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The Value of Text Message Marketing with Aaron Weiche, Co-Founder of Leadferno: Show Notes & Transcript

Post | Aug 16, 2022

Welcome back to Marketing Smarts! From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini (that’s us) comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. We deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from our combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. We tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

This is Episode #106 and we’re talking text message marketing with guest Aaron Weiche, Co-Founder and CEO of Leadferno. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re exercising your Marketing Smarts!

  • Episode Summary & Player
  • Show Notes
  • Marketing Smarts Summary
  • Transcript

Marketing Smarts Episode #106: The Value of Text Message Marketing with Aaron Weiche, Co-Founder of Leadferno

Are you using text message marketing for your business? It’s a communication channel that traditionally has been kept to personal chatting between friends and family. But there’s a whole world of possibilities when you think about text messaging from a business sense. Text messaging is the #1 preferred communication channel, doesn’t require immediate responses, allows for proactive but non-invasive reminders and value-adds, and provides for a phenomenal first-mover advantage as a business. We wanted you to hear from the best of the best when it comes to text message marketing, so we welcomed on Aaron Weiche. He’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Leadferno, helping to create delightful conversations at speed for businesses using messaging to close more leads faster. This episode covers everything from texting to response time. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • Should we use text message marketing?
  • What demographics are best for text message marketing?
  • How quickly do you need to respond to text messages?
  • What should you do if you tried text message marketing but haven’t seen success?
  • How do I get started with text message marketing?
  • Why should I try text message marketing?
  • How does text message marketing compare to chatbots?
  • What does the first-mover advantage mean for text message marketers?

And as always, if you need help in building your Marketing Smarts, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

What is Marketing Smarts?

From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. They deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from their combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. They tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

How do I exercise my Marketing Smarts?

Thanks for listening to Marketing Smarts. Get in touch here to become a savvier marketer. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Anne Candido 0:02
This is Marketing Smarts – a podcast committed to helping you become a savvy or marketing leader, no matter your level. In each episode, we will dive into a relevant topic or challenge that marketing leaders are currently facing. We will also give you practical tools and applications that will help you put what you learn into practice today. And if you missed anything, don’t worry, we put worksheets on our website that summarize the key points. Now, let’s get to it.

April Martini 0:29
Welcome to Marketing Smarts.

Anne Candido 0:31
I am Anne Candido.

April Martini 0:32
And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about one of the newer marketing channels out there. And that is text messaging, you’ve heard us discuss various new approaches that companies are taking to break through the noise and get the attention of their target consumers. And this is one that we actually find to be fairly useful and successful, which is why we wanted to talk about it today. And just a quick note that we will be talking about a couple aspects of text marketing, and that’s both push and then interactive, or what you might think of as customer service.

Anne Candido 1:01
Yeah, and we’ve seen success here kind of run the gamut, right? So we’ve seen some people do it really well. And we’ve seen some people not do it so well. So we’re going to share plenty of examples along the way to really exemplify the points. Yep.

April Martini 1:13
And one more final thing before we jump in, we’ve decided to the point and made about success or not so much success with some of the experiences to bring on a guest expert on the topic of text marketing to help all of you out there listening, put it into action in a useful way that is going to be a turn on for your customers or consumers versus a turn off. And that is Aaron Weiche, Co-Founder and CEO of Leadferno. Aaron, welcome. And please introduce yourself.

Aaron Weiche 1:40
Thank you so much, April and Anne for having me. Let’s summarize me really quickly. I’m a lifelong digital entrepreneur addict. 20 plus years in digital marketing, for the last eight years, I’ve been on the software side, my first software company called GatherUp that I was part of with a few founders, we focused on customer experience, customer feedback and online reviews, we grew that to serve about 25,000 businesses globally, and exited that literally like two months before the pandemic. So lots of life changes real quick in a hurry there. And that freed me up to work on my next idea, which is Leadferno, which focuses on helping businesses have more conversations with their customers using two way messaging, primarily focused on text messaging, to help them close more leads faster service customers better improve communication and have more efficiency in their business.

April Martini 2:39
Awesome. Well, we’re super happy to have you. And I know, based on the conversations we’ve had to date, this is going to be a good one. So with that, we will get into the value of text message marketing. Number one, it is a channel that’s regularly used by most people. And this is one when I was talking to Aaron that I was like, da that when he when I you know, I asked him sort of the question about why text and he was like, Well, you know, it’s something that general population right by this point in time they know how to use and I know, and you and I have talked on the show before about things like chat bots on websites, and why those are not intuitive, and they’re not useful. And really, when you think about it, the beauty of text messaging is that all generations like we’ve said know what they’re doing. I mean, even my dad, who is well now 66 years old, as of last week, was compelled to learn technology and text messaging, specifically when he realized he was missing out on pictures of his grandkids. So now he is well versed and in tune and able to do it. And as soon as Aaron and I were talking about that, that popped into my head, and I’m like, Oh my gosh, there’s just so much beauty in the simplicity of that, right? Because we always talk about meeting our customers and consumers where they are. And this is a prime example of doing just that. And we know on the other side, right? There’s so much technology out there that we find our clients and their customers. It’s like this constant fatigue, where it’s like, Oh, come on another one. Another thing that I have to learn and then as we’ve seen, we go back to the example of chat bots, it’s like not there isn’t just one version of a chatbot. Right? So it’s like not only do you have to learn how to use that you have to learn it on every platform, or every time you’re faced with it depending on the integrations and the systems and the hosting and all of that that happens on that particular company’s site. And so text messaging, on the other hand, does the opposite of that. And I thought about this a little bit longer after our conversation, Aaron because I was thinking about the transition that happened with text messaging, because I went back in my head to the first time that a client texts me and how invasive that felt. And I was like, oh shoot, like, Well, yeah, invasion of privacy, but then also I’m like, oh, text messaging, I have to get back to them immediately on this I can’t wait right whereas now I feel like text messaging has relaxed a little bit quote unquote where you can have texts that you’ve sent out or text sitting there. And it’s not the mainstream thought now that it’s like, oh, I have to get back to someone on that right away. And so you can let things sit and sort of take the time to respond.

