Maximizing Lead Nurturing and Seamless Communication in the Tech Sector with GirikSMS and GirikChatbot

Ever considered leveraging text messaging to augment your communication strategy? Or perhaps you have recently implemented conversational text messaging and want to discover new ways to get the most out of it. Either way, our in-house experts have aggregated some proven tips to help your tech company swell up your sales funnel with text messaging.

What makes texting such an effective way to interact with potential customers? When used smartly, text messaging improves the quality and relevance of your interaction with leads, translating to deeper connections and higher conversions.

What is SMS Lead Generation?

SMS lead generation entails leveraging text messaging to attract, engage, and convert prospects. While phone and email are still the tried and tested means of communication for sales teams, consumer preferences are changing rapidly. SMS messaging for lead generation is a powerful tool for tech companies to connect with leads, nurture relationships with provide tailored experiences, that eventually drive conversions.

The key to the efficacy of SMS-powered lead generation is in its personal, non-intrusive, and real-time nature. People always have their smartphones on them, and check texts every few minutes, increasing the likelihood of them responding to a quick message when compared with email.  Text responses take only a few seconds and allow for complete convenience. Unlike a phone call, with 2-way texting, the line is always open, giving you a direct engagement channel with your prospects and leads through which you can answer questions, build a personal relationship, and move them through the sales funnel.

The Benefits of SMS Messaging for Lead Generation

While businesses are witnessing rapid advancements in technology like a stream of fast-moving clouds, the age-old method of text messaging still shines bright in the background. SMS messaging as a means of nurturing leads offers several benefits over traditional methods:

Unmatched Engagement: With an open rate of up to 98% and a 45% response rate for SMS messages, the equivalent numbers for email and phone calls appear meaningless. SMS messaging can help reps connect with more potential customers.

Personalized Communication: Sales reps can send tailored messages based on the needs and preferences of prospects, helping to build meaningful connections with them. According to McKinsey, 70% of consumers want personalized sales journeys and 76% experience frustration when they don’t get it.

Real-time Interaction: Prospects and leads can engage in convenient, 2-way conversations right from their smartphone, and get instant answers to their questions translating to faster conversions.

Automation Efficiency: GirikSMS allows businesses the automation flexibility of their SMS campaigns whether it is drip campaigns based on triggers, bulk SMS messaging, or AI-powered conversational virtual assistants. This allows businesses to automate lead nurturing, managing appointments and reminders, freeing up rep time for creative interaction.

Transform Your Communication

One common challenge across most tech companies is the need to connect with leads who are busy, distracted, and mostly unavailable. Phone calls to them are routed to voicemail, and they probably won’t entertain a call from an unknown number. Their inboxes are often overflowing with unsolicited emails, and they’ll be trashed quickly.

Despite all these challenges, when you finally do have their attention, it’s prudent to consistently follow up for a period of time. With text messaging, you increase the chances of them reading and responding to your messages, albeit at their convenience. Messaging paves the way for short and sweet conversations that can keep the interaction alive, even when your lead needs time to respond in detail.

With conversational messaging, you’ll ensure that not only do your leads see your text (SMS texts have a reported open rate of 98%) but can respond at a time that works for them.

Reduce No-Shows With Automated Reminder Texts

Product demos are key to acquiring leads in the tech industry. Scheduling product demo meetings can sometimes be a frustrating and time-consuming experience. If your lead doesn’t show up, the reserved time slot is wasted.

Automated text messaging from GirikSMS Salesforce SMS App can come in handy in such cases to reduce no-shows. With just a few clicks, you can schedule outbound text reminders a day before the demo and then 30 minutes to an hour before a scheduled demo meeting. And if a lead still needs to cancel or reschedule, they can do it over text in seconds.

With GirikSMS, you can easily set up alerts so that sales reps are notified instantly and have ample time to re-arrange their next day. Reps can connect with other leads to fill the open slot or set up some other tasks to do in the allotted time. With GirikSMS, your reps can spend more time connecting with leads.

Answer Leads’ Questions In Real-Time

When leads are evaluating your product, it is likely they will have many questions for your reps.  And since these questions are text based, they can come in any time of the day. If leads ask a question and don’t get a response relatively quickly, they will lose interest and look for alternatives. Here is where the power of Chatbots for Salesforce can be leveraged. Your reps cannot be available round the clock, but GirikSMS Chatbots can. With GirikSMS Chatbots, you will never miss an opportunity to answer questions or provide more information. Automated personalized text messages from chatbots can ensure leads stay connected with you.

