Utilizing personalized SMS marketing as part of your marketing plan is one of the best ways to reach consumers. Study after study shows that texting is a highly effective way to connect as it has the highest open rate of any other type of communication, such as phone calls, emails, etc.
In fact, nearly all text messages received are read, 98% of which are read in the first 3-5 minutes further proving that personalized SMS is a highly effective way to connect with loyal and engaged consumers. It is also the most direct as 91% of the world’s population owns a cell phone which is within reach nearly every minute of every day.
Texting gives the sender the ability to customize each message, making the interaction more personal. By adding mobile SMS marketing to your arsenal will ultimately make your entire mobile SMS marketing campaign more effective. So how do you create personalized mobile SMS marketing strategies that work? Follow these four rules of thumb and you can’t go wrong:
Surveys can be as short as five questions that can give you the insight needed to improve customer service and be as relevant as possible. This instant feedback from customers is like free research that could pay dividends, so make the effort to get to know your customers.
Don’t become a nuisance
Consumers enjoy text marketing because it is less intrusive. By abusing this notion and over-sending text messages, customers will most certainly opt-out of receiving your SMS notifications. Only send information that’s appropriate, timely and useful to the receiver. The infamous 3am text sent by Barack Obama’s 2008 election team announcing his vice-presidential pick did not go over well. Be cognizant of time zones and texting plans (assume that not everyone has unlimited texting) and map out your mobile text marketing campaign accordingly.
Be organized
Whether it’s a billing notification or a special offer, keep your opt-in lists organized. Getting information wrong or sending a text to the wrong person is a big no-no and can create unnecessary discord. Getting details right – like an unusual spelling of a common name – is the kind of thing that will set you apart from brands that make the same old mistakes. Never assume, always double check, and offer consumers an easy way to update your records if their details change.
Know your customers
As a brand, you know what services and products you offer. Take the time to find out personal preferences of your customers so that you can home in on what they like and need with a targeted marketing campaign. Collecting this information can be done in several ways, including:
Keyword-based opt-in
Surveys
Leveraging existing data
Everyone loves free stuff
Let your customers know how much you appreciate them by giving something away…it’ll come back ten-fold. Time and time again, free content is one of the best ways to get a response. Incentivizing your customers to engage will create good will and increased business in the future. And, the beauty of SMS marketing is that text messages allow the sender to link to websites and other content immediately as most mobile device users have access to the internet.
Marketing automation is a crucial component to saving your company time and money. When you can automate simple processes, you give your team time to spend on more critical tasks.
But are you maximizing your efforts with marketing automation?
If you want to get the most out of automating your marketing campaigns, you must stay on top of marketing automation trends.
On this page, we’ll share seven marketing automation trends for 2020 that you can use to take your campaigns to the next level. If you want to stay on top of the latest marketing automation trends and tips, subscribe to Revenue Weekly!
1. Machine learning and artificial intelligence
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are two crucial tactics in the future of marketing automation. If you want to be at the top of your game, you need to invest in machine learning to develop better marketing campaigns.
With machine learning and AI, you can collect information about your audience that helps you develop better campaigns for them in the future. Machine learning allows you to gain data on users and their online behaviors and automation lets you sort that data.
You can use this information to develop future campaigns that engage and delight your audience. It allows you to create personalized content that appeals to your audience.
If you want to have success with your marketing automation in 2020, you need to use machine learning and AI in conjunction with your automation software to maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns.
2. Personalized content
One of the essential marketing automation trends of 2020 is customized content. It’s not enough to add someone’s name to an email to personalize their experience. Users want more, and the future of marketing automation centers on personalized content.
Personalized content allows you to focus on your audience’s specific behaviors and product preferences. With machine learning and AI, you can get to know your audience and compile helpful information. With that information, you can create automated customer profiles.
These profiles contain information you gather from social listening, on-site behaviors, and more. You can compile that information to discover your audience’s preferences and buying habits. Then, you can deliver personalized content that fits user interests.
This marketing automation trend allows you to deliver content based on users’ interests. You’ll provide content to them at the right time to help nudge them towards conversion.
If you want to stay on top of the future of marketing automation, you need to produce personalized content that resonates with your audiences’ interests.
3. Chatbots
If you haven’t started using chatbots, you’re missing out on one of the top marketing trends for 2020. Chatbots play a critical role in enhancing customer service and engagement. With chatbots, you can have interactions with your customers and answer their questions without lifting a finger.