Aaron Weiche 5:14
You’re exactly right. We’ve done studies as well, that, you know, texting is people’s number one communication channel, it’s how we communicate with friends and families, our interests, hobbies, organizations, whatever that might be. Because it’s shorter, it’s more efficient, you know, just trading voicemails is probably one of the biggest pains any of us would have nowadays. And when you’re trading voicemails with a business, it’s like, even worse, because you maybe are going through a call tree trying to get to the voicemail box that you’re going to leave the message, then when they call back, am I free to take this call at this time, so that the asynchronous and the notification system and the, you know, communicate as you can, when you can and super easily for people, is one reason why text messaging, you know, has really come to dominate our personal communication. And now the business communication side of things. And when you start to break that down, you know, it’s all about making it as easy as possible for prospects and customers to work with you. So when you offer the number one communication channel they’re using, and say, Yeah, you can use this to talk with us. That’s just a huge win shows your customer centric, makes it easy for them to ask a few questions. And it makes it easy for you to get them in your sales process. Even if your sales processes, answer a few questions on text, and then book a meeting, book a zoom, get them into your office or building schedule an in home appointment, depending on your business, whatever that might be. Then when you look at the side that you brought up for a business, where you have that frustration of you know, what’s next, what’s one more thing, you know, I finally, maybe just got some social media mastered a little bit. And now you’re throwing something else at me. You know, a lot of these business texting platforms, including ours, we integrate with other tools. So not only can you receive and reply text messages in one app that has business features, but you can do that with your Facebook Messenger, you can do that with Google as a tool called Business messages from your Google business profile. So we’re looking to make that more efficient. And then the beauty since everyone knows how to text, it’s an experience, they already know how to manage on the business side where some of the live chat tools, it’s not that easy. And so we see a lot of small businesses, maybe you only get one or two users on it. And they’re the ones who know how to use it and turn it live and turn it off. And so you can’t spread the conversations around, you can’t directly connect people to someone on the team that can help them like you can with a business messaging app, or you can actually transfer a full text conversation to someone else on the team to pick it up. So across those things, like I really see it as a as a win for both sides. And those win wins when the consumers happier. And as a great customer experience, that ends up being a big win for the business. And as the business adjusts, again, anything is new, they get the win of efficiency, when I think you can handle somewhere between six to 10 text conversations in the same parameters, you can handle one phone conversation, so it just allows you to juggle more balls, get more things done and with more efficiency. And as we know, for most businesses, like running lean and not using up resources is always a big goal.

Anne Candido 8:28
Yeah, I’m seeing this more and more for those exact reasons. And yet another one being the social algorithms are really limiting exposure to folks who are really trying to build their community and build their following and I mentioned this before in another podcast, but one of my podcasts that I follow and my let his max out podcast, he now does text twice a week. And he’ll say one is on Monday inspirational texts, and Tuesday would be what his latest podcast episode is, you know, now you see a kind of pop up and it’s kind of an interesting feeling you get because it’s like, oh, Edie just texted me, but like, it doesn’t know me from Adam. Right? But like, at the same time, there’s a familiarity there. And it feels more familiar, you know, and so I think that’s where like the big like, the transformations happening with regards to texting where initially it’s kind of like, oh, this is my private crew. Like, you know, I make the joke. My daughter is 18 And what I’ve been told is like for that generation Snapchat texting is the first like level like that you get to and and then that person becomes like a really good friend and maybe you might go to the texting level, but or it might just stay in the Snapchat level. Right? So like so the texting is kind of like a little bit of a bar. It’s kind of your inner circle, but once you get to let somebody into that, it starts becoming a very, like easy way to start building relationship to so I like it for that aspect. But I wanted to ask you arid like, is this still like more of a demographic more for like like our butcher marketer, consumer Because like, I don’t think my kids like text at all.

Aaron Weiche 10:05
So man, you made some great points in there. Hopefully I can touch on on a couple of those. But to that question, what we’ve seen in the in the younger audience when we’ve done this surveys is they still use text more than like phone calls and email. Yeah, but what we see them into is more messaging apps, right, just as you brought up like Snapchat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger. So they diversify more where like, you get into the 35 to 54 crowd like text overwhelmingly, and very little in messaging apps. And then that upper echelon, that’s where you see the only one where like, you know, phone calls is still maybe a little bit ahead of, of text, but email legs across all of them, which I think is a really important thing to point out like I even in our article about that kind of pointed, you know, tongue in cheek like is email dead like are our email inboxes are bloated? Everything we’ve ever signed up for? It’s not something anyone’s excited to go look into their email for, it’s only when we need something or we know something’s coming. So text messaging is still in this really great phase of it’s not overcrowded, we can manage it better. We get notifications on on what’s there. And, you know, taking advantage of of those for businesses being, you know, first movers and creating that experience and leveraging it as part of their brand and their experience. That definitely is a big plus.

April Martini 11:30
All right, well, we had a ton of discussion there. So we’ll move on to point number two here, which we did preempt a little bit. But we’ll dive a little deeper. And that is, it’s not a channel, you must respond to immediately. So I gave the example of having that client reach out for the first time and where texting was, you know, in its maturity, the expectation I felt was that I had to respond right away. We also talked in the previous point about chatbots. And, you know, our feeling, and we’ve talked about this before on the show is that they fail a lot of times, because the response time is too overwhelming for the company to take that on right to have people and like you said, Aaron, the technology itself and who can learn how to do it? And then really, are you going to make it those one or two people that are going to sit there and respond to everyone and then people on the other side expecting the response or getting impatient? Or there’s some sort of programmed answer, right, that isn’t the answer 99% of time, what you’re actually trying to get to. And so all of that leads to a ton of frustration. But when we chatted, you know, we talked about the fact that with text messaging, you have more breathing room, because the social practice is no longer that you have to respond right away. And so you can give yourself a little bit of grace, obviously, you want to respond in a timely manner. We’re not saying that you can let days go by or anything like that. But it’s just more the point that yes, there are more people can do it, because it’s text, but also you can allow yourself a little more time than having to feel the pressure of immediate response. So Aaron, I know, you know, you have more to say on this. And then also, if you could give some perspective on what is that window of time, like, how much time do you actually have?