You can set rule-based triggers in Salesforce for automated outbound messages. For example, if a lead sends a text to a rep after regular business hours, an automated message can let them know when the rep can respond. When a lead asks for more information through a pop-up on your website, a bot can instantly send an automated message with a link to the information they are seeking. In GirikSMS, you can set up automated SMS messages before you go live, and these messages can convey the tone of voice and friendliness reflective of your brand.

Automated messaging solutions from our Salesforce Texting app can also help you to quickly respond to questions from leads. With keyword-based responses, your leads can get quick answers to frequently asked questions. And if they want a one-on-one conversation, a human agent can seamlessly intervene and continue the conversation, all within the chat.

In a scenario when a rep is in a meeting or engaged in another conversation when the lead asks a question, they can send a quick message that they can respond in detail within the hour. GirikSMS supports multimedia messaging solutions (MMS), so your reps can send multimedia files such as audio, video, images, and documents to support lead queries. All the detailed information can be provided at minimal cost, time, and effort.

Follow Up By Sharing Tailored Offers

Typically, it takes several interactions with a lead to close a deal. Even if a lead is not forthcoming for another call or meeting after the initial interaction, your rep can leverage texting to reach out to them with a personalized offer that might nudge them to sign up. Texting is intrinsically non-intrusive and allows leads to mull over the offer without feeling any pressure to make a decision. Which is why follow-up text messages are more welcome than other methods of outreach.

When your tech company utilizes the power of automated and personalized text messaging, not only can your reps improve their conversion rates but also have more time on hand to be more creative. Text messaging has a high response rate of 40%, which is far higher than what emails can deliver. When you add text messaging as an engagement layer across all your communication channels, you can connect with your prospects and leads in more meaningful ways and grow your business.

Let’s look at a typical scenario. You’ve just had a prospect show interest in your offering. They filled out a web form, downloaded a brochure, and requested for additional information.

What do you do next? Do you nudge them for a closure right away, which can push them off? Or do you just wait for them to come back to you?

Both these approaches are extreme, and the ideal way is to find a middle path. The key to converting this prospect to a customer lies in lead nurturing.

Lead nurturing is the art of building personal, intimate relationships with prospects and leads who are not ready to buy from you yet. It is a critical aspect of the sales process regardless of the kind of business you are in. The goal of lead nurturing is to understand a lead’s needs, provide relevant information, and manage consistent communication until they’re ready to sign up. It can transform your sales process and should be part of a standardized methodology in your sales strategy.

How to Use SMS in Your Lead Generation Approach

While the immediacy and intimacy of SMS messaging might seem like a silver bullet for lead generation, it still needs thorough planning and tactical implementation. Our experts recommend the following best practices for SMS-powered lead generation.

Personalize Your Texts

Gone are the days when one-size-fits-all messaging used to work. Customers expect personalization in every interaction. Start simple, by addressing them by name as and when possible and build a human connection. Segment your audience and leverage CRM data to personalize your texts based on individual needs and preferences, past interaction history, and demographics amongst other parameters. Allow each message to resonate with them.

Enable Two-Way Texting

Don’t just send outbound texts, talk to your prospects by replying to questions, soliciting feedback, and providing personalized assistance. No one likes to wait. By responding promptly, you demonstrate that you value their time.

Build SMS Drip Campaigns

Audience segmentation holds the key to developing content that is coherent and getting leads closer to a sale. Successful SMS lead generation doesn't mean vanilla texts are sent out randomly. Plan automated, tailored SMS drip campaigns that keep your audience engaged.  Your messages should inform, educate, and nurture prospects to nudge them to convert. Based on audience segmentation, messages can share important and relevant content such as industry insights, product brochures, and case studies, links to videos, customer testimonials, and more to help build trust in your brand.

Leverage Conversational AI

Conversational AI might sound like a lot of work, but it’s actually quite simple if done smartly. With the right technology, you can harness the power of two-way text messaging to connect deeply with your prospects and engage in high-quality automated conversations with them at scale.

Take your SMS messaging communication strategy to the next level with the GirikSMS Salesforce SMS app.  Backed by 100+ man years of Salesforce partnership and 100% natively built on Salesforce, our chatbot for Salesforce leverages CRM data and offers a comprehensive suite of automation and AI features to ensure your sales reps have the tools they need to make the most of every single conversation.

Want to see for yourself? Sign up for a free demo today.

About Author

Indranil Chakraborty

Indranil is a technology enthusiast with over 25 years of experience in project management, operations, technology and business development. Indranil has led project teams in egovernance, business process re-engineering, product development and worked with Government and Corporate customers. Indranil truly believes in the power of technology to drive productivity and growth for teams and businesses.