Chatbots are an essential part of marketing automation in 2020 because they help save your business time. Instead of having to find time to answer every question you get on your website or social media profiles, you can use bots to answer simple questions.
Take a moment to think of questions that you get multiple times a day. Now, imagine having someone who can handle these questions for you, freeing up your time to answer more complicated and complex problems. With chatbots, you make that situation a reality.
In 2020, chatbots will play an integral role in helping your business boost engagement. You’ll be able to help your customers better and build better relationships with them.
4. Automated social media marketing
Automated social media marketing is one of the best marketing automation trends of 2020 for businesses looking to capitalize on social media’s benefits.
Social media usage continues to grow each year. Last year, there were 3.4 billion people on social media, which is a 9% increase from the previous year. This number will only increase as more people gain access to social media networks.
With more people joining social media, these platforms become a central place for you to engage leads and get them more familiar with your brand. If you want to keep your company top of mind, you need to post content often.
With automated social media marketing, you can stay on top of posting content.
Automated social media marketing allows you to create posts weeks in advance and schedule them to publish at a specific date and time. Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer make it easy for you to schedule content for the month and see the full scope of your campaign.
When you automate your social media marketing process, you save your company time and can focus your energy on other important projects.
If you want to follow the top marketing trends for 2020, start by automating your social media marketing campaign.
5. Personalized email automation
As you look at marketing automation trends for 2020, you’ll notice that personalization is a crucial component of many of these trends. If you want to see success with your marketing automation in 2020, you need to personalize your email marketing campaigns.
Email personalization plays a vital role in helping you deliver a tailored experience for your audience.
Automation will help you in two ways.
First, automation will help you create customer profiles for people interested in your business. You can gather valuable information about them to deliver custom emails to them.
Second, you can use automation to send emails, too. An all-in-one software, like MarketingCloudFX, allows you to gather customer data, organize it, and use it to deliver automated emails at the right time.
You can send emails like:
Abandoned cart reminders
Coupons or product discounts
Information about related or similar products
And more
You can personalize each of these emails to help customers get the information that’s most valuable to them.
The future of marketing automation will rely on creating personalized emails that resonate with your audience’s interests.
Given the high response rates of SMS, it is widely used as a marketing channel in 2020. Most of the major eCommerce companies even use SMS to send order confirmation alerts and OTPs for 2-factor authentication. However, most of the online businesses are yet to realize the full potential of SMS Marketing as a customer engagement and support channel.
SMS marketing automation – i.e., to automatedly send and receive SMS based on customer event triggers – helps businesses effectively use SMS as a customer engagement channel. SMS automation can help eCommerce boost customer satisfaction, customer retention, conversion rates while lowering support and operational costs.
Benefits of SMS Marketing Automation
Improve conversions and sales
Make the most of SMS channel’s superior open rates by sending missed cart offers, personalized birthday and anniversary promotions, annual event reminders (e.g. flowers for Valentine’s Day) and more via SMS. See how you can optimize conversions with A/B testing and Textlocal URL tracking.
Boost customer retention and renewals
Send timely service expiry reminders, renewal alerts for subscriptions, regular payment, and service reminders, annual health checkup notifications directly to your customer’s mobile phones.
Capture data feedback at the right time
Reach the customer at the right time and right channel by sending survey questions via SMS post product purchase or service (e.g. hotel stay, AC repair). See how Textlocal mobile-friendly surveys can easily capture data and feedback.
Delight your customers
Provide instant, on-demand information to your customers by receiving inbound SMS inquiries and setting up automated SMS responses. Go one step further with Textlocal and send multi-media files (e.g. informational brochures, PDF menus, rate cards, location maps) with our SMS attachments.
Lower operational costs
Logistics and eCommerce companies can cut down on operational costs by sending pre-delivery confirmation messages e.g. “Send YES to confirm product delivery at 10 am tomorrow. Send NO to reschedule delivery.”
What SMS can be automated?
Welcome messages
As soon as your customers register with you, send personalized bulk SMS campaigns welcoming them and include some handy bits of information like website links, intro videos or how-to guides.
Reminders
Automate reminders so your customers never miss appointments, bookings, renewals, offers & more. This can be the day before, an hour before, or whenever it works best.
Updates & Notifications
Send instant purchase and delivery notifications, support ticket updates, failed/successful payment alerts, usage/expiry alerts, and many more.
Feedback & Reviews
Sending an automated SMS Survey immediately after they made a purchase can really help you get an increased response and quality feedback.
