If you’re an entrepreneur or own a small business, you’re likely familiar with the plethora of curated ads selling you on the “next big thing” when it comes to marketing. With innovation and information moving so fast you can hardly keep up, it can easily become overwhelming trying to stay ahead of the game and up-to-date on marketing trends or changing algorithms. 

While these trends are wildly successful and can do so much good for your business, at Subflow we like to stick to tried-and-true methods for reaching your customer and leaving you both feeling good about the digital interaction.

Question for you — what’s the most direct and convenient way to contact your customers to ensure you reach them everytime? (Psst. It’s via text message. 97% of Americans have a cell phone.)

Here’s the proposal — instead of spending hours on marketing that’s not guaranteed to reach your intended audience, why not go directly to the source with SMS marketing? And to that point, why not maximize the effectiveness of text marketing (95% of text messages are read within three minutes) with an SMS subscription service? 

Not convinced yet? No worries. Follow along as we cover the four major ways a text membership program or SMS subscription builder could benefit your small business. 

1. Customer Loyalty & Engagement: Text Memberships Grow the Customer Relationship

Here’s the thing: all of these new marketing trends (online courses, Facebook ads, Instagram reels, masterclasses, etc) have the same underlying goal—to add value to the customer. It’s no longer enough to simply be a business that sells to your customer and hope they come back. 

Customer service has expanded from issue resolution to utility and helpfulness. This means that customers are looking to be more fulfilled in their experiences with businesses—and the competition is fierce. You can’t always have the lowest price or provide the most luxury experience, but you can consistently show up with the benefit you provide to your customers. 

With an create SMS subscription service, customers can pay to receive relevant text content that will facilitate your relationship with them. This can be in the form of exclusive access, video, or knowledge content that informs and educates. The key to deploying a successful text membership program is to provide real value that warrants the cost and accessibility to the customer. 

By continuously engaging your customer in a way that reaches them and provides direct benefit, you can continue to grow your customer connection outside of the store or outside of your website and ensure that when they need something, your business is at the forefront of their mind. 

Cue customer loyalty, word of mouth advertising, and maximized business opportunities. 

2. Increased Income: SMS Subscriptions Create Upsell Opportunities & Recurring Revenue

Customer loyalty and higher retention can increase business revenue by up to 25%, making the business/client relationship that much more critical. As mentioned above, SMS subscriptions can create a direct stream of communication-turned-revenue that is advantageous to your customer and to your business. 

Not only can SMS subscriptions increase your business income, but they add an entirely new marketable and profitable product to your sales arsenal. With Subflow’s simple SMS product platform, businesses can quickly create an unlimited number of text memberships products—at no extra cost—to ensure you can create the perfect SMS subscription for every customer demographic. 

3. Decreased Customer Acquisition Cost: SMS Marketing Costs Can Be Minimal

Just as it’s cheaper to keep a new employee than hire another, customer acquisition is the same way. On average, it costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one engaged. However, customer acquisition is crucial to a thriving business and should never be disregarded. 

The solution—cut those costs! 

With the Subflow platform, users can avoid upfront costs and commitment contracts. With our package options, Subflow customers only pay for what they use, gain an account manager for support, and even collect and manage subscription revenue directly through the platform. 

4. Marketing Development & Deployment: SMS Membership Content is Quick 

With SMS content in general, the cost is low and the content is easily deployed. Instead of spending large amounts of time and money on a new marketing campaign, businesses can revolutionize their marketing strategy with SMS memberships. 

Numerous polls have been conducted to evaluate customer satisfaction with text message marketing, with results suggesting that nearly three fourths of customers prefer text to email—if a real person is on the other side of the phone. 

This is where your marketing strategy—and Subflow—can really come into play. While texting your customers is efficient and direct, business owners must be cognizant not to overwhelm their customers with useless or “spammy” text messages. This is a sure fire way to lose business and irritate your client base. 

With Subflow’s management dashboard, business owners can easily create text message membership products with little time investment or learning curve. The dashboard allows for two-way communication as well, giving owners or staff the ability to directly engage with the customer if they have a question or comment in response to a text message.

Request a Product Demo and Get Started with Subflow today!

While managing a subscription product may seem management-intensive, Subflow alleviates this workload by managing and collecting secure payments with Stripe, delivering content on any schedule and information flow you prefer, and conveniently displays text conversations for easy response and customer service. 

For a full Subflow software demonstration, click here to request information from a Subflow account manager. They will walk you through the platform, can answer any questions you may have regarding the Subflow SMS membership service, and give you tips on how to create effective text subscription products.