My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.
I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.
Aircam – is a real-time, AI-powered platform that provides professional business photos for multi-location businesses at an affordable price.
Ludwig.guru – is a linguistic search engine that helps you find the perfect word or sentence to express your ideas. Essentially, it helps you write better English in an easy and smart way.
Wizenguides – Essential strategy guides for the busy startup founder. These online guides were built to help entrepreneurs avoid common mistakes and take guessing out of their work.
These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me@ducttape
from Duct Tape Marketing https://ift.tt/zFVdYM4
via IFTTT
Want to get going right away? Click here to sign up forWebiMaxand start building your SEO reputation strategy today.
Whether you’re battling negative publicity or building an online brand reputation from scratch, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important part of your online reputation strategy.
Good SEO is what launches your positive content to the top of Google search results. We all want that! The more of the top spots your brand occupies with positive content, the more great things prospective customers see about your business.
All that positive content also helps push any negative content about your business to page two and beyond—where few searchers ever bother to look.
Creating and executing a solid SEO strategy is part of your overall reputation management program, and it takes a lot of hard work. Read on to learn how to make it happen.
The Top Online Reputation Management Companies for SEO Reputation Management
Building a successful SEO management strategy takes time, skill, and relentless effort. Most businesses don’t have the knowledge or skills to do it well on their own.
That’s where online reputation management companies come in. Here are the best on the market today.
WebiMax — Best for small businesses that need a hands-on solution
NetReputation – Best for ultra-responsive customer support
InternetReputation.com – Best for personal reputation management
Reputation Defense Network — Best for permanently removing false content from the web
Podium — Best for getting reviews automatically
SEO Image — Best for legal and medical practices
Gadook — Best for rebranding after reputation attacks
BirdEye — Best for getting Google and Facebook reviews
Reputation.com — Best for knowing your competition’s reputation
Go Fish Digital — Best for improving Yelp reviews
Netmark.com — Best for hands-off, fast responses to reputation hits
Four Steps to Winning at SEO Reputation Management
Owning page one of Google results with positive content is the core goal of any SEO reputation management strategy. When your positive content ranks in all the top spots, it reassures consumers that your brand is one they want to do business with.
And if your brand is suffering from some negative publicity? Good SEO also helps push any negative information about your business deep into search results where nobody tends to look. Out of sight, out of mind.
But this doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a coordinated plan. Here are the steps to take to make your efforts successful.
We’ll walk you through each of these steps later in this article.
The Easy Parts of SEO Reputation Management
Hit the ground running with your SEO reputation management program by going after the low-hanging fruit first. The lowest-hanging of this fruit is social media—it’s easy to set up, popular with consumers, and helps round out your brand without a ton of effort.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok are the big ones to consider. Whether you set up profiles on all or only some of these channels will depend on the nature of your business.
However, you want to set up at least some, since social media pages tend to show up high in search results. Your social profiles are also where potential customers will go to find information about your brand and even leave reviews.
Right next to social media on that low tree branch is Google Alerts. Setting up alerts is easy to do and gives you nearly immediate notice when your business is mentioned on the web.
You can set your alert to deliver notifications weekly, daily, or as they happen. Finding out as soon as possible when your business is mentioned online gives you the best shot at dealing with negative information fast.
Of course, for anyone who wants to leave reputation repair to the professionals, there are countless services to help. One we think very highly of is WebiMax. They deliver proven and measurable results for clients in a broad range of industries.
WebiMax is an expert at helping businesses with reputation management and digital marketing efforts. WebiMax solutions are always customized for each client. The agency never takes a one-size-fits-all approach.
WebiMax also incorporates a non-disclosure agreement into every working relationship. This means nobody will ever know you’re using a third party for reputation management.
And WebiMax offers a free reputation analysis service to identify exactly what type of help your brand needs. They’ll create a timeline for reaching your goals, a summary of the existing positive and negative online content already out there, an analysis of your unclaimed online profiles, and a price quote.
The Difficult Parts of SEO Reputation Management
It’s one thing to set up your social profiles. It is quite another to effectively manage them day in and day out. While social channels are not directly SEO-related, they are favored by Google high in search results, which is where you want to be.
You need to manage your social channels appropriately to secure these coveted top spots. Effectively managing social channels is a full-time role for many businesses, and requires a specialized skill set.