Aaron Weiche 13:15
Yeah, absolutely. And the good news is, I’m somebody like, I’m always so strong in my opinions and convictions that I usually do research conducted in data to back it up. So I try to balance myself out to see if I’m right or wrong and my biased opinions. But one, we ran a survey to understand what our consumers expectations. And what we found out with text messaging is the most popular timeframe was the same day reply or longer. We even had some that said 48 hours was okay for reply text message for the consumer to be satisfied from a business. Okay, small percentages 10 to 15% in like minutes and hours. But the bulk over 50% are like same day is absolutely acceptable. In my experience for a reply. We were doing it comparing it to live chat. In live chat, the expectation of over 50% of consumers was within minutes. So there was that immediacy. And we’ve all jumped on to chats like I’ll just self declare, I have never had a great chat experience yet, right. I’m either waiting for an agent, I waited so long, I went to another tab. Then when I remembered and came back the agents like oh, it looks like you’re not here and they left and not to jump back in the queue again, AI and bots, I’m still yet to see I usually kind of call it like glorified navigation. Right? They’re asking you questions. Yeah, they’re trying to route you to a page on the website that exists. And yes, that definitely can be helpful. But a lot of times why people are seeking chat or seeking a real time tool is because they want to engage with someone that can help them answer their specific question, reassure them build trust. All the things that we know in a sales or service process are really important to feeling taken care of. and that you’re making the right decision or you’re getting your problem solved. So within that, when we look at it, we see Tech’s play out really well to that. Now, interesting enough, a study done on digital lead showed that the average response time to a digital lead is 17 hours, which I think you’re just asking for trouble, right? And how many times especially with a small business, have we filled out a contact form? And it’s kind of like sending off a balloon into the sky with a note card? And you’re like, will they ever answer this? You don’t get an auto reply from the form, you have no idea if they receive it, do they answer? Well, they call or they email, maybe, you know, you filled out 20 fields just to get it off, and then you don’t hear back from that window replacement company, or landscaper, or whatever it is. So for businesses, it really behooves you to use something that’s more manageable and faster, because people want to know immediately that you feel that it and that someone can get back to them. So like with our tool, and important aspect is there’s an auto reply during your hours or after hours. So you can immediately reach out and say, Hey, we got your text, here’s when you can expect a reply from us. If you need other help, here’s an area to go or here’s how you can link to book an appointment or whatever you’re looking for the after hours one, if they send it at 2am, it’ll automatically grab your next open time and be like, you know, we’re not online right now. But we receive your text, we’ll start answering these again at 9am. Central, instant touchpoint. And setting customer expectations are so important with what’s there. And lastly, you know, I talk a lot with people on just being conscious of that speed the lead, you don’t want to let them hang too long. I tell most people like if you’re able to respond to those texts in a two to four hour window, like you are going to meet them where they’re at, and you’re going to make them feel good, because they weren’t stuck in a live chat window where you can’t move from your computer, you can go run your errands, go about your day, go on your lunch break whatever else, when the business gets back to you, you get a reply. Again, it’s that asynchronous, you get the notification, you’re able to see what’s going on and then reply back to them on your time. For the business, the really big win is right, the average time of an email reply is 90 minutes, the average reply of a text is 90 seconds. So even if you are not managing it to this breakneck speed, your customer is likely responding right when they see your response. So you’re automatically cutting the cycle of communication in half by being in this channel and allowing the customer to communicate faster with you, which is great for your business, keeps them engaged and keeps them looking for another provider other answers cooling off on making the purchase or going through with it. So all of those things combined. And all those numbers hopefully speak to like, this really is a great channel to be in to communicate with your customers and prospects.

Anne Candido 17:47
Yeah, you made two really good points. And I’m going to provide some some thoughts on one. My latest bot story. Oh, geez, I can’t I cannot handle but so I don’t know why you even try anymore? Well, you know, I guess I’m doing a little bit of what Aaron says is I’m like, I’m kind of testing it out just to make sure my theories are still true. Right. And they still are. And I think the three of us can affirm the fact that yeah, bots are still a long way to go. But it was on our GoDaddy account. And I’m just trying to buy question was, I have a question on my bill. And about came back. It’s like, can you reframe the question? I’m like, I don’t know how to do, like, reframe it any more direct. And I have a question about my bill. And so I said that again, he goes, can you ask one of these four questions? And so I was like, I guess I need to talk to somebody. But yeah, I mean, you made a really good point about it, it allows you to have that customized question, put in there without having to like reframe it into something that might fit into a category for the glorified search, I totally agree. And you actually get a better response to your question in a quicker timeframe that any bots going to be able to actually perpetuate. But the other thing that you said that I also was going to make a point about was, it’s so good for the business, like I was gonna say like, if you are a doctor’s office, or any kind of these, like service providers, and you don’t yet use text to confirm appointments, or like, offer to change appointments, or to remind people about their appointments or any of those kinds of things, versus somebody calling and leaving a message and say, Please call me back in order to confirm your appointment. That is the last thing I want to do is like have to like hear the message, then have to call these people back had to get somebody on the other side just to say, Yes, I’m coming. Right. It’s the most annoying thing. So I think all doctors offices, all service providers, my Massage Envy, who is where I go for my facials. They do this to where they send even you still have to fill out a COVID form in order to go there. But they send that all ahead of time and they’re like, Okay, fill out this form. That way. You don’t have to do it when you get there. Yeah, it saves time on both people’s end and it makes sure that the people that you’re actually hiring To do like the real customer service or like real work, that it allows them to be able to do that. I had a very similar experience at Microsoft. So when my computer died, I took my computer to some tiny micro center. And they’re like, Well, you could call us for an update. But we may or may not be there to answer the phone. But if you text us, our phones are with us all the time. And we’ll respond to you via text that was like, by far, the easiest way to kind of find out where my computer was in the process. And so much better than calling and like waiting, like, Oh, let’s see if we can find your guy. And like, I don’t need to sit here while you find my guy. Once I text you can go find my guy. And then you can like respond back to me. And the great thing about this is like, you can do this anywhere, like you can text reply anywhere, you could be like at a stoplight, you could be like we’re not supposed to text yet or stop, da, and then you can or you can be, you know, whatever your kids doing, and you can be going through and you can be like handling all those things. I mean, it’s just so easy. And so anybody who’s not taking advantage of that is really missing out, I think,

Aaron Weiche 21:06
yeah, tons of great points in there. To me, it just pops into my head, one of the like, high level things I try to drive home with people is like texting is a connection, right? You’ve alluded to some of the other comments and like texting is personalized, which is great. It’s a two way channel. It’s easy. It’s short and to the point. And when you compare that to something like live chat, where I refer to that is like that’s just a session, you’re just trying to solve a point in time, where texting has all these other benefits. And as a business, grasp that and they grow, they start to realize all these other touch points in their business that they can make better with reminders, follow ups, feedback, requests, review requests, there’s all these little things that can be done that are so lightweight, once you start analyzing and realizing this tool is really exceptional at it. And it doesn’t put a bunch of weight on the other person on the consumer or prospect and it doesn’t put a bunch of weight on the business. Once you start your mind shift and you start to see the benefits that it can provide with that so and you know, to your earlier point with like the podcast, sending out those reminders. You know, one big thing most marketers I would think pitch and probably a lot of your guests have is like owning your audience. And so when your entire audience is in other tools like Facebook followers, and Twitter, and Snapchat and you know TikTok, and whatever else, like you’re not owning them, that platform owns them. So I always tell people like, however you get a customer in, if you can convert them to text and to their mobile numbers, you can call or text them. Like that’s an owned media channel for you. That’s exactly what you want, instead of renting it from one of the big platforms that’s out there is such a

