By Levi Butler
•
February 13, 2024
First, let me give you a hearty congratulations for being smart enough to send SMS notifications. We all know that what's going on in our business is extremely important to us, but that doesn't mean it's at the top of our prospective customers' to do list. In fact, the reason that any reminder at all is necessary is the heart of why this mistake is so important for you to know about, and to fix. I'm imagining that the reason you were motivated to send SMS reminders or notifications was because you noticed that emails don't always do the trick. Maybe you've missed an appointment or a webinar you really wanted to attend because time got away from you. I know I have. So, again, congratulations on recognizing how important it was to jump the email inbox and all the other distractions to capture your prospective customer's attention in what is the most popular format of communication today...messaging. If you're urgent to see what the mistake is, no doubt you've already jumped to it below...and that's total cool. But I want to set the stage for you about what the problem is, and why it's a VERY important problem for you to pay attention to. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've noticed that mobile has consumed the world. In fact, mobile communications has become so big that by 2017, more people will have mobile internet access than clean water access! If you have a prospect in the developed world, they're on mobile. Even most luddites who refused to buy a computer have caved on the smartphone. Studies have shown that the most popular communication method is no longer email, or even the lowly phone call. Both have been clearly toppled by messaging. People Facebook Message, iMessage, chat, Twitter DM, text message, SnapChat, YikYak, and on and on. So again, you're really smart to be jumping out of the chaos of the email inbox and texting them. As I'm sure you've heard from everyone selling text messaging, 98% of text messages are read, and 95% within 5 minutes. I'm sure those stats have changed since they first came out and started being propagated, but the reality is while not every phone has SnapChat on it, every mobile phone, and I mean EVERY MOBILE PHONE, has text messaging. From the dumb phone to the latest smartphone, they come with SMS preinstalled and ready for action. In fact, it's become so common, that people expect that a phone number can do three things: Make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and connect to Whatsapp ;)