There are many ways that companies choose to reach out to their followers and customers In the modern world. More than ever, marketers are experimenting with different methods, producing several methods of communication that work with wildly different levels of effectiveness. 

Some carriers rely on email, but that communication is increasingly antiquated and used for internal business communication. The long-form styles of communication are falling out of use, and short-form communication is becoming increasingly popular. It’s much easier to consume messaging when the information is condensed down into smaller snippets. 

This overall shift to short-form information distribution has shown up in an increasingly large number of places in the modern world. Social media platforms now allow high volumes of small video production. Film and music are becoming increasingly designed around creating the highest audience engagement in the shortest amount of time. Like it or not, the world is moving in the direction of short-form content as the baseline. 

This movement towards shorter forms of communication is why mass text messages are important in today’s mass communication and marketing world. Texts are small, but mighty, and have the potential to contain a large amount of information. 

The ability to send bulk text messages to your contact list is incredibly valuable for marketing teams today because they need to get as much information to people as possible, without overloading them with the information they won’t acknowledge. 

The best and most common way to take advantage of text messaging for marketing is through bulk SMS and group messages. Here is what bulk SMS is and how you can use Community to make it a game-changer for you and your business.

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What is Bulk SMS?

SMS is an acronym for Short Message Service. This type of message sending is easy to use, highly adaptable for all kinds of mobile phones, and inexpensive. It is one of the most valuable tools companies can use today because it effectively grabs readers’ attention while requiring a small amount of overhead and time investment. Effectively grabbing their attention leads to better open rates, engagement, and better SMS marketing campaigns.

The concept behind bulk SMS is sending the same message to a large group of people at scale. Of course, people could just copy and paste texts and send them to anyone, but bulk SMS is much quicker, more efficient, and less likely to mess up than working manually. It’s often a simple process, and it makes texting a large number of recipients more accessible. 

This accessibility doesn’t mean that your SMS messages are all in a group chat. Rather, they are all sent individually to the recipients, which creates a feeling of being individually contacted by the creators of companies that are sending the bulk SMS messages. This is functionally what Community does, providing a way to interact with recipients and create genuine relationships directly. 

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Who can be Reached through Bulk SMS?

The biggest advantage of bulk SMS is that all you need is someone’s phone number and approval to text message them. You can ask for people’s numbers on your websites, and as long as you have their approval to do so, you can send them text messages regularly. Anyone with a phone and a texting plan can receive messages made from companies and people using bulk SMS messaging. 

The target markets for text messaging include most populations, as long as they have a phone and know how to use it. Bulk SMS messages must remain fairly short, which can be an advantage for generations and people who work better with short-form content. 

For general purposes, though, younger and more technologically savvy generations tend to be much more receptive to bulk SMS because it works in a medium that they are familiar with. Texting has become one of the most popular forms of communication. Using it to communicate with people has become simpler and more effective than ever before. 

The Clustering feature of Community allows Leaders to organize recipients and members into groups based on their target market, so that each Member receives messages catering directly to them. This highly personalized experience is more effective and powerful than simple bulk messaging. 

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How is Bulk SMS Used in the World?

Bulk SMS is perhaps the most concise and to-the-point way to communicate with people. It’s not always the most effective at communicating large amounts of information, but it’s good at distributing announcements, small updates, and invitations to events. 

Large organizations are starting to utilize texting as one of the primary ways to get people’s attention in a high-priority way. Bulk SMS messaging can get your message to your consumer quickly and concisely.

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The Drawbacks of using Bulk SMS

While bulk SMS is an important part of communication and marketing in the modern world, it’s not perfect for every situation. It’s good to be aware of some ways that bulk SMS doesn’t do too well. 

Sometimes, bulk SMS doesn't fit the right context, or it won’t communicate the required information effectively, because of its small size. There are several situations where there needs to be more information to communicate the intended message effectively. 

This is where email updates or blog posts do better than bulk SMS. 

Another potential downside of bulk SMS is that it is easy to look over and not acknowledge. Due to this, it is pertinent that the communication and marketing teams work together to make sure that messages are communicated in a timely, concise, and maximally effective way. 

However, when using Community, leaders can interact with their recipients at scale, making their Bulk SMS interactions much more effective and efficient. Real interactions make information easily communicable, and lead to real changes for a community’s members. 

It’s easy to throw a few lines of text together, but whenever you compose a bulk SMS text message, make sure that it is as well thought out and as effective as possible. 

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The Benefits of using bulk SMS

Bulk SMS has a long list of benefits, and as the technological age moves forward, these benefits are only getting more important. 

The modern world is full of people that prefer to receive information in a very small and compact form, which means that people tend to look more at their texts than any other form of communication. 

Emails can be too long, phone calls awkward, and advertisements unhelpful and frustrating. But texting is a consistently useful medium to most people, thus making it a great way to communicate with a wider audience. 

Another important benefit of bulk SMS is that it makes communicating with massive amounts of people easier. The Clustering feature in Community allows Leaders to interact with their members at scale, leading to much higher connectivity rates. As long as you have their approval to receive messages, you can send text messages with incredible ease to many people. 

Bulk SMS provides a critical way with which texts can be effectively communicated and distributed to people. It’s often very hard to compare to the level of reach that bulk SMS offers. 

You can offer better customer services, special offerings, an improved customer experience, promotional messages, vouchers, coupons, or offer a discount. You can also send appointment reminders and confirmations.

Few other mediums can reach that many people at once that effectively. 

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How Community Helps

Community is aware of the power of bulk SMS, and it is very intent on maximizing the medium’s effectiveness. Often, even bulk SMS seems like a distant, impersonal medium to reach out to communities. However, Community makes it a priority to do more with text messages and make it so that they are much more capable of interacting with their recipients. 

The texting Campaigns that Community provides can make huge changes in how people communicate and receive information from their Leaders. Even if personal interaction at large scales is hard, Community provides tools to create and enhance personal experiences. 

At Community, we believe that the most important part of communication is one of the simplest; interaction. Most advertising and marketing are based around one way communication, as opposed to genuine interaction with people. That’s why Community wants to raise the bar and introduce methods for Leaders to interact with their followers and fans genuinely to increase loyalty and intentionality amongst their members. 

Community is a brand new way to market to and engage with people. It’s all about cultivating genuine relationships and interactions. These interactions are critical parts of creating a brand that makes a difference in people’s lives. 

If you’re looking for the next step in truly engaging with your followers and fans, take a look at Community. Get your number today! 

Sources: 

Here's How Each Generation Prefers to Text With Your Business | ZipShip

Short-Form vs. Long-Form Website Content | The Tilt

When You Should (and Shouldn't) Send an Email: The New Office… | The Muse