Many DTC businesses use SMS marketing to boost sales. But how can businesses selling to other businesses leverage SMS to drive revenue and build stronger relationships?
This article describes how B2B companies can use text messaging to help improve various steps along the buyer journey. Read on to get an overview of B2B SMS marketing and how it can help solve some of the unique challenges in the B2B world.
Jump right to:
- Understanding B2B SMS marketing
- 9 ways to use SMS for B2B
- 9 examples of B2B SMS marketing
- How to get started with B2B text message marketing
<h2 id="Understanding">Understanding B2B SMS marketing</h2>
B2B SMS marketing is a type of opt-in marketing in which companies text other businesses to promote their products or services. Companies use B2B SMS to share product launches, nurture leads, close sales, enhance partnerships, and provide client support. B2B SMS marketing is used by B2B companies, like SaaS providers or marketing consulting agencies.
On the other hand, B2C SMS marketing is defined as a business texting with a consumer to promote products or services. Business-to-consumer companies, like ecommerce or retail stores, would use B2C SMS marketing.
Overall, the key difference between B2B SMS and B2C SMS is the recipient of your text messages: a business or a consumer.
<h2 id="Benefits">The benefits of B2B SMS marketing</h2>
B2B companies can benefit from using SMS marketing at different stages of the funnel. Let’s look at a few of the top advantages of using SMS in business-to-business settings.
- High open rate. The average open rate for SMS is 98 percent, which is nearly five times higher than email. This can help you get important messages read.
- Immediate communication. Text messages are also built for rapid back-and-forth communication. The average text is read within five minutes and is responded to within 90 seconds, making it an effective channel for delivering urgent or time-sensitive information.
- Improved engagement rate. To comply with industry regulations, all businesses must first get consent to text their customers. This means those who opt in want to hear from your business, resulting in a highly engaged audience.
“SMS has stringent opt-in requirements compared to email. These regulations and opt-in practices are a major reason why SMS communications perform substantially better on deliverability, open, and read rates,” said Luc Purdy, head of marketing at Inunity. “This results in a much higher likelihood of messages reaching and being read by your intended audience.” - Break through the advertising noise. Email and social media are highly saturated marketing channels. While SMS is growing in popularity for businesses, it is still a newer channel with less competition. Breaking into this market early can help your business stand out from the rest.
- Preferred communication channel. Texting is a preferred method of communication, with 90 percent of business leads reporting they’d rather get a text than a phone call.
- Personalized conversations at scale. SMS allows you to reach many customers without losing a personal touch. You can use variables to personalize mass text messages and make each conversation unique to your client.
<h2 id="Ways">9 ways to use SMS for B2B</h2>
SMS is a versatile communication tool that can help businesses overcome different challenges, whether it’s customer support or lead nurturing. Let’s look at some ways to use B2B SMS.
Enhance customer service
B2B customer service teams often face immense pressure to respond and resolve issues quickly because their customers often rely on their products to run their businesses efficiently. B2B companies need an efficient way for customers to contact them and solve issues efficiently. Without great customer service, B2B companies will have trouble retaining customers.
Many B2B companies use SMS to enhance their customer support and customer service. SMS allows businesses to reply to their business clients quickly and troubleshoot in real time. This helps improve customer service. B2B companies can use SMS to:
- Answer FAQs
- Troubleshoot technical issues
- Handle customer complaints
- Provide pricing details
- Communicate service updates or downtime
Streamline lead nurturing
The sales cycle for B2B companies is often longer and requires more nurturing than in B2C. Although nurturing leads is vital, it is often a time-consuming task for businesses.
SMS drip campaigns can solve this issue for many B2B marketers. They let you automate and streamline the lead nurturing process, providing contacts with personalized messages at the right time in their journey.
Speed up sales follow-ups
Research suggests that 78 percent of customers choose the company that replies to their inquiries first. This makes it critical for sales teams to respond to inquiries quickly. However, with busy sales schedules, it can be hard to reply quickly.
SMS helps sales teams overcome this challenge. Sales teams can use SMS to get a meeting scheduled, remind leads about an upcoming demo, or follow up after a meeting.
Cut no-shows with reminders
It’s often frustrating for B2B companies to deal with missed appointments, meetings, or demos. Not only are missed appointments costly for businesses, but they also create scheduling inefficiencies.
Instead of dealing with missed appointments, use SMS reminders to ensure all parties are aware and prepared for their scheduled commitment. The immediacy and high open rate of text messages make them a great way for businesses to share reminders.
Texting can also give B2B contacts a quick way to reschedule a meeting ahead of time if a conflict arises to help get more meetings on the books.
Promote deals or special offers
Often B2B companies send emails announcing new products or updates, but these can get lost in the shuffle of crowded inboxes.
SMS can help B2B companies share company releases with business contacts. For example, your business could use SMS to:
- Promote a product or service
- Announce a feature release or enhancement
- Advertise a discount on a service or product
- Reach out about a renewal offer
Get an overview of promotional texting and how it can help you market your business.
