How to Send Text to multiple people – Easy Ways for businesses to reach a group at once.

Owing to their high opt-in ratios, better click-through rates, wider reach and cost-effectiveness, it is an advisable option for businesses to use mass texting services. It ensures versatility and personal deliverability, making sure that the business can establish a one-on-one personal connection with the customers. It not only increases customer patronage, but it also increases brand loyalty.

However, it is pertinent to note that bulk SMS services won’t be the go-to option for all types of businesses. The use of the text-blasting services depends on the scale of the business and its text marketing needs. Bulk messaging services can be used to maintain regular customers, increase the customer base and can also be used to invite potential business subscribers and future prospects.

Before delving into how to send texts to multiple people using bulk messaging services, we need to understand how it differs from group messages. While group messages thoroughly concentrate on the number of people using group chat, bulk text messaging or text-blasting services concentrate on sending bulk SMS individually to each of the people in their inboxes. The greatest advantage of using text-blasting services is that it offers more personalised deliverability compared to group chats wherein all the people from the group chat can see the exchange of bulk messages. In the following subheading, we will go through how a business can choose to send multiple texts to their customers and some of the easy ways businesses can consider using these bulk SMS.

 

How to Send Texts to Multiple People?

  • The first step is to ascertain the scale of the business, the targeted reach of the bulk messaging campaign, and the marketing needs that the businesses are keen to achieve through the bulk messaging services. Their needs can range from expanding their customer base to maintaining a relationship with existing customers. Each need has a different outcome depending on the marketing goals.
  • After that, the business should prepare a list of its intended target audience and the purpose for which they want to engage them by creating a separate database.
  • The next step involves choosing the best bulk SMS servicing platform that can offer comprehensive solutions to the text marketing needs of the business. Choosing a platform like SendHub will save the additional feature costs and accessibility fees that businesses need to pay for their text messaging services for using advanced text marketing tools.
  • Then, businesses need to use the segmented target audience list. Firstly, they need to obtain express consent from their customers with a clear opt-in and opt-out feature after their legal compliance and provisioning are fully completed. Secondly, they can classify the segmented customer list depending on the need and reach.
  • Businesses need to import all the data regarding their customers and their relationship. Each sect of customers, like loyal customers, subscribers and prospects, is separately classified. Mass texting platforms usually have an inbuilt customisation and personalisation feature. The business can use this feature to personalise each or many of the customers depending on the relationship they want to establish with their customers.
  • The next step involves personalising and customising these messages. Businesses need to make sure that the language is clear, understandable and that they have used the best considerable practices for curating a text message. Personalisation won’t be effective for all types of customers; it needs to be in accordance with the context and relationship with the customers. Then, each of these messages should be imported into the mass customer database.
  • SMS marketing tools provide the option to import and export the database. Upon completion, the SMS marketing platform provides the time and schedule within which businesses can use their text-blasting services.
  • Accordingly, they can send their messages depending on the relationship they want to establish with their customers.

Easy Ways to Use

Businesses can use mass texting services to promote their new products or offer discounts to their patronage base. They can also be used to provide loyalty rewards and holiday vouchers.

In addition to this, businesses can use bulk messaging services to maintain a relationship with customers by providing them with regular updates through their newsletters, inviting feedback and surveys or offering special announcements.

Why Do Businesses Need to Send Texts to Multiple People?

