Getting through to prospects is a marketer’s top challenge. Email inboxes are more crowded than ever, and fewer people prefer to speak on the phone.

With SMS open rates soaring past 90%, mass texting is the new frontier of marketing communication, and mass texting apps are the vehicles that allow you to send bulk SMS messages.

But the potential benefits of a mass texting service extend beyond marketing and prospect engagement. Mass texting is an effective way to keep customers, constituents, and supporters informed.

Churches, voluntary groups, schools, and political parties are just a few examples of organizations that leverage mass texting apps and services to send mass text messages. For example, football teams can keep fans up-to-date on the score using a mass SMS text messaging service.

Organizations in virtually every industry use a mass SMS system because it’s quick, easy and inexpensive.

Signing up for a bulk SMS texting service like CallFire is free, and SMS text messages cost just pennies to send per recipient. You can also prevent “text wastage” by sorting recipients into groups to optimize costs.

Sign up with CallFire for free to send your first bulk text message today!

Read on to learn more about mass texting services and strategies:

  • What Is Mass Texting?
  • Why Use a Mass SMS Service?
  • Comparing Mass SMS Texting Stats to Other Marketing Communications
  • How to Build Your Mass Texting Database
  • How to Send a Mass Text
  • Other Features of Mass SMS Texting Services
  • Mass Texting Examples
  • Try CallFire’s Free Mass Texting Service Today

What Is Mass Texting?

Mass texting, also known as bulk SMS, is a communication channel that allows businesses of all sizes to simultaneously contact large numbers of subscribers with one text message. You can also set up automated messages that make two-way communication a breeze.

Many retailers use mass SMS services for bulk text message advertising, but mass texting also has many valuable non-commercial applications.

You can use mass texts to send other types of messages, including marketing and advertising, customer notifications or internal company reminders.

Why Use a Mass SMS Service?

Mass texting is a newer form of marketing and business communication, so you may be asking: Why use a mass SMS service instead of mass texting app or some other text marketing software?

Every day, your customers and employees are bombarded with thousands of media messages through email, social media and paid advertisements. Because businesses are exhausting these methods of communication, you may find that your audience is no longer receptive to them.

Mass texting can help breathe new life into your marketing communications, ignite engagement and outperform tired, impersonal communications channels.

You have many options when it comes to mass texting. A mass SMS texting service is by far the most powerful, and here’s why:

98% of the population has access to a mobile device capable of receiving SMS messages while only 68% of the population has access to an Internet-enabled smartphone.

When considering the potential audience that channels like email misses, running a mass texting campaign seems like a no-brainer. In the next section, we’ll explore some ways mass SMS text messaging campaigns outperform other forms of direct marketing.

Comparing Mass SMS Texting Stats to Other Marketing Communications Statistics show that mass SMS text messaging campaigns are more effective than any other form of direct marketing. Here are the facts: 

  • 90% of text marketing messages are opened and read within three minutes while only 22% of emails are opened within the same amount of time.
  • Retailers that send bulk SMS text messages with coupons attached report a redemption rate eight times higher than achieved via email marketing. 
  • 44% of consumers who expressed a preference said they preferred text message advertising to email (18%), smartphone apps (11%) and voicemail (8%).

Mass SMS marketing performs up to five times better than online advertising and social media for increasing brand awareness. Mass texting is not only the preferred method of communication for the general population, but also millennials. Known as “The Text Generation,” millennials prefer texting over calling, email and in-person conversation.

If your business relies on consumers in their 20s and 30s, consider mass SMS texting. Sending millennials SMS messages with tiny URLs linked to marketing content has proven to be more effective than emails containing the same links.

In fact, the click rate for SMS messages is 10 times higher than emails.

Show transcript

Speaker 1: How can SMS help my business grow? Here’s an example. Suzy is a marketing director for a museum. She uses CallFire to send her members text reminders so that they never miss a great exhibit. She even includes a link so smart-phone users can get all the exhibit details. Now that members know to visit the museum, Suzy’s got another marketing magic trick up her sleeve once they get there. She posts signs inviting visitors to text, “I love art,” to her CallFire phone number. Once they text in, they automatically receive a discount to the museum gift shop.

Suzy loves how easy CallFire makes sending and receiving texts, and her members love the timeliness and convenience of getting reminders, promotions, and discounts right in their pocket. CallFire works with both long codes and short codes and provides opt in and opt out support, all for just pennies per message. Developers can even use CallFire APIs to program SMS apps of their own. To learn more, visit CallFire.com or call 877-897-FIRE.

No matter who you’re trying to reach, mass texting services allow you to communicate directly and intimately with your audience — with better results than any other form of communication.

How to Build Your Mass Texting Database

The easiest way to develop a database is through keywords and short codes.

A keyword is a simple word that you ask prospects to send to your company via a text message.

A short code is an easy-to-remember six-digit number where prospective members send keywords.

