MessageMedia Chief Marketing Officer Tara Salmon talks to Professional Beauty about why it’s so important to always be strengthening and refining your communication with clients.
PB: What are your top three tips for beauty brands and businesses to strengthen communication with clients?
“Communication is essential for businesses, especially during these turbulent times. Being able to reach your customers in a matter of minutes with a business update, product promotion, or appointment reminder is vital. There are some key things for beauty brands to remember when communicating with customers using text messaging:
- Plan out your messaging – Customers can become easily frustrated by too many messages. Be thoughtful about what you are sending, when, and how often.
- Make your text stand out – Stand out from the crowd while also providing something of value. Have a clickable link, add an image, be funny!
- Be authentic – Customers value authenticity in their relationships so make sure that you are connecting with them on a personal level. Always personalise messages with their first name and any other relevant details or offers you have.”
PB: What are the worst things you can do with regards to contacting a client?
“Overwhelming customers with too many messages, especially if they’re not targeted or personalised, which may cause opt out rates.
Communicating outside appropriate hours, which may differ by business and use case. Some SMS services like MessageMedia’s offer features like ‘social sending’ which limits sends to certain hours of the day.
Sending text messages that don’t comply with customer permissions and opt out regulations in your region. Your business may be at legal risk and get prospective customers offside.”
PB: Why is communication so important?
“SMS messaging allows businesses to communicate with its customers in a succinct, accessible, and fast way. While a customer might open an email later, most text messages are opened within 90 seconds of receipt. With growing demand for one-click experiences from our phones, text messaging can directly uplift click-throughs and orders. Additionally, text messaging prompts customers to act. In the case of time-bound promotions, abandoned cart reminders, and appointment reminders, the results are phenomenal. From our latest Shopify research, we’ve seen text messaging drive an average 20% abandoned recovery rate. It also helps customers stay engaged while keeping your brand top-of-mind.”
PB: How has the pandemic changed the way we stay in touch with clients?
“The pandemic has highlighted the importance for customers to feel valued and connected. In our recent consumer insights-led whitepaper with consumer futurist Amanda Stevens, we found that proximity is power: phone screen time is on the rise with 80% of customers checking their text messages as soon as they wake up. That’s where SMS solutions help, offering businesses a simple, reliable, and low-cost tool for alerting customers quickly to store updates, special deals, and other important alerts such as back-in-stock notifications.”
PB: What do you think is next with regards to how we stay connected to clients?
“We’re seeing one trend on the rise: two-way messaging. Businesses are extending the convenience and connectiveness of text messaging by inviting customer feedback. This means customers can initiate conversations, seek immediate support, or text back with additional questions. Port Networks, a US internet provider, cut queues by 50% as a result of introducing two-way text as a support channel. Simply for Strings, a leading online music retailer in Australia, combined two-way texts with SMS reminders to recover 40% completed orders from abandoned carts.”
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