Everyone has a smartphone these days. Whether we use them for work, fun, side hustles, or just our everyday lives smartphones are ubiquitous. But when you’re using them for marketing purposes, business projects, or other uses there’s one aspect that outshines the rest of the smartphone, communication wise: that humble text message.
Text messages are one of the easiest and most efficient means of transmitting the message you want to get across to potential customers and existing clients. People are more likely to open a text message than an email and are much more comfortable with a personalized text than they are with other forms of communication.
Using SMS from a phone is fine, but there are some better ways to reach a wider audience with the messaging format. This involves setting up your computer to allow you to send SMS text messages online. Here are a few reasons to use SMS online tools at your organization today.
Send From a Computer
The short message service (SMS) is a boon to moment communication. While the technology only allows around 160 characters prior to generating multiple messages, it’s still an incredibly versatile means of communicating. It has extensive reach, can potentially generate leads, and is typically safer than emails. Well, there are some scams that occur through text messages, it isn’t anywhere near how bad things can get with email.
So, it’s already a safer and more secure means of communicating. Moreover, many people have smartphones, and they can receive text messages quickly without any additional cost to them. So, why would you send SMS text messages from a computer?
If you’re going to be doing a marketing campaign or trying to reach a very large number of contacts, it can be much easier to manage them from a computer. It’s also easier to type on a computer than it is to do so on a smartphone. It takes less time to write a message with a keyboard and you avoid cramping up your hand while trying to type on a smaller screen.
SMS messages from your computer are the same exact format and style as the ones from your phone, so you can effectively streamline generating them and communicate with your colleagues or clients quickly.
Receive Messages Online
Sending messages online is easier and more convenient. But receiving them online is even better. Just as you would with a smartphone, you can receive your SMS messages on your computer. Using a software solution to act as a hub for sending and receiving messages, you can see your conversations in real time and respond/reply as needed.
Appointments, alerts, reminders, and other important communications can appear on your dashboard when you need them. And it isn’t just SMS messages you can receive online. You can also send and receive MMS messages.
The multimedia messaging service (MMS) allows users to send longer messages that often contain some images or video. This can be useful for marketing and engagement, so leveraging these message types along with your SMS messages is critical if you want to make a lasting impression.
Easy To Set Up and Use
When the entire point of sending SMS messages online is to eliminate the hassle of trying to send everything or do everything from a smartphone, it makes sense that the software should be easy to use. Setup is also an important step that should be fairly streamlined. If your service does not have an intuitive interface, dashboard, and simple means of using it, then it may be time to select a different one entirely.
Luckily, there are plenty of wonderful options around that let you send and receive SMS online. Once you’ve chosen an option that works for you, be sure to explore its features and take advantage of everything it has to offer.
The best services offer such things as URL shorteners, the ability to track messages in real time so you know when people are looking at them and you can reply easily. This is a remarkably useful feature that most of us probably never consider until the communication issue comes up. Sometimes it’s better to prevent them ahead of time with this proactive approach.
Simplified Communication
As we mentioned above, communication is the core of any successful operations. This includes your marketing and promotional campaigns. You want to keep things as simple as possible. You also want to make it easy for your customers to opt in, opt out, and interact with the fast.
Simplified Communication like this helps with Sales, speaking with colleagues, and two-way communication with potential leads. Ultimately, the more streamlined approach you take to your communication, the better off everyone will be when it comes to driving engagement, creating conversions, and ultimately fostering better communication overall.
Phone Number Choice
One final, perhaps unexpected, the benefit of online SMS is the ability to use the phone number of your choice to send messages. At first glance this may not seem like an important thing, but it really is because that’s how your contacts can recognize you or how you can keep everything straight. You can also send from a landline number, mobile number, send messages toll-free, set up call forwarding, and even use short codes for all your messaging needs.
