 hours), but there is a monthly limit on the number of conversations they can initiate.

Mobile Studio: To access Mobile Studio, you need to buy the entire Marketing Cloud Engagement solution. This will allow you to utilize Mobile Studio's messaging capabilities. With Journey Builder, SMS can be incorporated across every touchpoint in the customer journey.

Both Salesforce solutions have a small feature set and come with extra fees. Setting up can also be difficult because you need to submit a new number request or permission, which can occasionally take weeks to approve.

Develop a custom solution.

If you want more flexibility, you can create a totally original texting solution for your company using the Salesforce API or any other API provider. By building a unique integration, your organization can create any functionality you need without having to pay for an additional Salesforce SMS solution. However, this approach might be difficult and time-consuming, and it has a high installation and development cost.

Use a 100% Salesforce native app.

Your best option is to use an SMS messaging solution purpose-built for Salesforce, such as GirikSMS. By virtue of being a native Salesforce SMS app, GirikSMS offers several advantages over third-party integrations and custom solutions.

• Reduced development costs.
• Additional functionality.
• Easy to use and set up.
• Go live in a matter of minutes.

Along with these advantages, you will have access to the knowledgeable customer service team of the app team. All things considered, using a 100% Salesforce native app will save your team time and money.

Want to test drive GirikSMS for Salesforce? Sign up for a free 30-day trial now!

About Author

Indranil Chakraborty

Indranil is a technology enthusiast with over 25 years of experience in project management, operations, technology and business development. Indranil has led project teams in egovernance, business process re-engineering, product development and worked with Government and Corporate customers. Indranil truly believes in the power of technology to drive productivity and growth for teams and businesses.