Offers/Newsletters/Tips
Send personalized weekly or monthly tips and offers to customers based on their activity and pre-defined triggers. Also, send offers on milestones like anniversaries.
Referral Requests
Send automated SMS to your customers asking for referrals on a frequent basis or post-purchase. Keep expanding your customer-base with minimal effort.
Contextual Alerts or Offers
Trigger specific text messages to be sent to your customers based on their favorite topic/product feature, based on their purchase behavior or based on any specific set of actions or activity.
Re-Engagement Campaigns
‘Out of sight, out of mind’ holds true for brands as well. You can send a series of SMS with exclusive offers when customers are inactive (no usage or purchase) for a specified time period. Why is SMS automation important for your eCommerce business?
SMS solutions indeed offer a good marketing path to the businesses. But blindly messaging your potential customers about the product will only deteriorate the scene. For that purpose, it’s good if the marketer follows some essential and effective tips for SMS marketing automation.
1) Always send messages to only those customers who have opted-in for messaging services
It is a wrong notion that bulk SMS attracts customers to products/services. The truth is, right bulk messages, sent at the right time, to the right audience will catch the attention of customers to your products/services.
2) Focus on targeted message sending
Not all bulk SMS is meant for all people. Keeping in mind this rule, send bulk SMS only to your target audience who will show interest in your product, rather than sending it to people who may willingly ignore your messages.
3) Mind the length of the message
Nobody likes long speeches and orations giving away the details of the product. Hence, for SMS marketing for eCommerce to be effective, mind the length of the message and try to give away only essential details.
4) Respect customers opting out of bulk messaging service
With the number of spam messages and emails increasing, privacy has become an issue for customers. Therefore, as a marketer, you should not only provide your customers opt-out facility, but you should also respect that opting-out of your messaging campaign.
5) Crisp details about the product
The magnificence of bulk SMS is that you can (have to) convey your information in an as crisp and concise way as possible. Since there is already a limit of 160 characters imposed on text messages, you can convey your information in the simplest manner possible.
6) Pay attention to who you are integrating with
As a marketer, you should pay utmost attention to who you are integrating your SMS solutions with, because if integration is done with wrong or complicated software provider, then people may not favor your SMS services.
7) Personalized message
Always ensure that bulk messages are being sent to the users by addressing them by their names. Random promotional messages sent to random people may or may not be preferred. For example:
8) What’s-in-there-for-me?
Keep in mind a simple fact that most promotional messages will be read-only when there is something in store for the customer reading the message, because the first thought that strikes a customer’s mind on opening a promotional message is, what’s-in-there-for-me?
A perfect choice in business, if you want to communicate well with your customers or audience in an efficient, fast and cheap way, is SMS marketing. Today, there are way more than 6 billion mobile devices in the world. SMS reached over 3 billion people using these 6 billion devices. This means that SMS is currently ruling the mobile market and remains the most used tool on smartphones, in spite of mobile development with an abundance of mobile apps and easy to access and surf the internet on a mobile phone.
SMS marketing is also known as text message marketing is one of the most effective ways to engage customers, grab their attention and gain their loyalty. Supporting this claim, we will offer you a few reasonable data points:
1. 90% of SMS messages are read in just 3 minutes
2. Redemption rate is10 times higher for mobile coupons compared to printed coupons
3. 98% of text messages are opened and read
Having known all these, using SMS for marketing purposes might seem easy but in actuality, communicating effectively using SMS requires a bit of effort. Just like any other marketing activity, SMS marketing also has its rules and good and bad practices. Below are the Dos and Don’ts of SMS marketing.
THE 3 DOS of SMS MARKETING
1. Call-to-action (CTA)
SMS messages are short with just 160 characters long. One very good way to craft an effective text message is using “5 W’s and one H” of journalism –What, Who, When, Where, Why and How. The last W (Why) and the H (How) are the best foundations for your call-to-action (CTA). You are simply telling your customers what to do after reading your SMS marketing message. Example: WHY – to get your coupon; HOW – by texting the keyword to a shortcode.
2.Always Be Brief
As it was mentioned above, SMS is short. You have to be focused and skillful to write short but yet effectual SMS marketing messages to grab the attention of your customers. The application of the KISS principle is the best way. It means: Keep It Short and Simple.
3. Do Start With Attention Grabbers
You must make sure to use each character of the 160 smartly! This is why finding something effective that will engage your customers and immediately grab their attention is a must-do. Start your SMS marketing message with an attention grabber – one or a couple of words in upper case. Examples are: “NEWS,” “SALE” or “SPECIAL OFFER.”