The same goes for SEO. Effectively incorporating it into your content is another big hurdle for many businesses. This includes optimizing your website, doing deep keyword research, creating content that incorporates those keyword results, monitoring performance, and publishing new, fresh content regularly—content that is reader-friendly and based on your keyword research. This is another specialized area that requires knowledge and experience to do well.
If all of this work sounds intimidating, you aren’t alone. Many businesses, especially those that lack in-house resources and expertise to tackle these tasks, seek out the help of SEO experts at online reputation management companies to assist with these important tasks.
A full-service company, like WebiMax, can seamlessly manage all facets of SEO, including keyword research and analysis, content creation, and website optimization.
WebiMax is a complete digital marketing agency. Its team is experienced in handling all aspects of building and maintaining a rock-solid SEO strategy.
Step 1: Build Up Your Social Media Presence
If you think social media channels are just a fun way to connect with friends and find the cutest cat pictures, think again. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other popular channels are all powerful tools for building and maintaining your brand visibility.
Google combs social sites and displays results—usually at the top of the first page—when they find good content. If you don’t have your business profiled on all the social channels that make sense for your brand—and populate your channels with great content—you’re giving up an opportunity to show up in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Claim your social media pages
First things first, pick the social channels that make the most sense for your business. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all great for almost every type of business, and you usually can’t go wrong with profiles on both.
Whether you leverage Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and other channels depends on the nature of your business—and the type of content you plan to produce. I’ll talk more about content later.
Create your accounts and add as much information as possible on each. At a minimum, make it easy for potential customers to know how to contact you, find out when you’re open, and learn what products or services you offer.
Post On Social Media Regularly
Once your channels are up and running, you must start publishing on them. What you publish is up to you, but some ideas for building follower interaction is information about your products, industry-related news, and advertisements about specials or sales.
The point is to give your followers something to engage with and to gain new followers, too. If you set up a profile but do nothing with it, not many people will find you. The ones that do will quickly lose interest. Even worse is that your company will look inactive, giving the impression that you may not even be in business anymore. Yikes.
Engage With Your Followers
You’re posting great content regularly and people are starting to like and comment on your posts. Congratulations! But don’t stop there. You also must engage with your followers to keep up momentum and interest.
Respond to comments. Ask follow-up questions. Thank them for taking the time to respond. The point is to create conversations with followers, since these people may well turn into customers. If followers feel like they’re commenting in a vacuum, they’ll lose interest. Eventually they’ll disappear and likely show up on your competitor’s pages.
People will also look for your social media presence in order to leave reviews. Hopefully all the reviews that are left on your social media channels will be glowing and positive. But sometimes you’ll get a negative review. It’s part of running a business. Yet it is equally important to substantively respond to the negative stuff as the positive.
Readers will judge your business by how it deals with negative reviews. While you can’t get rid of the negative reviews, you can mitigate them by offering professional, problem-solving responses that show you genuinely care about customer satisfaction.
Step 2: Optimize Your Website
Here’s where the heavy lifting really starts. Unless you have an internal team of skilled website builders and SEO experts on hand, optimizing the pages of your website can be a daunting proposition. But it is an important element in your efforts to dominate the first page of Google search results.
As much as we might wish, it isn’t enough to simply sprinkle keywords across your entire site. You have to be strategic in your approach.
Why? Because in an effort to promote search result diversity, Google only allows up to two web pages from your site to display in any Google organic search results. So it pays to diversify your SEO strategy across your website and choose with care which keywords to use on each page.
Besides figuring out this kind of keyword strategy, there are other website elements you have to deal with, too. Things like load speed, internal and external linking, image size and quality, high-quality content, and a mobile-optimized experience are just a few of the additional considerations you must consider.
As I said before, it takes a team of professionals to make this work. If you don’t have one in-house, I highly recommend you enlist the help of a professional company like WebiMax. They’ll ensure your website is set up for Google search success.
As a digital marketing agency with vast experience in this realm, the WebiMax team will get your website built, optimized, and tested in no time.
Step 3: Make the Most of Google
Like it or not, Google is a dominant force when it comes to SEO reputation management. While there are other viable search engines out there, like Bing or DuckDuckGo, the vast majority of consumers turn to Google when they’re searching for information.
So ignore Google at your own peril.
Set Up Google Alerts
The first and easiest task when it comes to leveraging the power of Google is setting up Google Alerts. With just a few clicks you can create automatic alerts that notify you whenever your company appears on the internet.
There are a few settings to choose from, including how often to be alerted. I always suggest choosing as-it-happens, so you can address negative information as fast as possible.
