Text Message Marketing – Do It!

There are precious few “no brainers” in the world today. Everything seems more complicated than it should be, and practically any piece of advice comes with a load of fine print. But here’s something you can take to the bank: text message marketing works, and your practice should be doing it.

What It Is

The concept is simple: check in with the people who want to hear from you via text message. It’s just like sending out an email newsletter, but you’re reaching your audience instantaneously on their phones rather than waiting and hoping they open your email.

But Isn’t That Invasive?

Well, yes and no. No one wants to get unsolicited texts from businesses they’ve supported in the past. But here’s the big caveat: you can very easily build up a text message marketing list of people who DO want to hear from you. And within this group, the response rate can be tremendous. Always make sure you get permission to text people, not just for patient privacy reasons, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Building Your List

One way to start putting a text message marketing list together is to pull your patient database from the last two years. Check the database for any duplicates and then send out an opt-in text message to the phone numbers in your list. This message can be something like “Greetings from Smith Plastic Surgery. We’re going to start offering specials over text message and if you’d like to receive these messages, please reply with YES.”

Another more conservative approach is to focus on getting an existing list of patients who have already opted in to receive marketing messages to agree to receive text messages also. Many practices ask right up front if patients want to receive marketing communications, and usually ask for an email address if so. And you likely get new subscribers to your email newsletter pretty regularly. If you have an easy way to match up emails and phone numbers, you can send out an opt-in text message like the one above. If not, you can still email your list and ask them to reply back with a number to use for text marketing. Of course, your text message marketing list will be a lot smaller with these approaches than if you ask your entire patient list, but you’re also much less likely to annoy anyone.

Some Case Studies

When we first started text message marketing for clients, we thought the opt-in step would be a big hurdle. Who’s going to volunteer to get marketed to on their phone? Well, if you’re like our clients, it turns out that plenty of your customers actually do want to hear from you, especially when savings are at stake.

Opt in rates from patient lists average between 23%-55% in our experience. Not bad if 1 in 4 or even 1 in 2 people on your patient list think hearing from you via text is a good idea.

One of our clients who recently texted out an offer for 10% off any of 3 popular medspa treatments saw 7 text conversions and 4 phone calls. Another client offering $1,000 off butt lifts booked 13 consultations from the text campaign, which represented almost 5% of his text list size. And keep in mind that the total cost for each text blast is a few hundred dollars or less. Engagement can match what you see on email newsletters, without as much time and cost to put one together.

The Nuts and Bolts

Ready to get started? Here are the steps in a nutshell:

1. Pull your current database of clients, no older than 2 years.
2. Craft an introductory text giving them the option to opt in.
3. Use a third-party texting service (we use Call Tracking Metrics) to blast this message to your database.
4. The text messaging service will manage the opt in process so you have a list that’s ready to use for additional text blasts.
5. Prepare your first actual offer/message. We recommend kicking things off with a pretty sweet deal, and it doesn’t hurt to tell your clients that it’s available for text fans only.
6. Manage intake/responses through the usual channels, plus text.
7. Plan out a schedule for additional text messages and stick to it. Your engagement rate will be much better if your text list hears from you regularly.

Is text message marketing going to revolutionize your business? Very likely, no. But it’s a solid marketing channel for getting offers and events in front of your patients and should definitely be part of your marketing mix.