April Martini 22:45
beginner language. And you did preempt the third point, but I’ll allow it and that is allowing for proactive but non invasive reminders and value ads. So you just spoke to you know, being able to proactively reach out ask for reviews, all of those things are encapsulated in this point. When we said we were going to share some personal good and bad anecdotes, it sounds like Dan’s going to be the negative one on the bots today and always sure always. But one of the good ones that I’ve gotten recently and you know, we’ve talked about breaking through the noise right throughout the episode and and so Crate&Barrel sent me an update recently that said the summer sale was on piqued my interest because we have a new house and therefore new patio and I was trying to be smart and wait till end of season to buy the furniture versus jumping at the you know, the expensive stuff. But the other thing that they did in that chat which was to the point of making connection and something that really pertained to me was less the amount of award points I have on my account. So it was kind of but to my well we don’t need to get into that as an knows I am a Crate&Barrel lover so but in any case so it told me about the sale which is the more general message right but then there was a more personalized piece which was you know, you have X amount of dollars to spend on your account. And I think the accessibility and the ease that you just mentioned Erin and YouTube were saying you can do this anywhere. It was like oh shoot okay because what I would have had to do otherwise is log into my account, figure out what I had then decide if what I was looking at was what I was actually if it was worth it to buy it at that point in time you know all of those things whereas in my head it was like okay, I’m remembering this for later and when I’m you know watching TV on the couch after the kids have gone to bed I’m like oh the Crate&Barrel thing and going back through it and finding it right and so I just think that that is a really good example. The other one I want to really hit on before I turn it back over to you Aaron is this idea of reviews because I think it is super smart and a way to really cut through the noise. I mean the amount of shopping I do I know I sound like a shopaholic on Amazon just paid the amount of shopping I knew on Amazon, which is for much more of the necessity things, but now the amount of reviews I get requested, right? It feels like every single item that I buy, and I probably purchased 15 or 20 things most weeks on there replenishing things, you know, I have two little kids. And for almost every one of them, a review ends up in my inbox either from Amazon or from the third party provider. And at this point, I’m like, I can’t even look at those like they immediately get deleted. I’m like, I don’t have time to tell you how the paper towels that I got arrived, right. But when I get an ask in my text from my very tech savvy chiropractor that I share with Ann, and who she recommended, I’m much, much more likely to click on that because one I love Dr. Boynton. But also I’m like, oh, yeah, I can do this really quickly. While I’m sitting here, right, which I think proves out the point of everything we’ve been talking about. So I’ll turn it over to you, Erin.

Aaron Weiche 25:57
Yeah, the one point I love that you made April is really about delivering value. And that’s something when it gets into like if we specifically like, chunk off and take a look at like text marketing, SMS marketing, or like an SMS blast. Most small businesses are going to fail at this because you really have to deliver value, right? If Crate&Barrel was just constantly pounding you about sales, eventually you would kind of go tone deaf to that, yes, they’re including value because they’re reminding you that you have points and the sale will be even better. So like, that’s hedging in your arena. Like myself, I’ve subscribed to a ton of them. Almost all of them are deleted, except for one, I get a wine text one. Oh, yeah. And all you have to do is reply with the number of bottles because they already have your payment information saved. So it’s like, here’s our Deal of the Day, it’s 50% off this great cab, how many bottles do you want, and I just type dangerous, I just type six and in. But it’s the the point is is like that’s the only one that delivers value to me, right? So for small businesses, if you’re if you’re going to look at text blasts and SMS marketing, you really have to answer the question, how and when can we deliver value, and it’s likely not going to be daily or weekly or even monthly for most small businesses. Unless you’re a very, you know, niche, smart retailer that’s out there. I can see it for service businesses and seasonal changes and things like that it might work. But I would still stress to them, you’re likely going to be better off spending the time to do one on one messages, and connect with people to schedule a duct cleaning furnace maintenance AC tune up whatever that that might be. So you know, it’s really thinking through those things and understanding how can I deliver value. And then when you break down as you’re alluding to, when you break down the process of working with your business? How can I deliver value to the customer, so I’m always giving them a heads up, I’m setting the expectation of a next step. And I guess I kind of refer to it as like over communicating, you can use text really easily to always inform them of the next step. So like an easy example I’ll use is even though you know your business sends a text reminder, say I’m a house painter, and I’m just in texting finalizing the deal. And yep, we’re booked. Okay, here’s the date, we’re going to be out there and just you know, we’re going to send you a text message the night before and an hour before our crew shows up that day. So the text messages by themselves would be great. But now when you’re already letting them know, a week or two ahead of time, you’re gonna send reminders. All you’re showing them, hey, we have our process down, we have attention to detail, we’re going to make working with us easier. And when they get those texts, they’re not surprises, they still can be surprises if you completely forgot the painters were coming. But you’ve you’ve done that job, and you’ve solidified so much of that customer experience, and really made them feel like you’ve got your stuff together, and you’re making it easier for them. And when businesses really get serious about their communication, their experience, they will expose a ton of these touchpoints that they’re like, man, a quick little personalized text, there are ways to make it easier or way to make them aware of what’s going to happen. Asking if everything’s alright, at this step. Do you have any questions right now, I would just love to make sure we’re on the same page. Just easy and basic communication that takes seconds on each side and can make all the difference in being the type of business they write a great review for when you ask for that review. And the kind of person that they tell their neighbors, co workers whoever else that like they loved working with you like, here’s their number, just shoot him a text, you will be amazed at the process. Yeah, I