THE 3 DON’TS of SMS MARKETING
1.Never Bombard Customers with Messages
Timing is essential but the frequency is equally important. Don’t ever send text messages just to say you are sending something. If you have nothing useful to say or offer, simply stay quiet. Your SMS marketing messages must deliver value and some real-time benefits to those who opted in for your SMS communication. Otherwise, you will end up annoying people and eventually start losing subscribers. Remember, less is more!
2.Avoid Text Slang and Abbreviations
Even though there are just 160 characters to work with, texting abbreviations are very risky to use in business communication which is also the same that applies to text slang. Remember, not everyone understands texting abbreviations and slang. It might seem smart to take advantage of the so limited space in a more rational way, you are only risking confusion of your customers. You can also disable them so that they can comprehend your message correctly. If your customers are clueless about what you are talking about, they will end up simply ignoring your message, or decide to unsubscribe at worst, Professionalism in SMS marketing communication has to stay on a certain level. Unprofessional language can affect negatively, the perception of your brand.
3. Never Forget to Identify Yourself
Just as in any other life situation, when you are meeting someone new, the first thing you do is to introduce yourself to them. SMS marketing communication is not any different too. Ensure your subscribers know who is messaging them as this is of key importance for your brand recognition. Once you make yourself known to your audience, your messages will immediately become engaging and relevant. Otherwise, your messages might be considered spams if you text anonymously.
With 98% read rates and 5x the response rates (vs email), SMS serves as an effective customer engagement channel for small and large businesses across different industries. While many businesses use SMS Marketing in one of the customer lifecycle stages (e.g. either to generate leads or to seek feedback), only a few manage to optimize SMS communications throughout the lifecycle.
Today, we’ll be discussing different stages of the customer lifecycle and how you can grow your business by leveraging powerful SMS marketing at each stage.
Acquire new customers
By going beyond 160 characters and conveying more information in a personalized SMS, you’ll achieve significantly better returns on lead generation spends. You can even customize your campaign send times by sending instantly, scheduling for later, or staggering large sends over a time period.
Absolute Barbeque, Eazy Diner, Happily Unmarried, Ruosh, Tailorman, and many other businesses send personalized campaigns and offers. They often provide details about the offer along with a fulfillment path by attaching files and by adding short links in the message.
Engage and interact with customers
Once the customer purchases, you can run 2-way customer interactions via SMS and keep your customers updated with timely reminders/alerts. You can easily:
Open up a 2-way communication channel – Provide instant, on-demand information to your customers by receiving inbound SMS inquiries and setting up automated SMS responses.
Boost customer retention and renewals – Send timely service expiry reminders, renewal alerts, regular payment, and service reminders and other notifications directly to your customer’s mobile phones. Automate these alerts and reminders by using automated SMS marketing campaigns.
Easily capture data – Accelerate your data collection efforts by sending data collection forms via SMS.
Build loyalty and get referrals
SMS marketing helps you easily capture customer feedback by sending mobile-optimized surveys via SMS. You can also easily design and send loyalty coupons and tickets.
Businesses can simplify their customer referral process – just ask your customers to text in the referral information into your keyword or short/long codes.
Edenred, BookMyShow uses automated SMS to send their loyalty coupons. Customers get coupons based on their eligibility and they then give a missed call to claim it.
ICICI bank gets referrals from their Gold loan customers by asking them to SMS the details of the referral to a 10-digit Long Code. This helps them expand their customer base with minimal effort.
SMS marketing is an effective way to attract, engage, and retain eCommerce customers. It’s easy to use, scalable, and has a powerful impact. The dominance of SMS marketing is unparalleled in terms of customer retention. Texting is arguably one of the best modes of marketing for the eCommerce business. Unlike other marketing channels, SMS markets adhere to the highest engagement rate.
From availing order status to contacting customer support, SMS remains the most preferred channel for the users as compared to its counterparts. So what is the most effective way to conduct SMS marketing? In the blog, we will break down some best practices related to this channel, which in turn help you make informed decisions.
Get Permission & Use Clear Tone
Make sure you have proper customer permission before you push out a string of text messages in their inbox. Otherwise, your marketing effort will convert into the spam and ruin your brand identity.
There’s one big concern in context to SMS marketing for eCommerce that we as brands can’t sit ideal at any point in time. On a bad day, a fantastic personalized marketing opportunity can turn out to be creepy for the end-users. There’s a marginal difference between helpful and invasive, and if you overlook that line, you’ll jeopardize customer’s trust forever.
