While many businesses are still blindly favoring emails over SMS, data that comes along with it states otherwise. For one, there’s a huge difference in open rate success between the two, and SMS surely is on the winning side.
An email’s average open rate plays between 20% to 40%, while SMS enjoys a high 98% reading rate. This means that when it comes to selling products and services, the fastest and best way to connect to your customers is through business texting.
For SaaS businesses, SMS messaging can offer interesting breakthroughs for selling. Apart from its immediacy and accessibility, it surely tops the list of channels most preferred by customers. SMS can also help your business understand the needs of your customers in numerous ways possible.
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Texting for different SaaS sales models
Understanding how to market your business effectively requires a different set of strategies. In Saas, these sales models approach their market differently. Applying each strategy, here’s how business texting comes into play.
Self-Service Sales Model
With sales highly reliant on marketing, your business texts should work to engage the audience on the awareness stage, as well as the engagement stage. SMS campaigns should be a play of automated messages that are personalized dependent on the specific group of leads you’ll be sending them to.
Most of the campaigns in this sales model use the 3-touch approach, leveraging different business channels to work as one. Since conversions are highly dependent on marketing, you’ll have to create a series of multi-channel systems that offer back-end support for your business text engagements and conversion.
Transactional Sales Model
Inside sales reps supported with the three-touch approach constitute the transactional sales model for SaaS. This way, both marketing and sales work hand-in-hand to build the pipeline, win leads and convert them into sales. SMS plays a vital role in this setup.
Business texting should be two-way, making sure that for every sales text message you sent, there is a dedicated person who answers back almost instantly. For marketing, highly targeted text automation campaigns are recommended to produce qualified leads to be fed to the sales team.
Enterprise Sales Model
Packages and feature-rich solutions win the game for enterprise sales. Communicating with the target, however, should tend to address your clients’ business processes, and at the same time use channels tailor-fit for them.
While email is considered the king of B2B sales and communications, SMS can reach through the gaps emails can’t penetrate. Enterprise sales models for SaaS businesses would need a channel that can communicate to their target personally, but professionally, immediately, but passively. Text campaigns should be smarter, straightforward, and should always mean business.
Six business texting tips for SaaS sales
One way or another, you’ll need to strategically find ways on how to use SMS for selling. Creating personalized messages requires a closer understanding of what your customers want to hear from you. Here are 7 samples that you can do to start hitting your targets through SMS.
1- Send text reminders for free trials/freemium subscriptions
Free trials or freemiums are the selling point of any lead generation strategies for SaaS businesses. According to SaaS Metrics Report by Totango, free trials and freemium users cover up to 10% of new sales. This is one strong reason why you should incorporate SMS into your marketing campaigns that cover it.
By sending free trial users a reminder of their subscription via SMS, you’re doing two things: you’re giving them a sense of urgency to convert, and letting them know that you are aware of them as a customer. This way, you can also segment users who didn’t convert so you can keep in touch with them in the future.
2 – Engage free trial users
Free trials are the limbos of the SaaS sales process. It’s one step closer to a paid subscription, but if users didn’t convert, you have to begin with the whole process all over again. Treat your free trial users like VIPs by engaging with them using strategic business texting.
Keep in mind that SMS has its own business etiquette you should follow. Veer away from sending lengthy messages, or spamming your free trial users. In business texting, there’s always a thin line between accommodating and annoying. Make sure to fine-tune your business texts in terms of frequency, structure, and content.
3 – Notify users about live product demos
Live product demos do not only put your product in context for users to see, but also lets you keep in touch with potential paying customers. By speaking directly to actual users of your products, you’ll have knowledge on what your customers need. This will give you ideas to reinvent your products and offerings or find ways to personalize them with your users.
Live product demos would require a dedicated person to speak and prepare for a detailed presentation. That’s why it’s best to manage you or your reps’ time. Send live product demo invites to new or free trial users via text to conduct your demos collectively.
4 – Prompt users for promos
SMS is immediate and easily accessible – sounds like the perfect channel to broadcast exclusive promos! Loyal customers are built over time, and if they deserve a little treat from you, you have to make sure they’d get the memo.
Pricing can also be the one thing that holds customers back. Target leads and send texts promoting a cheaper annual pricing package, a free month-long subscription, or a deal they can’t resist. SMS will always be the best channel for that.
5 – Upsell and cross-sell using SMS
There will definitely be products in your system that you can offer to customers to include in their package. With the right ingredients and a winning pitch, you can add more value to a customer, the same thing they’d add more money to your business.
While upselling and cross-selling are more popular when you’re talking with clients one-on-one, SMS can offer support as well. You can engage customers with a winning SMS upselling and cross-selling pitch, and direct them to another channel for the extra details.
6 – Ask for reviews and feedback
Customer reviews feed the minds of potential customers who are in search of your product or service, telling them that you’re the best in what you do. In generating positive online reviews from existing customers, you will need a channel that can effectively drive them to share their experiences with you.
SMS is great for speedy communication. Quick polls and surveys about your products and services can be done through automatic broadcasts too. For feedback sessions that would require more of their time, don’t forget to incentivize the good deed. Offer rewards or chances to win great freebies to make it feel worthy of their time.
Using an omnichannel contact center
Omnichannel goes beyond just using multiple channels in your campaigns. It’s creating a seamless experience for customers to make them feel they are getting one cohesive message across different channels. Texting is one of the best channels for SaaS sales, but it also can’t stand alone
A powerful tool like SMS would need a steady support system from other channels. However, creating this experience for your customers shouldn’t take much of sales representatives’ time and effort too. Use an omnichannel contact center that puts the right channels you need in one place while you manage them smoothly.
Aloware offers an omnichannel contact center system that supports SMS and other channels you need for SaaS sales. To know more about our products and offerings, you can always talk to us.
