5 Benefits of Business Texting

With crowded mailboxes and inboxes, it can be hard to get a customer’s attention. Customer preference has changed over the years, but most still want to stay in the loop of current events. That’s why thousands of companies across the world use business texting to reach their audiences.
A recent study showed that up to 98% of SMS messages are opened, compared to just 20% of emails. Plus, 75% of people suggested that they’d be happy to receive a promotional offer via SMS.

Here are our top 5 ways to use business texting

1. Reminders and Scheduling.

One of the most useful startup business text links is allowing folks to schedule something and set reminders through text messages. Some folks rely on their staff to manually make phone calls to remind customers of upcoming appointments, or to ask if they’re going to be late. With an automatic text-based scheduling, you can remind customers of an upcoming appointment and allow them to confirm upcoming appointments automatically.
Your contacts would probably prefer to text than pick up a phone call anyway.

2. Payment and Billing

People are switching to online and mobile payment methods for everything from their bank accounts, car payments, insurance, and even daily shopping. If you offer financing where a customer can set up a regular payment to come in, an automatic text reminder can help them avoid late payments.

3. Time Sensitive Alerts

Event planners have been wildly successful using SMS messaging to engage and entertain their attendees. You can send reminders before the event, last-minute updates, and even request feedback after all your guests go home.
In the case of promotions, it’s better to wait for the biggest, hottest deals of the season to reach out in a text. Making that text shoutout is still a valuable attention-grabber.
You can even send out job alerts!

4. Text-based Customer Service.

Since so many are on mobile these days, and so many prefer texting to calling, there’s a good chance people are already trying to text your landline for customer service questions. With a good text-to-landline service, you can have those texts forwarded to a web browser. You’ll catch questions that were previously lost, and invite possible customers to reach out with SMS instead of by calling directly.
You can also just offer customer service via text message. Instead of keeping them on hold on the phone, let them text a question and send an answer as soon as you’ve got the full picture.

5. Order Confirmations and Delivery Updates.

While massive businesses like Amazon have the ‘Order Tracking and Notifications’ thing down pat, small businesses can also do their part in keeping their customers informed. If your inventory shipment schedule is a generally small, this could be a manual process. However, certain inventory systems allow you to integrate with business text messaging services to provide automatic updates to your clients.

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Business texting services may take a bit of getting used to, but they’re a valuable asset for any size business. Automating promotional messages, event alerts, and schedule reminders can take some of the burden off your employees, freeing them up to do other things.

Texting is a powerful communication channel. Now, more than ever, people want a more secure and easier way to receive messages from businesses. With nearly 50% of the 269 billion emails sent each day ending up as spam, is it any wonder that SMS messaging is so much more effective?

If you’re interested in checking Business Texting out for your company, give us a call and we can schedule a demo for you, or just explain the services we offer.

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Like these tips? Read some of our other free resources for local businesses! You can also reach out to us for other questions or project ideas. Our Lexington-based advertising team would be happy to look at your case and see how we can help.

Lexington Kentucky ad agency advice for growing facebook following

Grow Your Facebook Following With Paid Ads

September 9, 2020
By Brett Morris
In Advertising, Digital Marketing Advice

Let’s say you’ve already got your Facebook Business page set up. Already posting regularly, you’ve got some likes and shares. You’ve got a good idea of your niche and what kind of person likes your content. Sweet! But, your tech-savvy self knows that Facebook’s algorithms needs some sort of relationship to show your content to people. There’s a ton of people out there who will probably love your content, but you’ll have a pretty tough time reaching them organically. That’s where Facebook Paid Ads come into play.

Let’s start with the basics

What is a Facebook paid ad?

According to Facebook, “With Facebook Ads, you can create targeted ads to reach different audiences and meet your business goals.”

Facebook Paid Ads are a straightforward and cost-efficient strategy to reach a specified demographic. You can create and promote custom ads and content, then send it out to reach an audience of your choosing. Additionally, you can collect data from the ads that will help you increase their efficiency so that the next round reaches even more people.