Always start the preceding by sending the promotional content to motivates the customer to opt into text messaging. And to boost opt-ins, be clear about subscriber’s intention. What type of text messages can increase engagement, and at what frequency customer should be informed?
For instance, “Text ‘SAVINGS’ to 33664 to get weekly coupons.” This shortcode explains everything from the main keyword to the contact number. Also, it clarifies the user’s mindset about what campaign they are signing up for.
Segment
You wouldn’t engage with a new visitor the way you would tackle loyal customers. The same is true for SMS. Segment your audience and make sure that each user gets valuable content that adheres to a high degree of relevancy.
New visitors may get benefits like free shipping or promo code, while the loyal customers might get access to newly-launched products or an invitation of a rewards program.
Make use of profile data to send discount offers or birthday promotions to render the personalized user experience and up conversions.
Timing is crucial
Timing is everything when it comes to SMS marketing. Before you trigger the personalized SMS campaigns at the full throttle, figure out your user’s daily habits. This also involves the checking of users’ habits in context to mobile usages.
According to the popular marketing agency, Mondays have the flattest response rates. Unless your message is particularly important to that day, bypass it. Also, you should be clear about common commute times, typically 4-7 pm and 6:30-8:30 am when your target audience is likely to engage with driving or other essential errands.
Generally speaking, 10 am – 8 pm is the most suitable timeframe for SMS marketers. Hence, it becomes vital for you to confine the send times for your audience specific time zone. No one wants to engage with text messages at 4 am.
Wrapping up
We have prepared this blog with an end goal to make SMS marketing more effective than ever. Hopefully, these strategies will throttle your campaign and give the push that it needed since its inception.
Marketing automation tools are necessary for the smooth working of any marketing department. These tools allow the marketer to be more effective at developing, planning, and executing your decisions. With faster automation techniques, it is easier for companies to move ahead. Here are five advanced automation techniques you should be using for better sales prospects.
The primary use for lead scoring is to determine which leads are the hottest and most likely to be converted. By implementing lead scoring in your business, yourself and your employees will have a better understanding of what needs to be done to reach your sales targets, which leads need more work and which leads are soon to become customers.
2. Date Based Automation
Date-based automation helps you keep track of your prospects all year round. This is a great technique to get you to develop a personalized relationship with your prospect or customer. Date based automation can be used to target a subscriber on their birthday with a special offer for example or on special occasions such as New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Easter, and other events.
3. Content Automation
In this section, a savvy business will realize that sending out relevant and useful content to the audience is important for converting prospects to customers. It is a great way to engage with the audience by informing rather than selling and providing content that is of great value to your prospects will help you to gain their trust.
4. Automated Drip Campaigns
A series of engaging, personalized, and timely emails to the audience can be effective. This strategy can bring new clients to the business. The drip campaigns can most definitely be done to educate new customers, keep a check on the new leads, and greet new customers.
5. Test Your Evaluation Techniques
After you have successfully applied the systems of lead scoring, lead nurturing, e-mail marketing, and content and calendar automation, do extensive research. Mix and match your strategies or divide them into segments to see which strategy works best. This trial and error method will help you keep a check on how frequently you should be using a particular strategy and which works best for your business.
Marketing automation tools are so important nowadays and they allow you to grow your business while your busy running your business. You can set automated campaigns to run in the background, so you know your leads are being nurtured while you concentrate on other things. If you need help with your marketing automation, give the team a call and we’ll happily share our advice to help you convert more prospects into customers.
With the precautions of taking care of our hygiene self, there is also another precaution which multiple individuals are applying today, self-isolation.
Due to self-isolation, multiple brands, schools, and other people are asked to work from home. The work from home concept is great because none of the work is being halted.
But how can you connect with your peers or students or others? Which software is better? Which software can help you to increase your productivity better?
All of these questions have a solution which this article has listed below.
From the list identify which software matches your requirements and click on the links mentioned to connect better with others.
Adobe is a solution that offers software design tools and web conferencing. It is offering free access at home for students as well as the teachers with regards to its Creative Cloud suite of tools which will be available till May 31st.
It is also offering its web conferencing services for free as well to schools, government agencies, and businesses on a 90-day license which can run till July 1st. Also, Adobe has created resources in the form of blogs for distance learning so that readers can get an idea of how they can go about it.