Benefits of Mass Texting Communication

  • Communicative Effectiveness: Delivering bulk messages for varied marketing needs is one of the essential features of bulk messaging services. It guarantees express deliverability in a time-sensitive manner. In addition to that, it helps the business stay in constant touch with the customers. Not only that, these businesses can reach multiple people for multiple different text messaging needs in no time.
  • High Engagement Rate: With open rates up to 98 percent and click-throughs ranging between 93-95 percent, studies have shown the widespread engagement ratios of bulk messaging services.
  • Wider Accessibility: Mass messaging services provide wider accessibility compared to emails. Emails usually have a spam filter which makes the customers overlook the marketing campaigns.
  • Cost Effectiveness: The return on investment rates and opt-in ratios of mass text blasting services are higher compared to other digital marketing platforms. It cuts down the amount businesses need to invest in increasing the visibility and efficacy of the campaign’s outreach.
  • Personalised Deliverability: Bulk SMS can be curated according to the personalised needs of the customer. It increases the loyalty and patronage base of the customers in addition to spreading wings for the prospective inclusion of new customers. In addition to this, it helps businesses to maintain a personal relationship with the customers, adding value to their business goals and needs.
  • Versatility: Bulk SMS services can be used across industries. Healthcare professionals, product and services-related professionals, the fitness and wellness industry, banks and financial institutions, etc., all use SMS marketing services for varying marketing needs. Its communicative adaptability makes it a highly considerable option for business.

SMS vs Email for Customer and Team Communication.

Digital marketing services offer a wide range of platforms to promote your business. Two of the most common means are sending marketing campaign messages through texts and emails. Both offer considerable advantages and disadvantages attributable to their form and use.

Businesses need to be aware of their marketing strategies and time-bound practices that would align with their business values in order to enable an effective reach for their marketing campaigns. Hence, they can consider choosing between text messaging services and email as both offer a wide range of options.

Text messages usually have wider accessibility. Emails do have wider accessibility, but the chances of the messages being marked as spam are higher when it is an email. Email helps you send multiple automated messages in a single click without having to personally curate the required outcome of the mail sent. In addition to this, it has the option of using pictographs and data, files to support your marketing campaigns.

Once a thread is marked in an email, it is easier for all the people following the thread to know the reach of email marketing campaigns. Emails are generally used for large-type messages. On the other hand, bulk messaging services usually use short characters and shorter words, but it offers better opt-in and deliverability ratios.

In hindsight, if the business wants to send time-sensitive information, or send informal personal messages to co-workers, share important personal information, or set business and promotional alerts, they may consider using bulk messaging services.

Whereas if the business is making a new contact or communicating with a new professional, completing a business transaction, or transferring important data along with the communication of work-related matters with employees, they may choose email as a messaging option. Either way, the scale, marketing goals, business values, targeted reach, and budgeting determine which option the business would choose.

Common Use Cases for Bulk Messaging Services

  • Marketing and Promotions: Businesses can use bulk messaging services to notify customers about the launch of new products, inclusion of new deals, additional promotional offers or discounts and giveaways, and special announcements.
  • Appointments and Reminders: The healthcare and services industry can use text messaging services to remind customers about check-ups, appointments, availability, etc. In addition to this, they can invite feedback and surveys on treatments and services.
  • Internal Communication: Businesses can use bulk messaging services to notify employees about meetings, work-related deadlines, shift changes, announcements, or work-related crisis alerts.
  • Payment and Billing Reminders: Banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, and platforms charging subscription fees for utilities and services can use text messaging services to provide billing reminders to customers.
  • Community and Public Services: Non-profit organisations can use bulk messaging services to mobilise volunteers and funds for social causes. Governmental organisations can give cybersecurity alerts, citizen emergencies, election campaigns, and town meetings.

These are some of the common use cases of bulk messaging services and this is not an exhaustive list on the use of bulk messaging services.

Best Ways to Send Text to Multiple People

Manual Texting (Not Recommended for businesses) 

Every smartphone has an inbuilt messaging platform. Manual texting may be a better option in personal one-to-one communication over business marketing needs. The reason being individually typing text messages is a gruelling and tedious process. The efforts taken to fructify the marketing needs wouldn’t align with business values as there are high chances of mistakes. In addition to this, following up and keeping track of customers’ responses is quite difficult when it comes to manual texting as they don’t offer an automation feature. It also lacks a lot of advanced features required for automated text blast campaigns. Without these features, the businesses may miss out on the customer engagement aspect.

Using Messaging Apps (Limited for Professional Use Only) 

While individual texting can be limited to one-on-one communication, text messaging for professional communication can use the group chat feature. This is necessary for professional business communication because unlike one-on-one communication, business operations require coordination of multiple different departments, which may be spread across several locations. Hence, individual texting will reduce coordination efficiency and group participation in the completion of tasks. This makes group messaging apps essential for professional purposes.

