Chad: So let's talk about your client base.
You have huge brands with millions and millions of subscribers on their lists, and when they're
doing campaigns, it's a lot of messages getting sent at one time.
And Tatango is able to offer their services because you have high throughput, right?
You can make sure that millions of messages are delivered in a really short period of
time.
For the little guys out there, whether it's, you know, dance studio owners, yoga studios,
dental practices, what are some of the things that you have seen as best practices from
these big brands that we could leverage and use in our businesses right away?
Derek: I think, number one, and I tell this to kind of every entrepreneur looking at marketing,
a lot of people come to me, we have a great YouTube channel that has a lot of text message
marketing stuff, and a lot of people come to me and go, "Oh, I want my own YouTube channel."
Why do you want a YouTube channel?
Like, what's the point?
What's the value there?
I don't recommend mass texting the way we do it for every single brand, but I do recommend
some form of texting for every single brand.
So I think that's the first thing is to figure out what you're looking for.
So, if you're a barber shop or something, maybe having the ability for people to text
you, like, I need a haircut right now because of corona.
I want to text into the barbershop and just start a conversation and book my barbershop
appointment.
That would be more of a company like Zipwhip, they do the text message chat.
If you are a retail, restaurant, something that you could send out a message two, three
times a week and no one would opt out and you could offer some kind of discount promotion
coupon, then you want to look into the mass messaging.
Then there's also the people that maybe they have a mobile app like Uber and they just
need to send a text message when your car is outside, that would be more like a Twilio.
So, you really first have to figure out what you're looking for in the texting.
And then if you want to do mass messaging and the hardest part about mass messaging,
and this is why I say also figure out first kind of how your customers want to interact
with you because mass messaging, you have to get a consumer to opt-in to receive your
text messages.
The opt-in is the hardest thing to get from a consumer because you're essentially taking
their phone number and saying, "Hey, can I text message you in the future?"
And a lot of consumers are like, no, I only reserve that for my friends and family and
maybe one or two brands that I'm obsessed with.
So you're trying to get in, you're trying to slide in the DM as I tried to say for that
consumer.
So if you're like, I hate throwing them under the bus, but like if you're a hot tub dealership,
you sell hot tubs, like I don't think personally I'm going to opt-in to hear from a hot tub
dealership three times a week, like in a mass message.
Car dealerships, maybe for service, but I don't want to hear about the brand new Ford
every week for the next three years, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
But a restaurant, retail, eCommerce, even sports teams, like sending out sports scores
or ticket discounts would be really interesting.
So, again, the first thing is getting that opt-in.
Now, the number one thing I honestly tell people, if you're not willing to do this,
just don't do mass texting cause it won't work for you, is to incentivize the opt-in.
So what I mean by this is, if you say, if you have a big banner outside your restaurant
and it says, "Join our SMS club for the best discounts in town," that would get some people
to opt-in, but honestly, it's not going to grow your list any bit as fast as really you
need for the ROI to make sense for you.
If you're paying kind of per month on the software and then you're paying per message,
what you have to do is you have to incentivize the opt-in.
That usually means get 20% off your next purchase, get a free cookie, if you sell cookies on
the side or something, or a free drink, or an upgrade.
So the way that you structure it, and it's very simple and I tell every single person
from the biggest brand to the smallest brand, is you say the incentive first, so I'm just
gonna paint it kind of up here, you say, "Get a free cookie."
That should be the biggest freaking thing on that sign, because it attracts people.
You see this with McDonald's advertising, they say, "Supersize" and then they explain
kind of how to get the supersize, but they say supersize upfront.
So you say, "Get a free cookie," okay?
That's the promo.
Then you say the qualifier, "When you join our mobile campaign" or SMS VIP club, whatever
you call it, I really haven't seen that much difference in terms of opt-in rates if you
call it really anything, so call whatever you want.
Now, be clear about that they're opting in obviously.
So really, really big.
Let's say font 50 plus here for the incentive and then font 20 for when you join our mobile
club, and then below it are the instructions, text whatever pizza to 12345.
And then below that all the legal CTIA wireless carrier stuff.
Don't deviate from that.
Like, that works so well for every kind of brand just do exactly what I told you.
There's templates online and they kind of mimic that.
But you have to incentivize the opt-in and then make sure your advertising kind of jives
with what you just the incentivized opt-in.
Once that happens, the rest is kind of you'll build a big list, send out valuable messages.
So don't send out, like today it's sunny out, don't be like, "Hey, it's Bob's burgers, it's
sunny out you should come by."
People will be like, "Man, I gave you my phone number and you're just sending me random messages."
This is a really good relationship with this consumer, so here's 20% off.
Whatever works for your business, a lot of people think you just got to give 20% off
or a dollar off.
Maybe it's bring three friends and you eat for free.
Like don't feel like you have to kind of just always give discounts.
It could also be it's sunny out, not during corona, but like it could be, "Hey, bring
five friends and you get priority seating."
Anything like that.
But there has to be some value and I do not recommend copying what you're posting on Facebook,
email, social, because people then are going, "Well, why don't I just take back my phone
number, I opt out and I just go on the public website and I can see it right there, in the
public square on Facebook or Twitter."
Like, the relationship and owning that direct communication channel with the consumer and
their phone number is something that has to be like, it's like owning or having a relationship
with a credit card, you have to take it very, very seriously, it's a lot of responsibility.
Chad: You know what?
And what I've been saying, by the way, that was some gold right there.
Derek: I've been doing it for a while.
Chad: With that number one, I mean, so, before I get into the value of what the list is,
let's just recap something that you said and something that people should take away with.
That first thing, whether it's get a free pizza or get something, whatever the offer
is, or like do you want this, that first yes in someone's head is so important because
psychologically they just made a micro commitment and now they're like, "Okay, definitely want
that thing" and then it's like step two, text this to this.
"Okay, well, I 100% want that thing, so, I'm gonna text this to this to receive it."
And you could see why that would be such a powerful motivator for people.
Derek: And you do have a lot of smaller businesses.
They get a little concerned with discounting because they're like, well, what if people
just opt-in to get the promo and then they opt-out?
We did a study way, way back when we did more kind of small business texting and I think
we found it was like 2.8% 3% of people will opt-in, opt-out, just factor that into your
costs.
I would never recommend doing, I've seen some brands do this, they'll send the discount
like 24 hours later, I just feel like that's kind of like a gotcha bait and switch kind
of thing.
Like, again, it's the phone number, you gotta be very, very cautious about respecting that.
Chad: You have to reward those that are gonna say yes and give up the phone number, those
are your VIPs, right?