Until recently, many brands treated SMS like a faster, more direct extension of email — using it to distribute one-sided marketing campaigns to a broad list of customers. While underwhelming, the strategy was somewhat effective. But the landscape of SMS has shifted over the past few years.  

Today’s consumers want brands to engage with them, and they expect personalized interactions tailored to their unique interests.  There is a redefinition of value — what you’re buying into is just as important as what you’re buying.

In response, the most successful brands are trading batch-and-blast campaigns for something a bit more personal. Instead of using only one-way automations, they’re opting for interactive customer communications — ones designed to collect zero-party data and create a more engaging consumer experience.

In short, they’re embracing what we here at Community call Conversational SMS — and it’s getting results.

“Conversational SMS” is a term used to describe a personalized, two-way approach to SMS marketing. Think of it as an interactive alternative to traditional SMS — one that puts the customer (and, more specifically, customer conversations) at the heart of your marketing strategy. It’s based on the simple principle that meaningful engagement leads to conversions. If you take the time to talk with your customers instead of just at them, you’ll build relationships that improve the customer experience and nurture long-term brand loyalty.

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Conversational SMS has emerged as an essential solution for brands because it creates new rules of engagement, around how brands should speak to and connect with their audience.  

Through Community's Conversational SMS, you can pair powerful automated campaign flows with authentic, human interactions — going beyond one-way communications to deliver the interactive messaging experience consumers crave.
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Conversational SMS offers limitless potential for audience engagement, but brands need to evolve their approach to SMS marketing if they want to take full advantage of its benefits.

As early pioneers of Conversational SMS, there’s no one better suited to help brands navigate the shift to personalized SMS than the experts here at Community. For the last few years, our clients have successfully leveraged Conversational SMS strategies to nurture brand loyalty, increase retention, and generate ROI. We’ve created a playbook that will help you do the same.

We’re proud to introduce our Conversational SMS Playbook, a comprehensive guide that features everything you need to know about this new approach to SMS.

In it, we answer the following questions:

• What is Conversational SMS?
• Is it possible to manage two-way messaging at scale?
• How do you build a Conversational SMS strategy that actually works?
• What’s the best SMS platform to help you reach your goals?
• Is SMS a high ROI channel?

Download the playbook here and find out how you can level up your marketing with conversational SMS.