In modern times, with people doing remote jobs, task coordination becomes a comprehensive goal. In order to mobilise this, businesses can use specified apps that are used exclusively for professional communication. These apps may be used to share important work-related conversations, remind about meetings and deadlines, and they can also be used to brainstorm ideas for business where different departments can pitch in to offer their views to handle practical business difficulties. In addition to this, these apps also have the unique feature of customising professional collaborations with real-time interaction among business professionals which can be accessed across the globe. One of the key advantages it produces over traditional means of online communication, like email, is that it enhances communicative efficacy among professionals as businesses need not wait for texts individually.

GroupMe, Slack, WhatsApp, Microsoft Teams, and Group EZ are some of the apps that can be used for professional communication. Each app has its own inbuilt communication features that make the chain of command in businesses more accessible to employees and professionals. For example, GroupMe provides instant communication through SMS or Wi-Fi connection, whereas Slack offers powerful team collaboration and file-sharing capabilities, while WhatsApp eases communication spread across the globe. Microsoft Teams gives access to all Microsoft software such as Meet, PowerPoint presentations, and business documents, which can be accessed by all the team members. Different apps are used for different purposes depending on the communication needs among the professionals.

Professional Bulk SMS services like SendHub 

SendHub offers a wide range of options for both SMS and MMS for your business needs. Before signing up for a particular platform service, businesses can use the 14-day free trial offered by SendHub to get to know how the accessibility and inbuilt features work to suit their business needs.The platform is accessible across Android, iOS, and Windows. SendHub has some proven advantages as it reduces the cut-throat clutter in sending both SMS and MMS by 90 seconds with an average response time of 5 seconds for every text message, with more than 8 times higher engagement ratios. SendHub offers SMS and MMS services for both inbound and outbound messages along with message attachment, analytical, and reporting tools.

Limitations of Manual and App Based Group Text Messaging

  • Character Limits and Carrier Restrictions: Group texts usually restrict a maximum of 30 people who can be added to the group at a particular time. WhatsApp supports up to 256 members who can be added to a group. While mobile carriers limit the sending to 50 messages per minute and not more than 900 messages in a year. In addition to that, not more than 30 messages should be sent over a period of 30 days to a customer. 
  • Lack of Tracking and Analytics: The process of individually tracking the deliverability of each message is a time-consuming and tedious process. Following up and data analysis is almost rendered impossible because of manual individual texting. This hugely hinders the communicative efficacy of the marketing campaign. 
  • Risk of Numbers Getting Blocked: Sending unsolicited messages can lead mobile carriers to block the messages. Carriers and data registries go on to monitor whether mass texts are sent in compliance with the legal provisions of the particular country.

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Send Text to Multiple People Using SendHub

  • The first step involves the creation of a SendHub account, wherein businesses can use the platform’s features in a hassle-free manner. Before opting for subscription plans, businesses can use the 14-day free trial to get to know how SendHub’s inbuilt accessibility features work. 
  • Once the account is set up, the next step is to import your contacts. SendHub offers multiple features for importing contacts through CSV format, or contacts can be imported from Android, iOS devices, or from Google and Yahoo. There is no maximum limit on the number of contacts that can be imported; however, there is a limit on the number of messages that can be sent to a recipient. It varies according to the subscription plans opted for by each of these businesses. 
  • The next step involves building your contact list and segmenting it to suit your business marketing needs. SendHub offers unique keywords and tag lists that can be attached to different sets of contacts. It further offers options for businesses to track the subscription, cancellation, and re-subscription rates of each of the tags. Upon entering the tag list according to a classified contact, SendHub associates a keyword to each tag. Businesses can individually track the opt-in and opt-out ratios of each of the tags in the classified and segmented contact list as they can visibly see their contacts grow. There is no limit on segmenting and tagging your contacts; however, the limit on the number of messages sent to the recipient varies according to your subscription plans. 
  • In order to send group texts, the group navigation bar can be used. Here, the user of the platform must create the group and import all the contacts that are necessary to that group. A separate tag with a keyword is assigned to that group. Then, click on the message button. Upon clicking, the varied purposes of segmented and classified contacts in different groups will be shown individually. 
  • Click through the necessary contact list and customize the message. Set the date and time to send the message. To monitor the efficiency of message deliverability, SendHub offers a robust analytics dashboard, which provides cumulative and case-specific data on how recipients have reacted to the mass texting campaigns. This data offers scope for improvement.