Once you create your alert, you’ll start receiving emails at the interval you select. These messages will be a summary of the content where your business was mentioned along with a link to the source.
Create Your Google Business Profile
The next step is to create your free Google business profile. This helps people find your company when they’re doing general Google searches for topics related to your products or services. You can personalize your business profile with offers, specials, posts, images, and more.
You can set up your Google Business profile in just a few minutes. Once you do, your business will be eligible to appear high in Google search results.
Information about your business will also be readily available to interested consumers. They can quickly get in touch with you or learn more about your business in just a few clicks.
But the most important reason to spend time optimizing your Google business profile is that the more information you include, the more space it occupies on page one of the Google SERP.
Adding a Google business profile will get you to the top of page one, but filling it with great information will expand how much space your profile commands on the first page.
Stay Vigilant
There’s no set-it-and-forget-it when it comes to Google. You’ll need to periodically monitor both your alerts and your business profile to ensure the information is always up to date. You’ll also want to address anything negative as soon as possible.
And since Google reviews will also show up high on page one results, you need to keep an eye on them and respond to them appropriately. Don’t think that people ignore negative reviews—they rarely do.
Anytime someone levels a criticism at your business, whether fair or not, you need to take the time to issue a thoughtful, professional, solution-based response. Whether you can solve the issue is secondary. What is most important is that other readers see that you care and are proactive about problems.
Step 4: Create Content Across Multiple Channels
Finally, all the SEO strategies in the world won’t help you dominate page one of Google’s SERP unless you incorporate those well-researched keywords into killer content.
Keep Writing
Blog posts. Press releases. News articles. Social media posts. All these forms of written content are valuable parts of moving up in Google search rankings. The secret to making this happen is incorporating well-researched keywords into your copy.
You can do it yourself, hire an employee to do it for you, or even rely on freelancers to help. You can also turn to a professional online reputation manager like WebiMax to help you craft effective written content.
Make Video a Priority
You can’t stop with written content.
In today’s visual world, video is equally as important. This is especially true since Google started putting an enhanced value on video content. While we can’t know Google’s exact algorithms (we’d be gazillionaires if we could), we do know that the higher the video view numbers, the higher the video tends to place in Google search results.
Keep your videos short—five minutes or less is good, edit them with high-quality video editing tools, make the content informative, and optimize video titles and descriptions with well-researched keywords. Together these tactics will help you create great video content that Google loves.
Again, if this is too much on your plate or you simply lack the resources to create great video content, a full-service digital marketing agency like WebiMax can help you.
from Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/YX1HImW
via IFTTT
Customer reviews on Facebook help your business earn brownie points and win more potential customers. But just like any other platform, getting bad reviews can also damage your brand‘s credibility. In fact, research suggests that 68% of potential customers form an opinion after reading between one and six online reviews. You can only imagine the consequences for your brand if it becomes a victim of review bombing, with trolls purposely posting bad feedback.
That’s why we’ve created this guide, where we’ll show you how to remove reviews from Facebook to preserve your online reputation.
The Top-Rated Online Reputation Management Companies to Remove Reviews From Facebook
Social proof is an incredibly powerful tool. The general opinion your customers share about your business significantly impacts your company’s online image and reputation, for better or worse. Luckily, online reputation management services work both ways: help you build a strong positive brand image and repair a damaged one.
The following are our top picks:
WebiMax — Best for small businesses that need a hands-on solution
NetReputation — Best for ultra-responsive customer support
InternetReputation.com — Best for personal reputation management
Reputation Defense Network — Best for permanently removing false content
Podium — Best for getting reviews automatically
SEO Image — Best for legal and medical practices
Gadook — Best for rebranding after reputation attacks
BirdEye — Best for getting Google and Facebook reviews
Reputation.com — Best for knowing your competition’s reputation
Go Fish Digital — Best for improving Yelp reviews
Netmark.com — Best for hands-off, fast responses to reputation hits
You can read our full reviews for each online reputation management company here.
What Are Facebook Reviews?
Facebook reviews are feedback from customers posted to your business’s Facebook page. These reviews can just be ratings or ratings with recommendations; short or go more in-depth.
82% of consumers read online reviews before making local purchasing decisions. Good Facebook reviews indicate past customers have had a positive experience with your brand, influencing potential customers to do business with you, and vice versa.