Anne Candido 29:35
think you bring up a really good point about making sure it’s value added for sure. But that always leads back to the question of why you’re doing it right and getting really very crystal clear about why you’re gonna go in you’re going to enter into text messaging because what we do see is because it’s a very familiar way of communicating as you put it out, Aaron, if you start to abuse it you You start to get people to be turned off from it. And we’ve seen our share of that as well, both from businesses and from people, frankly. Right. So that is something to definitely keep in mind. And I recently experienced this with PetSmart. So we when you sign up for their whatever, their porn program, yeah, though, you can opt in to have the text reminders. While these things come pretty dang frequently, like, it’s like once a week, twice a week, we were actually at PetSmart, I had totally forgot. And I was like, I know there’s like a coupon somewhere. And I’m like, looking desperately through my emails, I totally forgot it was on my text. Which I don’t know if that’s like good or bad. But I think you will, you just pointed out was like, it becomes a comes in so frequently. Now. It’s like, not even in my mindset of like relevancy based on like, I can’t remember that if that’s where it’s at. So there is something to be said about that as well. But I think as you’re going in, and you’re thinking about it, from a business standpoint, I like the different examples you gave about how you could use texting in order to facilitate your service, because I think the customer service and using texting in order to enable that is a really big opportunity, again, that I think a lot of people are missing. I think the people who do our service for our HVAC units, I know you threw out a pack units, but I think that is a good example. We use one hour, but they do the same thing. They’re like, Hey, here’s your the person who’s actually coming to your house, here’s actually what they look like. So there’s an element of safety there as well. They should be, you know, asking you this, they should never be asking you that they’ll never suppose supposed to be doing this. And that. So they give you like the little bit of assurance that, yeah, they have their stuff together. And it makes you feel more comfortable one inviting people into your house, and makes you feel like the service oriented nature of that is something that they actually are focusing on, and it’s important to them. And then the people of course have to deliver on that. But it does then lend itself to a much more a much heightened experience or much more leveled up experience than anybody else that I’ve like had a service call from for an H fac. So now i i actually participate in their, their program, they have a program where you sign up yearly. And so because of the way that they operate their customer service, and using things like text messaging, I have now opted in for something that makes me a regular customer. So

Aaron Weiche 32:24
they made it easy for you. Yeah, sure. Did. We all subscribe to easy like we want easy in every aspect of things. So when a business makes it easy. We’re on board.

Anne Candido 32:34
Yeah, I totally agree.

April Martini 32:36
All right. So we’ll bring this home with our fourth and final point, which is the first mover advantage, which I think we have alluded to a little bit maybe not hit on directly yet. But if I go back to that chiropractor example that I mentioned before, it popped up unexpectedly in my text messages. Versus like I said, the plethora of emails, I get asking for reviews. And so I was much more. It was almost like a moment of delight, where I’m like, Oh, I can do this really easily. To your point Aaron right now I can take care of this for him, right? Check it off my list. There’s another one that I actually just got this morning. And obviously okay, I’m more tuned into what’s coming through the text, because I’m prepping for this episode for sure. But I had a local women’s chapter here in town in Cincinnati send me a message saying, Hey, we have some enrollment open right now. Are you interested in chatting with someone about it? Also, we only send two text messages a year. So please don’t think you’re being spammed, right? And I was like, oh, yeah, brilliant. Holy cow. I was like, That is super smart. Because my first inclination was, I was like, wait, what? Because we’ve been looking at a lot of different women’s groups lately. I’m like, What is this? You know, but that communication made me feel like, okay, I should go and explore that more, right. And so I think to this point about first mover advantage, whether it’s, you know, whitespace for your industry, or whitespace, in this way, where you’re taking a step to say, Oh, and by the way, I know it’s a pain point to get a million communications, I’m not going to do that. Right. I think that there is just so much here for businesses to win, which you just heard and talking about. I don’t know why people wouldn’t do this, right. There’s uses for all of these different things. But I think we are really in this first mover advantage space that to create a sense of urgency won’t last forever. And so businesses should be jumping on it and getting involved in it. And then also to the point of that second example, going to the maturity or the next steps of it to preempt frustration, so that folks may have like email, like you said before Aaron, where I’m like, I can’t manage my inbox as soon as I can get somebody onto a Slack channel instead. So we can focus the conversation. As much as I also would say that that’s not the perfect solution. I’m there because I’m like, I get too many emails. I cannot respond to all of these. I just can’t. So anyway,

Aaron Weiche 34:57
no, true and The best place to start with this is understanding. You know, we’ve seen this shift text messaging for businesses started as appointment reminders, we’ve been getting those for years dentist, medical, things like that we saw hospitality embrace it, we’ve all probably checked into a hotel where we get a text, there’s the front desk, if nothing, you know, things aren’t to your liking, let us know signs in the elevators, you can text us. So we’ve seen these other industries adopt it be early adopters, because they’re more bleeding edge. But there’s just an incredibly wide amount that hasn’t done anything with this, especially two way text messaging. And so I tell people all the time, especially with my background in like reputation and customer satisfaction is like this is a great way to be a part of it, like communication is what leads to bad experiences. So when you can master that it just plays out to your advantage. And I talked with industries all the time, were like, well, our industry is behind, we’re so moving on these, I’m like, that’s great, because you can look at all these others and how they’ve mastered it. And now you you just need to be a first mover in your industry, you just need to be the one in your local market that’s making it easier to work with you and ask questions and have a better process. And that’s what’s gonna differentiate you and set you apart, you’ll become branded and known as that. And then your your competitors are going to have to catch up with you. So and then, kind of the the easiest way to get into it for people, one of the features in our product is what’s called a web to text widget. So you start the conversation on the website, desktop, or on your phone by asking that first question filling out just a quick, here’s my name, here’s my number. Here’s what my comment or question is. And that’s a great way for a business to get started. I alluded to this earlier. But once you feel that question, you can decide do I want to keep texting, or what I like to ask them to get on a call book a meeting, get them into my regular sales process. So one thing I always tell businesses, when you like, start with a business messaging app like ours, this doesn’t mean you have to do everything by it, right, it’s like, our first goal is to help start a conversation with prospects. And once we start that, then you can determine where you want it to go, we see most as they get familiar, then they start to see the efficiency and the benefits and like, Okay, let’s do more here, let’s get more into it. But dipping your toe in the water just by allowing first couple of questions to be asked over text and then you use your process to get them on a call, get them in a meeting, have them come in wherever that might be, I see that work all the time. And the customer is still very happy. Because it’s easy, it was super low barrier for them to get started instead of a contact form a voicemail having to make the trip and go in somewhere to find someone to talk to. So I tell people the opportunity, just as you did the opportunity is now I’m of the biased belief that in three, four years, if we see a business number, and we can’t text it as well as call, it will be like what’s up with that number, that’s a broken number, right? Like this will be the expectation and a handful of time. And if you start now you’re going to get those first mover advantages, you’re going to reap those benefits your competitors will be trying to catch up when you’re running in a state where you’ve already mastered it because you started months or years ago.