To add people to your database, ask them to send a keyword to a short code. For example, to get people to join, you would ask them to:

Text “JOIN” to 67076

When people send the text, they opt into your mass SMS service, and their details get added to your database. Once your database starts to grow, most services allow you to sort your contacts into groups for easier management according to your contacts’ interests or needs.

Once you establish these groups, you can tailor messages to them.

How to Send a Mass Text

You don’t need any technical or design skills to send a mass text. Follow these quick and easy steps to send a mass text today:

  1. Open an account with a top text marketing company like CallFire. Try CallFire free today. 
  2. Log in to the SMS platform and upload your contact database.
  3. Set up a keyword within the platform that you will use to opt-in your contacts. 
  4. Compose your message. The service will generate a short code for you.
  5. Add your desired contacts to the message and click “send.” You can also schedule the message to go out at a later time. Within minutes, your contacts will open and read your SMS message. You can monitor delivery rates, open rates, and replies via your SMS marketing software from any device with Internet service.

If you’re in a location without Internet access, redirect the responses to your mobile device via SMS.

Want to get creative with your message content? Most SMS marketing services have multimedia capabilities. You can attach photos and videos to increase their engagement and impact.

People tend to share media they find entertaining. Attach amusing or thought-provoking content that your contacts like to help grow your database.

Other Features of Mass SMS Texting Services

Many mass texting features exist that save you time and money and make your communication more effective when sending bulk text messages or a text broadcast.

With mass SMS texting services, you also gain the capabilities to:

  • Save sent messages as templates. Maximize your resources by saving and reusing text message templates in future mass text campaigns.
  • Incorporate QR codes and tiny URLs into messages.
  • Address messages to individual recipients. Personalize your messages for a more authentic experience.
  • Combine voice and text to increase engagement. Why stop with just text? Give your audience the option to select their preferred form of communication by adding an interactive voice response component to your SMS marketing campaign.
  • Send polls to your audience to learn about their preferences. One of the most popular SMS texting features, poll builder can help you leverage the high response rate of SMS to glean actionable audience insights. Simply give your contacts a list of reply options with corresponding sub-keywords (an extension of the keyword used to get contacts to opt into your mass SMS service).

For example, a bar called “Macs” using the keyword "Macs" could survey its database for the most popular beers served in the bar. Contacts could be given three choices: “Macs Bud,” "Macs Coors" or "Macs Miller" and asked to text their reply to 67076.

Contacts can easily share polls with friends, families or colleagues to increase brand awareness for Macs Bar. The replies are received by the SMS text platform and saved for review. With this information, the owner of Macs can plan future mass text campaigns and have enough of his customers’ favorite beers in stock to meet demand.

Mass Texting Examples

Sending bulk text messages has an intimacy and immediacy that’s difficult to replicate in any other form of mass messaging communication.

Organizations outside of the retail industry have also adopted mass SMS messaging software to help get their messages heard above the noise of everyday life.

Churches, volunteer groups, schools and political parties can also benefit from text marketing services, and their uses apply to other organizations as well.

Here are some real uses and benefits of text marketing services:

  • Schedule reminders: Use text marketing software to increase event attendance by scheduling reminders.
  • Galvanize communities: Need to incite action quickly? Volunteer groups can send mass text messages to coordinate members when someone in the community requires assistance. Political parties often run a mass text messaging campaign prior to Election Day to share policies and "Get Out the Vote" messages.
  • Communicate notices: Alert your audience when events have occurred. For example, schools can use a mass SMS system to send permission slips, reports, and notices to parents – and to be sure that those notices have arrived! Access to mass SMS messaging software is critical during adverse events when data networks often get overloaded. Staying in contact with parishioners, volunteers, parents, and students may be vital during power outages, inclement weather or security alerts.

The mass SMS system can help keep everyone safe and informed of last-minute closures, cancellations or venue changes.

Try CallFire’s Free Mass Texting Service Today

If you’re looking for an easy, immediate, and inventive way to reach prospects and customers, CallFire’s mass texting service is for you.

As a leading mass texting company, CallFire has more than a decade of experience providing text marketing services to thousands of clients. Our text marketing software is fast, intuitive, inexpensive and versatile.

When you sign up for CallFire, we help you develop your contacts database with opt-in widgets that can be placed on your website or distributed through social media channels.

CallFire’s SMS marketing software works seamlessly with many popular web applications and offers a powerful API, so developers can integrate CallFire’s SMS text platform into their own applications.

Choose from a wide range of subscription packages for businesses and organizations that include keywords, access to our shared short codes and more.

You can also receive phone support to walk you through how to send a mass text, use CallFire’s mass text marketing features, or comply with regulations such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.

Within minutes, you could be maximizing the effectiveness of your organization’s mobile marketing strategy and significantly increase brand awareness.

Ready to start sending bulk text messages and amplify your mobile marketing strategy? Sign up for free today!