The problem arises when you get fake reviews or spam reviews meant to discredit your business on purpose through coordinated campaigns of social media marketing or review bombing. Just do a Google search for “Buy negative Facebook reviews” and you’ll see several dozens of companies selling negative reviews.
The Basics of Removing Reviews From Facebook
Facebook for business is a blessing and a curse. With over 2.9 billion people using the platform, you get exposure like no other—but you’ll also find yourself dealing with inappropriate or unfair feedback.
Let’s take a look at how you can tackle this issue.
Understanding Whether a Review on Facebook Is Fake
Before we discuss deleting or removing Facebook reviews, you need to identify whether a customer review is fake in the first place.
For starters, it’s helpful to maintain a customer database and transactional records to cross-check a negative review from a customer. Does the negative review match or closely resemble an existing customer? Do you have a customer complaint on the file matching the events recounted in the review?
If it does, the review is genuine, and you should work on resolving it with tact. But if the review doesn’t align with any of your business records, it’s fake.
Here are a few common red flags to easily spot a fake Facebook review:
The account has one of those typical fake names. Think: John Retartagan, Patty O’Furniture, Olive Yew
The account is created on the same day as the day of the review—and for the sole purpose of giving your business a bad review
The account profile picture is copied from somewhere else
The account is connected to a competitor or a former employee
The posted review has an inaccurate description of your business’s product or service is filled with silly grammatical errors or recommends your competitor in the complaint
Unfortunately, removing fake Facebook reviews isn’t as easy as you might hope.
Deleting Reviews From Facebook Isn’t Possible
Can you remove or delete Facebook reviews? No, you cannot delete a legitimate review on Facebook, however malicious.
This is because of Facebook’s policy to provide a trustworthy and transparent review system to its users. If it allowed businesses to tamper with reviews, people would lose their trust in Facebook and no longer see it as a reliable source of information.
But Facebook doesn’t extend the same courtesy to fake reviews made from shady and fake accounts. If the review is flagrant and/or in obvious violation of its community standards, Facebook will remove it.
In other cases, Facebook is unlikely to take down a Facebook recommendation. The scathing and unfair review will stay connected to your page unless you take a few remedial and preventive actions.
Reporting a Review on Facebook
If the Facebook review goes against Facebook‘s Community Standards, you can flag it. To do this, the review should either be clearly fake or contain one or more of the following prohibited forms of speech:
Bullying
Hate speech
Misrepresentation
Cruelness and insensitivity
Facebook‘s Community Standards are broad, but the platform is quick to remove a Facebook recommendation if it’s ingenuine or overly offensive.
You can report a review on Facebook by following these steps:
Log into your Facebook business page.
Click on the Reviews tab on the top menu bar. Go to the review you want to report.
Click on the three dots on the top right hand of the review.
Select Report post from the displayed options. A pop-up window will appear on your screen.
Select the most appropriate description from the displayed list, and follow the prompts to finish the process.
After reporting a Facebook recommendation, all you can do is wait. Facebook will review your request, and if it finds the review goes against its Community Standards, it’ll remove the review forever.
Respond to Your Real Negative Facebook Reviews
89% of consumers are likely to use a business that responds to all reviews. So if legitimate customers have left bad Facebook recommendations, you need to respond positively and promptly as part of customer service.
Start with an apology and address the matter at hand, followed by offering a viable solution moving forward. If you do this right, you can change your customer’s negative experience into a positive one. It’ll also show potential customers your company cares about its customers and is serious about helping them.
Keep the following in mind when you respond to:
Be sympathetic and non-confrontational
Try to respond to recommendations promptly
Keep your response short, sweet, and concise
Here’s an example of how responding to negative reviews professionally and tactfully can actually work in your favor:
Make sure customers are happy with your suggestion and reassure all customers that if things go wrong, you’ve always got their back.
Turning Off or Disabling Facebook Reviews
If you feel a negative review is hurting your business—or don’t want to deal with the trouble of worrying about bad or fake reviews, you can take a more extreme measure: disable Facebook recommendations entirely.
To be clear, turning off the review section will hide all the recommendations left by past customers, both positive and negative. This also doesn’t give you a clean slate—you’ll see all reviews again upon enabling Facebook reviews in the future. Still, this is an excellent option if you have several fake reviews.
Here are the steps to disable reviews from Facebook:
Open your business page, making sure you’re logged in as the page admin.
Click on Settings at the top right of the page.
Navigate to the left-hand side of the page, and select Templates and Tab from the menu.