Anne Candido 38:10
Yeah, and I think what this sums up nicely to is the fact of texting, if you do it well. And the people who are doing it well are reaping huge benefits from it is really engaging with your consumer, your customer or client at a time and place where they’re very receptive. Yeah, right. And I think you had mentioned this earlier, Aaron, one of the other points was, you know, there’s an element about being culturally relevant or seasonality relevant, you know, if you’re in a service organization or doing something like that, but it’s also kind of being aware of what your consumer or your customer or your client, and those pain points that they might be facing right at that moment. And using that as a well relevant way in the thing that you shouldn’t do here, which I could see a tendency for some people to lean to, is to start using texting as a cold calling method. Right. And so don’t do that, because that’s where like LinkedIn is starting to become that way. And it’s one of my biggest pet peeves is now everybody feels like they can just message me and cold call LinkedIn me whenever they want, whether whatever they have, without even knowing me or trying to relate to me or be relevant to me, I’m like, You can’t do that in LinkedIn, you can’t do that in texting. So make sure if you’re going to reach out, you’re going to use texting, it is more relational, you are tapping into something that is going to be helpful for them. And you do that a lot. I like you said by having some level of value, but you also do it by making sure that the timing is right, by making sure that you do have something that is like kind of an irresistible offer to them at that moment in time. And then you can pull them in that way. But this is a marketing channel, guys. I mean, it’s something that needs to be considered in your full marketing stack, as well as making sure you track that back to understanding how that’s going to relate to how you’re going to engage your consumer or your customer, your client and In a very relevant way. So another way that I’ve seen people using this, which I think is very smart in Morbi, manufacturing round, which is a lot of times that people are kind of like slow movers to these sorts of things, is when they had going, and they’re doing big expos. So they’re going to be an expo, right? So instead of sending like a blast email to all of your vendors that I’ve seen, I’m saying it to say sending a text and saying, hey, you know, we’re going to be at the expo, here’s our booth, we really love to see you, we, you know, we can set up a, you know, a call or one on one. But we also have a dinner that night, we would love to you to come and see us at the dinner. And so it becomes like more of an invite are in a way that what shows up in somebody’s phone, it has a better conversion rate, likely than sending out a blast email just to everybody where everybody’s like, well, I’m one of like, 500 people, when you’re just getting to you personally, you’re like, hey, this might just be me who want to meet you soon, there’s more, but you’re like, I don’t know how many more right. And so it feels a little bit more special, it feels a little bit more intimate. So I would say askew on that side more than trying to use it as a blast way of like communicating one single message that you’re hoping everybody will appreciate and be able to respond to.

Aaron Weiche 41:10
But instead of better myself built build use it to build connections like that’s, that’s the name of the game. That’s what has not has the long both short and long term benefits for growing your business. All right, so

April Martini 41:21
just to recap, the value of text message marketing, say that three times. Number one, it’s a channel that’s regularly used by most people. As I said, this was my dumb moment. Unlike other chat offerings, this is one that most people already know how to use. Number two, it’s not a channel that you have to respond to immediately you have some breathing room here on response time. Of course, the caveat is just make sure not to take too long. Number three, it allows for proactive, but non invasive reminders and value ads, put yourself in the shoes of the consumer and where you can help them send messages that will be appreciated and helpful. And finally, number four, there is a first mover advantage for some businesses, it is a wide open whitespace be brave enough to take advantage. And our next segment is what we call in the trenches where we give real world examples specific to industries and situations but with broad application for anybody to digest and put into action. And you know, full transparency, we’ll lean heavily into Aaron on this because some of these are asking for specifics that we just they’re not in our wheelhouse. But the first one I will I will take a stab out here. And then let Aaron and and also add their comments. And the first one we have is we’ve tried text message marketing and have not seen success, what gifts. So I will highlight some of the key things to take a look at and then Aaron, obviously, jump in and add your in depth expertise. And some of these are things we’ve talked about. So puts a finer point, I think on the conversation. So the first thing I would say is are you sending your consumer messages they want to hear in the voice, they want to hear it. And here we would talk about things like providing assistance versus pushing hard for a sale, but also really, you know, and talked about the marketing stack. And I’m always the one that’s more on the brand side of things. And so I would say make sure that it’s an authentic tone that you’re using, that makes sense for your brand voice overall. So it doesn’t feel like a one off, it doesn’t feel inauthentic. It doesn’t feel like it does not come from you double negative there. But in any case, just make sure that you’re using that voice that would feel familiar to the consumers. Are you taking too long to respond? So we said you got breathing room, but you don’t have a whole bunch of it. So just make sure that you’re you’re being timely as it relates to the channel and all the stats that Aaron has already talked about? Do you have the right infrastructure in place to respond with the appropriate responses? So is your team well trained? Aaron has talked about throughout the episode that this is something lots of folks can use. But you have to make sure that the people that are going to use it, know how to do it. And then also that there’s a plan for the types of communications that will occur on text. And then when you want to move them to other channels. And Aaron, you’ve talked about this on the episode, also, and and I talked about this all the time of not being a one trick pony, when it comes to the particular channel. You know, I mean, I remember and this is dating me, because we’ve been talking about not wanting to get on the phone. But early, you know, in agency life, we would have folks that wanted to just send emails, and it was like No, at some point, you got to pick up the phone and call them right so you know, older example. But I’ll throw that out here. And then finally take a step back and learn from the data you have. We are huge fans at forthright people of testing and learning, addressing where you may have failed and why and then course correcting and then repeating the process of testing and learning again, we just got done talking about first mover advantage Well, first mover that that door starts to close, right. So you have to move on to whatever that next thing is a first mover is and you do that by testing and learning and continuing to improve. So you can be on the front lines of things. Thoughts, Aaron?