Best Practices for Sending Group Text Messages

  • Personalise your messages when possible: Businesses need to ensure that each message is personalised according to the relationship it has with its customers. They need to be clear as to when personalisation would be an effective tool. For example, personalisation without providing a business context or personal interaction related to a business to new customers will be viewed as a marketing strategy. The recipient may think that the customer’s contribution is not valued. Similarly, it wouldn’t reflect well on the business if messages to long-time customers aren’t personalised. Each message should be curated according to the relationship, and when necessary, their names should be added or special mentions of important dates such as birthdays and anniversaries can be used.
  • Use clear action-oriented language: One of the basic purposes of text-blasting services is to keep the language clear and concise such that it balances the business values with its text marketing needs. Businesses need to stick to the character limit of the SMS, which limits the usage to a total of 160 characters.
  • Respect Opt-in and Opt-out preferences: Sending bulk messages for marketing purposes requires a 2-Factor Authentication (2FA). Without express and clear consent, businesses cannot send text messages to customers. If they don’t comply with these provisions, the business may attract legal action and might lose its reputation.
  • Keep it short and impactful: One of the many essential purposes of text messaging campaigns is to ensure brevity. Hence, businesses need to keep the messages short, sweet, and impactful within the prescribed word and character limits.
  • Monitor performance to optimise campaigns and get to know the efficiency of deliverability regarding each of the messages sent. Closely analyse the data and optimise messaging marketing practices accordingly.

Why Choose SendHub for Bulk Text Messaging ?

SendHub is actually committed to increasing the revenue of your business by simplifying your bulk texting process. It offers several notable features which your business could consider.

  •  It provides unlimited group and keywords with thorough analytical tools on how CRM can be used to increase the subscriber base.
     It gives you bulk messaging options for both SMS and MMS services.
  •  Then it provides a hosted messaging service wherein businesses can send voice notes to customers if their landline numbers are interested in the CRM.
  • Apart from this, SendHub also offers SMS and API integration tools that make the use of CRM much easier.
  • Schools, Universities, Non-Profit organisations, Heavy equipment dealer groups, Recruitment and HR groups, Real Estate Agents all have comprehensive solutions for their marketing needs if they choose SendHub.
  •  In addition to this, SendHub provides robust data analysis tools that can be used to analyse the deliverability rates of the messages and the recipient response to each of these messages.
  •  Businesses needn’t pay any additional charges to use SendHub’s bulk messaging servicing features. It is included in their subscription plans.


 Hence, businesses can consider using SendHub as a viable option to start their bulk messaging campaign.

 

FAQs on How to Send Text to Multiple People

  1. How do I send a text to multiple people without a group chat?
    Bulk Messaging Services that include the likes of SendHub provide you with an option to send individual messages to each recipient without making the creation of the separate group visible to the recipient.
  2. Can I personalise group texts when sending to multiple people?
    Yes, SendHub provides multiple inbuilt options, keywords, group classification, and CRM integration tools that help you effectively personalise your texts to suit your marketing needs
  3. Is bulk texting legal for businesses?
    Yes, as long as businesses have complied with local laws and provisioning requirements like TCPA and registration with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of the country, it is legal for businesses to use bulk texting features. SendHub follows the compliance standards applicable to the United States of America.
  4. What’s the best platform to send bulk SMS for businesses?
    SendHub is one of the best go-to platforms that would suit your business marketing needs. It offers a robust analysis tool, seamless SMS and API integration, and CRM management services.
  5. Can I schedule group texts in advance with SendHub?
    Absolutely! You can schedule texts to suit your marketing needs.