Scroll down to Reviews, and click on Settings.
To the right of the Show Reviews option, you’ll see a slider. Click on it to disable it.
Select Save to confirm your new settings.
Now, customers can no longer see any negative feedback on your business’s Facebook page.
3 Tools to Remove Reviews From Facebook
Managing your online reputation is important, regardless of your business size and industry. Below, we’ve put together a list of three amazing online reputation management companies that can help you manage negative reviews on Facebook.
WebiMax is an excellent online reputation management company that offers hands-on review management solutions.
You can rely on it to bury negative feedback on Facebook and create a positive image for your brand without breaking the bank. Besides reputation management, WebiMax also offers review acquisition, social media marketing, and public relations.
The company assigns you dedicated campaign managers who create custom strategies to suit your needs. Plus, the whole process is covered under a non-disclosure agreement. No one else will know you’re using a third-party service to repair your online reputation.
BirdEye offers a wide range of reputation management solutions, but it’s the integrations with Facebook and Google that set it apart.
With BirdEye, you can auto-send review requests, respond to customer reviews on Facebook and other sites, and gather actionable insights with Natural language Processing (NLP). Review monitoring and management, review generation, and review marketing are the other desirable features.
You can also build a custom profile that can be beneficial to generate awareness and get more customers to check out your products and services. The fact that all these services are available on a single platform makes things even more convenient.
From removing negative comments from Facebook to improving brand visibility, NetReputation is one of the most comprehensive online reputation management companies.
It offers a full range of services, including reputation monitoring, review management, public relations, branding, and content removal. We also like how professional and responsive the company’s customer support is. To provide the best possible customer service, NetReputation thoroughly interviews business owners to understand their needs.
If you’re feeling the heat from poor Facebook reviews, you can always turn to NetReputation to help you clean up and achieve a shining reputation.
3 Tricks for Removing Reviews from Facebook
Let’s look at a few tricks and strategies that will help you handle reviews on Facebook better.
Don’t Retaliate Emotionally
We get it: fake reviews can be upsetting. But don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Not only will this behavior not solve your problem, but it may also put your brand in a negative light.
Have trust in your business, and work on offering solid and high-quality products and services that consistently yield positive reviews. Don’t lower your ethical standards just because somebody else decides to play dirty.
Get More Positive Reviews
There’s nothing better to offset fake or bad reviews than attracting more positive ones.
Reach out to customers you know have had a positive experience with your brand, and politely ask them to drop in a good word for you on Facebook. You can also offer them incentives like exclusive discounts or free goodies to make them more likely to turn the odds in your favor.
Bring In a Reputation Management Service
Take control of your reputation and protect your online reputation by working with a reliable reputation management company.
Using its expertise, a reputation management company can build an effective online reputation management strategy for your business. It can help remove fake Facebook reviews by overcoming roadblocks in Facebook‘s reporting process—and if it can’t, the service can suppress fake reviews effectively to hide them from the eyes of prospective customers.
What to Do Next
Now that you know how to remove reviews from Facebook, it’s time to focus on building a sound social media marketing strategy.
Admittedly, social media marketing isn’t easy. You have to spend time learning how to do it right. Luckily, there are a few strategies and techniques to make data-based decisions, steering your business towards success. When done properly, you can get more traffic for your business, score more positive reviews, and improve conversion rates.
Here are a few Quicksprout guides to help you get started on the right track:
Want to jump straight to the answer? The best invoice factoring company for most people is BlueVine or Resolve.
Unpaid invoices are part of running a business, no matter the size. But for small business owners, it’s an especially frustrating reality with potentially devastating consequences.
If your business has unpaid invoices and you’re low on cash, invoice factoring can be a solid solution.
Compare Quotes From The Best Invoice Factoring Companies
Get matched up with an invoice factoring company that fits your needs.
Below you’ll find an in-depth review of each company that made my list. The reviews are followed by a brief guide that highlights the key criteria you should be thinking about as you assess your options.
Choose the one most suited to your needs, and start getting paid for the work you did instead of spending time chasing people down.
BlueVine is one of the most popular and reputable invoice factoring companies out there. That’s because of their high factoring lines, low rates, and commitment to speedy funding.
BlueVine offers factoring lines of up to $5 million. Their factoring rates start at just 0.25% per week.
The approval process is fast. For businesses that need cash right away, you can get approved in just 24 hours.