Aaron Weiche 44:51
yeah, so specifically to the first item and we’ve talked about this a little bit, but are you positioning yourself as an expert that wants to help are you positioning yourself as I want to sail? And so when you do small things like you have that web the text widget that says Have a question text us, instead of you need to buy today, or you know, you have to fill out this form. And it’s even in the thought process of giving that customer as many options to reach out to you, right? Not just all text by itself. But you can text us if you want, you can call us, you can email us, you can fill out this form, the consumer has the power, then that prospect has a choice to enter the channel that they want to to get help. When you add in more channels and the channels they use the most. Yep, you’re gonna get some big benefits from that. So strategically, I’d tell someone like let’s take a look at what that’s looked like for you. Have you used text in the past only to do text blast, you’re sending out sales or reminders, the daily lunch special, whatever it might be. It’s not delivering enough value, right? But when you’re using it to answer a question, they have solve a problem, do it efficiently like that’s value? That’s high value, that’s exactly what they’re looking for, out of who they’re choosing to buy from, or do business with. On taking too long to respond. Yeah, you want to create a culture where your team wants to reply and wants to help people in efficient way. There’s a ton of things to do internally with how you recognize people that are called out and feedback, and reviews and things like that. For some of our customers, we run reports to help them understand who are the agents that are handling, taking most of the leads and closing them and winning them. So that ends up you know, producing some competition there because they have statistical data to look at how 30 members of a sales team are handling this and interacting with prospects. Once you dive into this infrastructure wise, like taking a look at your process. And like now that we understand what texting does really well, how can we create these touch points? How can we create these little delightful moments for the customer that make their life easier, and really paint a great impression of the experience in working with us? And lastly, we have reporting in our tool to help you understand how many leads came in? Did they come in from Facebook, from the text on your website? what pages are producing the most. So if you’re someone doing content marketing, or you have specific pages breaking down your services, we’re going to tell you that that conversation originated from there. Even when the text when the agent opens it up, it’ll tell you what page on the website came from. So you have immediate context that interest Okay, yeah, they’re on, you know, this specific page, if I’m a home builder, they were on this specific model of home that we have on our website. So I already know they’re looking at something that is likely in a, you know, five bedroom five bath sprawling two story. So I understand what kind of customer that I’m talking to some instant context. So being able to tie those leads and see how many am I winning and what pages are producing them can help inform your content marketing and your SEO, and some of the things that you’re doing on that side, we also integrate with Google Analytics. So you can see all the different things going on with that web to to text widget as well. So you know, throughout those, it really kind of comes down to I think we broke this down perfectly. You have to have the right mindset first, right? Have the vision and have the understanding how this can be used, one of my favorite sayings ever a fool with a tool is still a fool. So you still have to have your mind, right. And so once you have that, and you understand the tool, then you can start diagnosing how you’re going to put it to use what are the best places? How do you get the most out of it. And then after that, then you can start to take a look at, alright, here’s what we were able to do with it. Here’s how we got more efficient. Here’s how we bettered ourselves. And then you start that continuous flywheel of analyzing, trying new things, testing and improving, which is a wonderful path to be on as you mature and grow your business.

Anne Candido 48:48
Yeah, and I think the only other one I would add is to check your back end. Right. So I think it’s really important that the people who are facilitating the conversation are strong, and they’re trained, and and all those sorts of good things. But then, once you precede them to the next step, is that the next reasonable step for the consumer journey or the customer journey? Or the client journey? Or did you just send them out into no man’s land again, where they’re like, where am I and what am I supposed to be doing here? So I mean, we’ll be fine that you know, even for somebody that generates really good leads, you have to make sure that you’re converting them. And a lot of times where that falls out, then is somewhere down the path. So take a look at your consumer journey, your customer journey, your client journey, make sure you’re not leaving them in at any one of those steps where they’re just like, I don’t know, one of my the ones that I hate the most when I’m doing texting is that they then when I send in a text, I say, hey, help me with this. They send me a form. I’m like, if I was gonna fill out a form I would have done on the website and like, I don’t texting you to fill out a form. I’m texting you because I want a one on one conversation. So make sure you’re also following what the tool as you say, not being the fool is intended to do and you know, it’s not just one of those things that you just set up and then you just like okay, I’m done with that I can leave it like a lot of people do with bots, too. So that would be my last one that I would add there,

Aaron Weiche 50:06
I realized that I mean, a ton of what we do is put out education and ideas on our blog and screenshots of text conversations, how to do these things, because it’s so important. And then we’re constantly trying to put that in front of our user base in our our monthly email marketing, and our blog posts and our social and stuff like that to like, help give them ideas. So they can, it’s just these little subtle differences, right? I was talking about when you reply, and you’re always outlining the next step, and also asking, Is everything cool here? Do you need to ask anything? It’s not a problem for me to answer. Those are the kind of small things that really go from somebody like, it’s great that you’re offering texts, and you’re making communication easier and faster. But that’s what turns you into a pro where people just really feel taken care of, and you’re creating an experience for them instead of just an interaction.

April Martini 50:53
All right, number two in the trenches, and this is all you Aaron. So get ready. Who are the best providers for this type of service? Or how do I get started?

Aaron Weiche 51:02
Yeah, you’re gonna Are you gonna make me name competitors?

Anne Candido 51:08
You know, this is what you came on our podcast. So you get to do whatever you want to go. Here or there your show right? Now, you can say you’re the best. All right, well, that shameless plugs are

Aaron Weiche 51:19
Yeah, all right, I don’t get that out of hand. You know, somebody, you can go in Google business, text messaging, app or platform, and you’re gonna get some answers. Hopefully, you’ll get a good understanding from what we’ve talked about, and what I’ve shared today that lead for No, we’re really focused on two things. One is making it as easy as possible to work with your business to start more conversations and to powering that with messaging across all the different steps in your business. So that’s what we love to offer, we offer a 14 day free trial, we see setup, take about 10 to 15 minutes, and then you’re up and running, you place a line of code on your website. Yeah, for the buttons, it’s, it’s great. And then you’re you’re off and running and able to start administering to it. If you need help training, whatever else, we’re there for it. But most of these tools should not be too steep of a learning curve, you definitely want to look for one that has both a desktop app that you can log into on on your browser, I love being able to use that because I have a full keyboard to text and write messages. We have a saved replies feature. So you can have templates of answers questions, things you use over and over again. So within a couple clicks, or a couple of taps, you save yourself hundreds of characters being typed out. And then you obviously want there to be a mobile app so that you know you can work from your phone and interact with customers and spread that out. So I’d say definitely look for those are some smaller solutions that might not have one or the other, you definitely want both in there to maximize and be in sync, if you’re in desk mode, or you’re on the go mode to be able to communicate as best you can with your prospects and customers.

April Martini 52:53
Awesome. All right, and you didn’t even drop a competitive name. So then on you,

Aaron Weiche 52:58
I was fair to the whole market, right? You can go and do your research. But I think at the end of the day, like go with somebody who you’ve heard knows what they’re talking about, and is willing to help. So

Anne Candido 53:08
cool. And I think that Fair, fair, fair.

April Martini 53:10
Yes. Well, and I do think though, right, like the criteria, because I think this is a hump in people’s minds and hearing you say 10 to 15 minutes to get me set up, or just reminders that hey, everyone text messages, right? So they know how to do it. I mean, having the right criteria versus overcomplicating, I think is huge. And I think that you can snuff out the experts with these just handful things that you’re looking for, versus I feel like in a lot of situations, what happens is that is the opposite where companies try to overcomplicate so you feel like you need them, and you need them for longer, you know, so hearing you say things like, well, you know, likely you won’t need training. If you do, we’re here. But really you should be up and running in 10 to 15 minutes. I’m like, oh, geez, okay, well, that sort of leaves me in the place. We’ve talked a lot about ease of like, why wouldn’t I do that? Because that seems like a really low barrier, especially when you think about how much other things take to set up and get a handle on in those things. Yep.

