Why SMS in community building are worth their weight in gold

In the US, SMS newsletters and SMS marketing in general have long been included in standard strategies for companies. But what about their use in community building? For influencers as well as for small and larger companies, building a community and exchanging information with it is becoming increasingly important.

Let’s take a look together at how SMS in community building can make a decisive difference.

Community building vs. marketing

Building a community has massive benefits for both companies and public interest individuals. When successful, the trust built lays a foundation for a relationship where a shared focus on a topic is paramount. This trusting relationship can also be a starting point for selling products you distribute or support. But the focus in a community is precisely on the community as such.

In short: It is okay to occasionally refer to your own products, but building a community should not happen for this purpose.

If you are not ready to take care of such a community, it makes more sense in most cases to focus on regular marketing first.

Advantages of SMS in community building

Communicating with your community via SMS has one very distinct advantage: no other medium is as close to your recipients as SMS. We receive them where we talk to friends and family, and most of us notice very quickly when a new message arrives. It creates a great personal closeness to the recipients.

But there are other factors in favor of the short message: SMS has an exceptionally high opening and reading rate and, what’s more, is opened much faster than messages from other media.

In addition, communication via SMS is easy to implement in a GDPR-compliant manner without members of the community having to download a new app.

All these advantages ensure that SMS can fully develop its potential in community building. It creates a personal closeness like no other means of communication and is particularly effective at the same time.

Brief overview: advantages of SMS in community building compared to other media

• Reaches any cell phone, regardless of model or operating system
• Is opened and read quickly
• Easy and quick to reply to
• Is perceived as a very personal message
• Easy to implement in a GDPR-compliant manner
• Highly scalable with the right provider

Get feedback via SMS

A lot has happened in the messaging world in recent years. In terms of communities, communication has moved away from a one-way “blast” to a two-way conversation.

The personal touch and relevance of SMS makes it more likely that your recipients will want to respond to your message as well. Being able to receive feedback from the community is not only valuable to you, but also creates a real sense of community.

To be able to receive SMS, you should book your own inbound number. This builds trust with your recipients and is the most reliable way to receive messages from your community.

What do you need to pay attention to before you send your first SMS?

There are some points you should pay special attention to if you want to use SMS in community building. Here we have summarized the most important ones:

• GDPR and other requirements
  There are various legal bases that must be observed when sending SMS. Other countries may also have different rules. So find out thoroughly in advance about the situation in the recipient country. In any case, you should have consent to contact the recipients.
• Data quality
  Individual personalization can only ever be as good as the data on which it is based. That’s why it’s elementary that your contact lists are properly maintained. Make sure your information is accurate and complete. Bonus: Validate the phone numbers you want to send your SMS to. This will save you unnecessary costs.
• Relevance
  Personal proximity to your recipients doesn’t come for free. People who provide their mobile number expect it to be used in a meaningful way. Therefore, it is especially important that the messages are extremely relevant to the recipients. This means not only that the SMS are personalized, but also that the content is adapted to the recipients. Most importantly, the content of SMS is significantly different from that of other media. If you send the same content as in your email newsletter, most people will quickly unsubscribe from receiving the messages.

SMS in community building: proximity and effectiveness

We hold: for SMS in community building to reach their full potential, you need to think in advance about what your community needs. If SMS are used wisely, they create an incomparable closeness, especially if your recipients can reply to the SMS.

A flexible and reliable SMS gateway supports you in communicating with your community and ensures that you can focus on the interpersonal aspects.

Make sure to try it yourself – registration at seven.io is free of charge.

Header picture by mauro mora via Unsplash