Share timely updates
B2B companies need a way to contact their customers in the event of downtime or other service disruptions. Although timely updates are expected, it can be tricky to ensure your business partners get these messages when you send them via email.
A text message can help you get your message read quickly so customers are informed. For example, you could use SMS to share:
- Service downtime
- Stockouts or low inventory alerts
- Order updates or delays
Get more online reviews
Many customers read online reviews before choosing a B2B partner. Therefore, it is imperative for B2B companies to collect reviews from their customers. However, it can often be challenging to get these reviews.
SMS helps businesses get more online reviews because messages are read. You can ask clients via text to support your business by leaving an online review. It’s a best practice also to include an SMS link directly to the review website.
Account management
One of the top challenges B2B companies face is customer churn. Many B2B companies want to increase loyalty, but with many customers, it can be tricky to provide this white-glove service and touch base on all accounts.
Text messaging can provide a simple way to keep in touch with more accounts, maintain a relationship, remind them about contract renewals, and set up quarterly business reviews.
Payment reminders
Late payments are a headache for every business. It can take a lot of time to chase down unpaid invoices and collect late payments.
Texting can help businesses get paid on time and contact accounts with delinquent payments. Use SMS to remind business partners to pay upcoming bills. SMS is a quick and easy way to ensure businesses know their upcoming bills and due dates.
Check out these 27 payment reminder text templates for inspiration.
<h2 id="Examples">9 examples of B2B SMS marketing</h2>
Here are a few examples that show how B2B companies use SMS to improve operations, sales, and revenue.
Online review request
Use a text message to request a review from your loyal customers. Text message review requests help you build your online reputation to help attract new customers.
In the following example, a data warehouse company that sells to other businesses requests a review from a customer who’s been with the company for five years.
Schedule a demo
Use SMS to schedule a demo with a lead who reached out from your website or messaged a support line. Texting is a great way to get in touch quickly, and you could even automate this message to send to leads.
In the following example, a software as a service company reaches out to a lead to schedule a demo quickly via text. You’ll see it’s personalized with the lead’s first name.
Demo reminder
Text messaging is also a great way to remind leads about an upcoming demo. It gently reminds them about the demo and provides enough time to reschedule ahead of time to avoid frustration.
In the example below, a SaaS company reminds a lead about the demo 24 hours in advance.
Provide a pricing quote
B2B companies also use SMS to provide a pricing quote for their services. In the following example, a marketing firm provides an estimated monthly amount for their creative services.
Customer service
Another B2B SMS example is in the customer service bucket. You can use SMS to troubleshoot issues and answer frequently asked questions.
Lead nurturing
Create a sequence of text messages to help nudge leads through your sales funnel. You can check in, share helpful articles, and try to book a demo or provide a quote.
Announce a new feature
Another way B2B companies use text marketing is to announce a new product, service, or enhancement. This can help you get the word out about the release to many customers.
Service updates
You can use a text message to let your customers know when your product will be offline or unable to be used. This keeps customers informed about service downtimes so they can plan accordingly. An SMS message ensures customers see your text.
Contract renewal
Use SMS to message clients who have an upcoming contract renewal. As an account executive or manager, you can reach out to schedule check-ins or meetings to renew a contract.
The following B2B text example showcases an account executive looking to book a contract renewal meeting.
<h2 id="How">How to get started with B2B text message marketing</h2>
Getting started with B2B texting is easier than you may expect. Let’s dive into the five simple steps:
1. Create your SMS strategy. Before executing a B2B texting campaign, you need to establish your SMS marketing strategy. In this step, you determine your use case, core audience, and SMS goals.
Get our 12-step guide on building an effective SMS marketing strategy below:
2. Pick a business SMS platform. The next step is to pick an SMS software provider that works for your business and use case. Businesses wanting to use SMS for customer support would want to choose a platform that has two-way texting and an easy-to-manage inbox. On the other hand, a company wanting to send promotional texts would want a platform that offers mass texting. To help you determine the best fit, decide what features, pricing structure, and integrations you need.
3. Get SMS opt-ins. The third step is to get consent to text your customers, which is called an SMS opt-in. This step is required by law and helps you build your SMS contact list. You can request this opt-in when customers fill out a contact form on your website.
4. Craft your messages. It’s time to create your marketing text messages. You can create text templates for commonly asked questions or send out bulk texts to customers at the same time.
5. Press send. Now, it’s time to send your text messages! From here, you track performance, test different content, and fine-tune your strategy.
Execute B2B SMS marketing with Textline
B2B SMS marketing improves business communication so your business can foster better client relationships, close more deals, and streamline operations.
Textline makes it easy to create and execute a B2B SMS strategy. Textline is packed with features like two-way SMS, bulk messaging, and automated texting so you can improve, simplify, and scale business communication. Plus, we integrate with top CRM software like HubSpot and Pipedrive.
Try Textline free for 14 days today to see how SMS can improve B2B communication. Create your free account now.