Anne Candido 54:08
Yeah. And in case anybody’s wondering, we don’t bring no dummies on our podcast.

Aaron Weiche 54:14
I had to go through the gauntlet to get on here. So I survived.

April Martini 54:19
Oh, god, okay. All right, the third and final in the trenches, which we’re also going to give this to you, Aaron, but we talked about some of these, but maybe just put a finer point on businesses you recommend do this versus others. And even if there’s any that you’re like, hey, I don’t think that it’s going to work for this type of business or industry just based on your experience. What are your thoughts on this one?

Aaron Weiche 54:42
Yeah, my like, 10,000 foot level answer to this is if answering a few questions can make you hundreds or 1000s of dollars. This is a good idea to at least try out right? Because it’s all about how do you get conversation started. Make that easy, build some trust and and get them into the process that you have established for closing that deal. Once we dive deeper into that, obviously things like that plays well into like Home Services, professional services, real estate, moving and storage. So b2c extremely well, that said, we have plenty of b2b as well were like, being able to ask questions on a specific service or even software goes a long way like this is how we answer questions off of our website. So we’re dealing with other businesses, marketing agencies that want their clients to use it other businesses. And it just makes it a very personal conversation where they can get quick and easy help before they start to up a trial. So you know, I would say, if you’re selling smaller, more rapid pace, low volume items, then you really have to be you know, committed to it. So possibly for like a restaurant, if you’re not offering like takeout or things like that, where you might want to text someone that their orders ready, or you have a curbside pickup, things like that, then it just might not make sense. You’re asking, answering all kinds of questions that are maybe easily available on all the different profiles and channels and your website and things like that. But like I said, what if your average customer volume if you’re looking at hundreds of dollars, and then you get into the 1000s? Like, why wouldn’t I want the chance just to build a relationship, answer a few questions, and it turns into a 2000 5000 $10,000 client that then can be repeat business that then can be referral business, right? It’s just thinking very broadly about it. And how do I get that process started as easy as possible. We all spend so much time and money, trying to drive traffic to our websites, through social media, content, marketing, SEO, everything else, when’s the last time you did something around conversion and getting the lurker on your website to be a lead. And when I look at this, like, this is what this is all about. It’s just constantly putting buttons in front of him saying, taking the next step with us as easy as a text message. Want to do it? So by doing that, you’re solving a piece where you don’t always have to work the top of your funnel harder. Sometimes it’s like, how do I squeeze a little bit more out of the bottom of of my funnel? And that’s how I grow my business?

April Martini 57:05
Yeah, I mean, I think, well, you just proved he’s not a dummy. So there.

Aaron Weiche 57:11
It took it took almost an hour, but I got there.

April Martini 57:13
Okay, you picked up on what I was putting down there. All right. You could have a little fun at this point. Yes. But I mean, I do think it is really important. And then hopefully people that are listening, I mean, that’s the holy grail when it comes to marketing, right of making those conversions. And I think that there is a lot of angst about filling the funnel, and how do you do that, but thinking about turning it on its head a little bit. And I love it, because this is a newer channel too. But also that idea that, hey, if you look at it a little bit differently, you might be able to catch people that are far more interested. And you wouldn’t be able to convert otherwise without using this channel, right? So I love the lurker idea of someone who’s on the site. And it’s like, you know, they may have come there are 47 times you might not have realized that, but now that you have this new tool in front of you, it’s like, hey, let’s ping this person and see what we can do to kind of push them along. So I love the idea of this one being a tool that’s further in the sales cycle, because that’s one of the biggest questions we get from our clients around marketing and the value and how do you prove out ROI? I think we’ve talked a lot throughout this episode about how with everything from the tracking to the ability to build a quick relationship to the point you just made about conversions that may not otherwise happen. There’s so many reasons that this is an effective tool to selling overall. Yeah. All right, we’re almost finished Aaron. Our third and final segment when we have a guest is to turn over the closing to the guests. So you get to talk a little bit more, you obviously gave a pretty good plug for LEED Furneaux. When we talked about which business or provider would you go through, you seem to be on a roll at this point. But just close us out any last remaining words of wisdom. And of course, let people know where they can find you and how best to reach out to you. Maybe by text.

Anne Candido 59:01
There you go, you know, you should call us

Aaron Weiche 59:05
there’s these two little buttons on Leadferno.com. You can either book a demo or start a text conversation with us. You might even get me on the horn, I answer plenty of them. So yeah, take that step, go through our blog, right, we have all kinds of articles. If you found this helpful, and you seek more education and you want to get more familiar on it. There’s dozens of articles, there’s research, we outline some of our features, get a good grasp for what’s there and start to visualize how this can help your business. If you can’t visualize it cool book a demo with us for half an hour. And that’s exactly the way we’ll walk through it and show you how everything works. So you can start to see yourself sitting in the driver’s seat of it and how your business would would maximize it. If you want to be a complete lurker. I’m super active on Twitter so you can follow @AaronWeiche on Twitter or even @Leadferno on Twitter. We share the stuff that we’re putting out there thought leadership wise and what we have out there. But yeah, I would, I would say you know if There’s something you’re on the fence with, like, brace yourself, I do think it’s going to become an expectation more than, you know, being exceptional with it. And as we talked about those that start now we’re really going to have a great advantage because they’re going to maximize it earlier and reap the benefits of being that that first mover. So maybe it’s time to consider that for your business and lead funnel.com is a great place to start with a free trial. Awesome. Well, thank

April Martini 1:00:25
you, Aaron, you have been invaluable throughout this episode. So we appreciate it. And obviously, it’s been a really fun conversation too.

Aaron Weiche 1:00:32
I can talk with you two weekly. You guys are great. So thanks for having me on.

April Martini 1:00:36
Thank you. Alright, so just to recap the value of text message marketing. Number one, it’s a channel that’s regularly used by most people my dove moment, unlike other chat offerings, this is one your user already knows. Number two, it’s not a channel that you must respond to immediately you have some breathing room on response time, just make sure the caveat is not to take too long. Number three, it allows for proactive but non invasive reminders and value ads put yourself in the shoes of your consumer and where you can help them send messages that will be both appreciated and helpful. And finally, number four, there is a first mover advantage for some businesses it is a wide open whitespace be brave enough to take advantage. And with that we will say go and exercise your Marketing Smarts. Still need help in growing your Marketing Smarts? Contact us through our website: ForthRight-People.com. We can help you become a savvy marketer through coaching or training you and your team or doing the work on your behalf. Please also help us grow the podcast by rating and reviewing on your player of choice and sharing with at least one person now go show off your Marketing Smarts.