When it comes to getting organized, Airtable can be your friend. Airtable offers a spreadsheet where you can manage whatever activities you conduct by including long notes, checklists, priority icons and more. It is a solution that can help you understand what you need to do next and to never miss out on any of your events or meetings. All you need to do is just make a note.
Airtable is now offering its Airtable ‘Pro’ feature for free for the next three months. This free feature is soon to be applied for students as well. All you need to do is fill out a form and Airtable will get back to you.
Atlassian offers work tools to increase efficiency and productivity. It offers workflows and team collaborations tools so that work can be aligned in a better manner. They are giving away their main products such as project tracking software and confluence team collaboration software for free. This offer applies to a team of 10 people and that too without any time limit.
Also, from the educational front, Atlassian is offering a one-year free subscription to its ‘Trello Business Class’ section so that the tutors can easily schedule and manage their students’ coursework and other performance activities.
The best way to connect with others in times like this is through video conferencing. Blue jeans are offering its video conferencing services to all the NGOs who are taking care of communities of COVID- 19. The software is free for 90 days and it can be extended if the circumstances ask for it. All you need to do is sign up here.
Blue jeans are great because in times all like this, connecting with communities and managing this virus becomes easier. There is more room for communication and every activity can work accordingly without any confusion or hassles.
Box is a convenient tool that stresses its focus on storage, cloud content collaboration and simplified workflows for all its users. On such a situation being faced currently, the CEO of Box, Mr. Levie had stated in his twitter, that the brand is offering unlimited storage and data loss protection for free for the next 90 days. Sign up for their free trial and get started today.
Calendly’s main focus is scheduling software integrations with video conferencing services. With calendly you can now schedule meetings easily without any hassle. This way you can also connect with your peers and customers at convenient times.
Earlier for the integration, calendly use to charge for the service, but now they are giving it for free and also they are giving away their premium access for free to those individuals who are working on eliminating COVID-19. Sign up for Calendly today
Carto offers spatial analysis where they convert your location data into business results. Imagine how well it would work if the communities who are managing the COVID-19 use it? It would be helpful to guide the community in understanding what results are and how they should react to it.
On this note, Carto has announced that with its grants program, its services will be free. Carto is a great solution because earlier as well they have managed to support and help other public related projects. Get started on Carto TODAY.
Cisco too has joined hands in offering a free service of their Webex solution. The creator of Webex has announced that they will offer a free version of their video conferencing software to all their users whom they render their service to.
The video conferencing service has no time limits and can conduct their service of up to 100 people. It would be like a virtual office in the comfort of your own home. Get your video team conference starting today.
For those who are conducting their business in North America and Japan, Dialpad has a great offer for you. Dialpad’s main focus is cloud-based phone system and video conferencing service so they are offering their service ‘Dialpad Talk Pro’ for free for the first two months of the usage.
Once you’re done with the usage, you can even walk away without any payments in hand and for those who want to retain longer, there are chances of the service extension. Those users who sign up for Dialpad’s conference tool called Uber Conference Business will also avail that for free.
You are aware of Dropbox as cloud storage for all your visuals and information to be stored securely. The main focus of Dropbox is cloud content collaboration and storage plus electronic agreements.
Dropbox business is now offering remote working and Hello Sign Enterprise helps to manage electronic agreements where their service will be available up to 6 months free for those users who are engaged in the COVID-19 activities. Sign up here.
Facebook too has joined the league by offering a free version of their premium plan of Workplace Advanced for an entire year to the government and emergency services. The offer consists of the complete services offered by Facebook and also their file sharing option.
Enroll for this offer before June 30th. When this offer is complete, users can select whether they would like to continue with the premium plan or stick to their basic plans.
Google too has joined hands to offer free video-conferencing of their solution Advanced Hangouts to all their G Suite and G Suite for Education services users. The video call can connect up to 250 people where the option is also given to record the call and save it easily in Google drive.
LogMeIn’s main focus is on video conferencing, device and webinars management. It offers two kinds of solutions which are GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar services. They have made their two solutions available to help in on the spot remote working situations.
LogMeIn is offering a free three-month site-wide license to the following departments, healthcare, educational institutions and also municipalities. If you are an existing user, you too can get this free offer for three months.
Why should you miss out on connecting with your prospects since you’re working from home? With Limecall, easily connect with your prospects and convert them into a sales lead by catering to them at the right time. While you work from home, let Limecall help you to connect with your prospects on the spot so that you never miss out on any of your potential leads.