How to build an effective Facebook Paid Ad

When you’re building your ad, there are a few important factors to consider:

Your audience

When optimizing your ad, you must decide which demographics you want to target. It’s important to know what type of targeting will work for your business. A broad and general category may work for some businesses, but others will need a far more narrow and specific targeting approach. Most businesses will benefit from a narrowly targeted ad. For instance, if you’re selling t-shirts with video game inspired designs, you may want to target men and women between the ages of 16 and 40 who are also interested in video games and entertainment. Facebook can use those interests to extrapolate on your targeting, and help you optimize your audience. If you’ve chosen your audience well, you’ll reach people who will want to engage with your ad and follow your page to know more.

Your compelling message

Your Facebook Ad has limited space, so make sure you’re communicating your message clearly and directly. Are you offering a deal? Hosting an event? Showcasing new products? Make your message relevant to your audience. Make it obviously useful. Would you rather eat a mystery dessert hidden behind a box, or eat a slice of chocolate cake? Innumerable ads go un-clicked because the message is vague, trying to use slogans and wordplay to try to inspire curiosity toward a mystery instead of clearly communicating the offer.

Don’t forget to give it a call to action! Offering a button that says ‘Learn more’ or ‘Shop now’ lets them know that there’s more to your offer than is shown on the ad. It lets them indulge in curiosity, or follow through with the urge to buy your product.

Remember to add an image or video! Ads with visual elements are far more likely to attract attention and engagement than plain text.

Switch it up

Why make one ad when you can make two?

Creating more than one ad gives you multiple sets of analytics so you can determine which ads work and which ones don’t. You can test different text content, different images, different focus areas. Maybe close-up shots of the product will work better than action shots, or vice-versa.

Even if your ads are working well, it’s still important to switch them up every so often so the message doesn’t feel stale.

In this example, S&H Farm Supply Inc. created two different ads, both promoting their Kioti tractors. One ad focused on giving a general impression of high quality for low prices, while the other ad gave specific details about payments.

While both ads got similar engagement rates, the one with specific prices received more shares. When it comes to ads, clicks and shares are far more valuable than likes. It’s not a popularity contest, after all. You want folks taking action.

You’re all set to get started! Facebook Ads are a great way to get your products and services in front of potential customers. Facebook has some great resources to help you get started. Even a low ad budget each month can help you attract new customers and find new business.

Although Facebook advertising is extremely important, creating and running ad campaigns can be a time consuming project. Consider using our local ad agency’s Digital Advertising services. Our team of experienced ad managers is based out of Lexington, KY and can help build a targeted ad campaign with messaging to really pique your audience’s interest. With our reporting, you’ll be able to clearly see the ROI and what you’re getting for you $$.

Like these tips? Read some of our other free resources for local businesses!

Breaking The Curse Of Ugly Website Design

Looking at local small businesses around Lexington and Central Kentucky, they’ve all made a wide variety of website design choices. Some of them were beautifully and skillfully crafted, and… some of them were not. But hey, there’s still hope!

In today’s digital age, having accessible online information is crucial for success. Just having a website isn’t enough, though. What matters is what’s on your website. How it looks, how easy it is to use, and how well it meets user expectations.

What Not To Do

Let’s take a look at what not to do when creating an appealing website, and I’ll show you what you should do instead along the way.

You’ve read this far for one of three reasons:

You want to learn how to optimize your website for the best consumer engagement and interaction
You’re worried that your website is ugly and came here for peace of mind that it isn’t
You had nothing better to do and the catchy title of this article gave you a few molecules of serotonin.

No matter the reason, you’re here for a solution, so let’s dive right in. Before we discuss any more, take a look at this website: http://thebiguglywebsite.com/. (Don’t worry, it’s safe for work!)

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Are your eyes bleeding yet?