Limecall offers you their free feature where you keep a track of your calls and connect with your leads via a call widget. Sign up for Limecall today.
Loom offers video messaging services to its users. It is now offering free its premium Loom Pro service for free for up to 14 to 30 days. Also previously there was a limit of up to 25 users to make use of their video messaging service but now they have scrapped that off as well. Loom is also offering its free service to the educational front for all students and teachers at k-12 schools, universities and any other institutions without any time restrictions.
All you need to do is sign up for Loom. You will first start to use the Loom Pro 1 month trial pack until they verify the educational details you’ve mentioned. After the verification, your account status will change to education and you can then commence.
Mailchimp is a popular name when it comes to sharing information on an electronic basis. Multiple brands make use of such a solution in order to send out information about their brand via newsletters or to conduct promotional activities to exhibit their brand better.
Understanding this Mailchimp is offering free accounts for all its features to all the schools, healthcare, local governments, nonprofits, and other organizations that want to spread the information related to the virus. This action will keep more individuals aware of what precautions can be taken so that the virus can be eliminated quicker.
Also, those who are using Mailchimp with the basic and free plans, you will be upgraded to Mailchimp’s standard option without any cost. Also, any existing customers of Mailchimp’s Standard plan will not receive any bills during this time.
this Mailchimp is offering free accounts for all its features to all the schools, healthcare, local governments, nonprofits, and other organizations that want to spread the information related to the virus. This action will keep more individuals aware of what precautions can be taken so that the virus can be eliminated quicker.
Also, those who are using Mailchimp with the basic and free plans, you will be upgraded to Mailchimp’s standard option without any cost. Also, any existing customers of Mailchimp’s Standard plan will not receive any bills during this time.
Microsoft too has joined their hands to offer their service of team collaboration and communication to all their users. If you opt for the free version of Microsoft, earlier the limit of individuals was restricted to 300, now Microsoft has removed any of those limits.
Also, Microsoft is offering its normal or rather basic version of their Office 365 enterprise suite of productivity tools for Word and Excel to be free for 6 months to all the organizations. This will upgrade them to make use of the Microsoft premium service.
Panopto focuses on the creation of video content. Panopto Cloud is offering its service to the educational teachers and high executives to record and share video content no matter how much content will be streamed or created by them.
This is offered for free for three months. This is great because no students will have to miss out on any education since teachers can easily record vital information and share the same with their students without any limitations. Sign up here.
Salesforce’s main focus here is cloud-based health system and data plus team collaboration where they have joined hands to offer free access to their ‘Health cloud’ service for all those impacting the COVID-19 crisis such as call centers, response teams, care groups and more.
Salesforce is also giving away their basic ‘Quip team collaboration software’ available for any of their customers or nonprofit organizations till September 30th. Also, their Tableau department has ensured that any corona related resources are free to access.
ServiceNow helps brands to conduct their workflows in a digitalized manner. Hence they have released many new applications out of which one is incident response workflows. This has been created for free so that agencies can make use of it. Also, the other applications of ServiceNow which could be accessed for free are now available for their non-customers as well to make use.
There are also other workflow applications where brands can make use to share any COVID-19 related information which can help employees to understand the risks, precautions, and situations related to the virus.
Slack is considered as a great medium to engage with one another. You can direct contact or message someone and even add them to groups. You can also find when a person is available and more. Slack is now offering their services for a free upgrade to all their paid plans.
This offer applies to media houses who are covering COVID-19, publications being managed by science and those groups or organizations that are working on the research and response of COVID-19. For all the nonprofit organizations, Slack has eliminated its ‘250 user cap’ on its Standard Plans.
TechSmith indulges in recording and sharing video content. In times like these, video content can help many students and brands to conduct their activities in the right manner. Understanding this TechSmith is making its solutions ‘TechSmith Snagit’ and ‘TechSmith Video Review’ completely free for its users till the end of June.
No added costs are required, all you need to do is increase the use of digital learning via solutions like TechSmith so you are not stopped from conducting any of your activities. Fill out this form and get started on TechSmith.
Threads are one of the solutions that offer the right tools to incorporate conducting remote working efficiently. Its main focus is team collaboration and communication which is why they are offering the ‘Pro’ feature for free till July 1st. With their ‘Pro’ feature you can engage up to 100 individuals without any hassle.
Vidyard is another video messaging service where they are offering their service for free till June 30th for all brands to communicate with their employees during this work from home process. Vidyard is doing its bit to help employees and employers to engage better as well as share video messages for a better understanding of what needs to be done and conducted according to the workflows being conducted.