We know your website can’t possibly look this bad, and we also know that this website is TRYING to look bad. Now, what are the chances you scrolled down to see what was listed on this site? If they had a link that gave out a million dollars at the bottom, chances are that you wouldn’t have walked away with a penny.

Consumers don’t want to engage with unattractive content. Think of your own website content for a moment. If somebody looked at it and felt the same way you just felt, do you think they would stay and interact with it? Probably not.

Start by thinking of all the things you’ve hated on websites you’ve visited in the past. Chances are, one or more of these was on your list. If they weren’t, they will be now.

1. Ugly domain

Do you find it easier to go back to a website with a simple domain like website.com (an example), or do you prefer to type in totallyradwebsite123.com/data0=184/net%/main%home%page

Or would you rather just type totallyradwebsite.com?

Google Searches

You may be saying, “But hey, I just Google the name and click on the link!” Sure that might work for you, but would you be happy having to find your favorite and most visited websites by Googling them every single day? You’re better off having a website that people can remember if they choose to. A URL that people can type directly into their browser.

A consumer’s first impression of a website is largely design-related, which includes a neat and tidy domain. An easily-remembered domain name also means they can pass on your website through word of mouth – typing it to their friends, or saying it aloud for them to write down.

2. Long loading times

The loading wheel of death!

Consumers hate waiting. This is the digital age of instant information. It takes consumers only a split second to form an opinion about your website. That tiny amount of time shouldn’t be spent on a blank loading screen! Even worse than that, if there is a long loading time every time a consumer tries to interact with your website or navigate the different pages, they are going to get increasingly annoyed.

Here is the worst case scenario:

You have a consumer in Lexington who is ready to buy from your online shop, they start gathering up products into their cart, but your website design was so slow they get fed up with waiting and instead buy from your competitor. Want to avoid the tragedy?

Keep it fast!

3. Complicated or overwhelming interface

Does your website have too many buttons on it? Are people being bombarded with information? People are being trained to ignore huge amounts of website content due to websites crawling with ads. Keep it simple and focus on important topics or focal points that they can engage with. With plenty of consumers abandoning a site due to poor design, you can’t afford to hide your crucial information in text-garbage. Don’t lose consumers because they can’t find where you hid the crucial information on your jumbled page.

4. Automatic music or videos

Many people listen to music while they work or surf in their free time. If you’ve ever noticed a little speaker icon on the right side of your internet tabs, it means that sound is coming from that page. Many people’s first instinct is to kill that tab because it’s forcing disruptive sound onto their experience! Autoplaying audio or visual content can cause valuable consumers to leave your site.

If you have videos on your main page, great! Just make sure you let people click the play button on their own. At the very least, it will give consumers a chance to silence their other music and video sources before they listen.

5. Website doesn’t scale

Do you always look at a website on your computer, or do you sometimes use your phone or tablet? Don’t you hate it when you’re interacting with website content on your phone and you have to scroll all the way to the right to read the full line and then scroll all the way back for the next line?

It’s terrible!

Make sure your website bends and twists to fit every screen—this is called responsive web design, and it’s very important. If people don’t realize your website actually operates differently on their smaller screen, you’ve done something right.

6. Irrelevant Content

Website content needs to be geared toward making the consumer want to interact and engage with it. The topics, therefore, have to stay on-topic to what your website is generally about! This is both good for web design, and for general SEO purposes as well.

If you run a law firm out of Lexington, then your website design should focus on law-related topics, and Lexington-centric law topics if you have them! One mistake many new website creators make is posting anything that comes to mind, which makes the site more confusing for new visitors. If you want to talk about personal topics, or opinions about local news, have a different site for that.

Your website content is one of your most important marketing tools. Whether or not people engage can mean the difference between one dollar and one million dollars in revenue. Whether you live in Lexington, Lancaster, or a little lake town, it’s worth it to take the time to make your website design beautiful.

If you liked this article, check out our other articles on business tips for website design, marketing, advertising, and social media. You can also reach out to us here or on Facebook for questions or project ideas.

Tag : digital ad agency lexington kentucky