Zoho’s main focus is to ensure the cloud-based productivity tools are enhancing the way brands or users conduct their activities. With such a virus spreading about, there are small businesses who can be impacted in a negative manner with lower customer engagement and conversion rates. To avoid this from happening Zoho is ensuring that they support such small firms.
Zoho has introduced a program where the expense of the applications will be waived for up to 20,000 brands for 3 months. For those small firms that really need assistance, Zoho’s founder, Mr, Sridhar Vembu has ensured it will be supported. Also, Zoho has released free new applications that can help enhance the process of remote working in an efficient manner until July 1st.
Zoom is a common name that comes to mind when we think of the best video conferencing tool. Zoom has conducted quite a few advantages for their service use such as they have eliminated their 40-minute meeting limit on their Basic account so that the educational departments can conduct an easy interaction of students and teachers for all K-12 schools.
To ensure that the educational department gets instant access, Zoho has partnered with a popular ‘single sign-on service’, Clever. Also any Zoom meetings being conducted by K-12 schools with students who are living in countries where COVID-19 is being impacted, the time limit for the meetings have been eliminated. The educational groups can fill out the form here to get started.
OpenPhone too is engaging to help brands communicate better with their peers and customers. OpenPhone is asking brands who indulge in a landline or a desk phone to port with them for free for up to 3 months. This will be helpful as brands can retain their number and use it either on their mobile and computer no matter where their location is.
All you need to do is email your recent phone bill to ‘support@openphone.co’ and mention in the subject of the email ‘3 months free’. The rest will be taken care of by Open Phone itself.
Makenotion too is helping its users in such a crisis time by upgrading their service for all the government agencies, researchers, grassroot organizers and others who are working to help people during such a time. All you need to do is email Notion at ‘team@makenotion.com’ and mention ‘COVID’ in your subject line. The upgrade will take place for free.
Boxcryptor is a great security for all your cloud usage. In the current moment, it is extending its free trial of the services it is providing to its users. This will be helpful for all the time spent working from home or conducting any activities, users can easily store their data on their secure cloud platform.
ThoughtExchange is a solution that works on connecting people more closely. On this note, they have ensured that their service is access free and also free to use for all their users. Brands can now communicate to all their employees better and also conduct open-ended questions in real-time as well. Get started here.
The Bottom Line…
The above-mentioned softwares is a great solution to help you get started on your activities.
Following them will help you to conduct your activities more smoothly and ensure that your experience from home is better in terms of productivity, efficiency, and engagement.
Enhance your activities with the software provided above while Corona Virus is being taken care of.
Let’s dive straight into specific examples of how eCommerce marketers use SMS daily to reduce abandon cart rates, drive sales, and improve customer experience.
1. Broadcast to an Audience
Easily send a text message to your entire text subscriber list.
Drive Sales
With SMS marketing, you can create a unique SMS keyword that your subscribers can text in to receive a discount code. When your subscribers text this keyword, they’ll immediately receive an exclusive discount code that they can apply to their next purchase.
2. Send Notifications Related to a Specific Event
SMS notifications are text messages that are sent when an event occurs.
Communicate Key Order Details
Since customers typically read text messages within 3 minutes of their sending, SMS can help you instantly communicate key order details.
For example, you can send your customers text messages to confirm that their orders have shipped. Not only will this lead to happier customers, but it will also cut down on unnecessary and time-draining support interactions.
Rescue Abandoned Sales
A whopping 74% of customers abandon their carts. Recouping these sales is a top priority for the majority of e-commerce marketers. Instead of relying solely on automated emails, send them a text message reminder.
Drive Post-Purchase Reviews
70% of customers consult reviews or ratings before they decide to purchase. The problem is that generating these reviews is difficult.
SMS marketing allows you to follow up with your customers after they make a purchase. Text them a poll, asking if they’re satisfied with their items, then if they are satisfied, ask them for a review.
3. Conduct Two-way Conversations
You can enable customers to ask questions and resolve issues via 1-on-1 conversations.
Provide Instant Customer Support
More and more people are choosing texts over phone conversations, so consider implementing an SMS customer support experience. Text messages have a reputation for being more instant and personal than emails or webchat, so make sure you’re prepared to respond promptly.
Conclusion
Still not convinced that SMS text marketing is right for you? We understand. After all, there were once people who thought combining chocolate and peanut butter was a bad idea too.
Personalization 