The funding process is also easy and flexible. You have the opportunity to get higher credit limits based on the strength of your customers.
BlueVine’s fees are transparent, so you always know exactly how much the factoring will cost. Instead of collecting recurring payments, they charge a weekly fee that’s due when the invoice gets paid.
You also have full control over which invoices get sold, allowing you to only fund what you need without committing to a long-term contract.
Here’s how the process works:
You can apply in less than ten minutes, and just need to provide a few basic details about your business. The application approval process usually takes less than 24 hours.
Once your application is approved, you can submit any unpaid invoices by syncing your accounting software or uploading them manually to your BlueVine dashboard.
BlueVine pays 85%-90% of the cash instantly. You get the rest of the money, minus BlueVine fees, once the invoice is paid.
Will your business qualify for invoice factoring with BlueVine? These are the minimum qualifications:
Must be in business for at least 3+ months
$10,000 in minimum monthly revenue
You are a B2B company (invoices from traditional consumers aren’t eligible)
You have a personal FICO score of 530+
You’ll also need to provide BlueVine some basic details about your invoices and show three months of recent bank statements. Get started now at BlueVine.
Resolve — Best for offering net terms to business customers
Resolve is a unique non-recourse invoice financing company that helps B2B merchants, wholesalers, and distributors offer net terms and assumes the payment risk for its customers. They currently work with more than 1000 companies, including Linus Venice, ConEquip, and Zark LED.
Resolve calls itself net terms-as-a-service rather than a traditional factoring company. Unlike other non-recourse factoring services, Resolve takes on the risk of your customer’s non-payment. With their “quiet” credit check process that does not affect business credit scores, it promises your business will not be on the hook for open invoices.
Resolve makes decisions on net terms and credit limits quickly so your business can keep moving. And offering net terms often allows for larger orders, while your credit line can go up to $1 million.
Resolve offers immediate payment for up to 90% on approved invoices (within 1 day!) while allowing their customers to give 30, 60, and 90-day net terms to all of their customers, which helps the company expand sales and grow their businesses.
To get advance payment, there is a list of criteria the company and invoice must meet:
The customer’s business is based in the US
Resolve has done a credit check and approved the customer
The customer has accepted your product/service
The invoice can be paid by one of Resolve’s approved payment methods
The payment term is 90 days or fewer
The invoice due date is at least one week from the date of the advance payment request
Customers can make payments through Resolve’s white-labeled (your branding) online payment portal via credit cards, ACH transfers, wire transfers, and even checks. And as the customer, you get an easy-to-use accounts receivables dashboard to see what is happening at any time. Plus Resolve integrates with QuickBooks, Magento, and WooCommerce.
Resolve is transparent in its fees, which are a flat 2.61% for 30-day net term invoices with a 90% advance.
eCapital Commercial Finance is a non-recourse invoice factoring company. That means if your customers fail to pay back your invoice, you’re not completely on the hook to pay back the factoring company for it.
This is the most ideal situation because you can get funded without assuming the liability for unpaid invoices.
It’s a great option for startups, entrepreneurs, and businesses with tax issues. eCapital Commercial Finance typically works with lots of government contractors. Your personal credit won’t impact any approvals. Since eCapital Commercial Finance assumes the risk, they make decisions based on the credit of your clients.
To qualify for invoice factoring with eCapital Commercial Finance, you’ll need a minimum of $30,000 in monthly sales. This is a bit higher compared to other options that we’ve reviewed.
In addition to invoice factoring, eCapital Commercial Finance Financial also offers purchase order financing and working capital for government contracting. Get started at eCapital Commercial Finance.
altLINE is a reliable and trusted invoice factoring service that stands out for their low fees.
They’re especially unique because they’re a direct source of funding, not a middle man. As a division of the Southern Bank Company, altLINE doesn’t need to charge additional borrowing costs like third-party providers. Business owners can benefit from these savings because they won’t nickel-and-dime you with fees.
There’s also no application fee, which means you save even more money when using their service.
In addition to invoice factoring, altLINE offers accounts receivable financing. While the two terms are often used interchangeably in the world of small business lending, they are not the same.
Invoice factoring offers great flexibility for business owners. Accounts receivable financing has stricter guidelines related to the credit profile. With that said, AR financing will usually provide businesses with preferred financing terms.
altLINE will deliver up to 90% of qualified unpaid invoices for factoring.
Common industries for invoice factoring with altLINE include:
Distribution
Consulting
Food and beverage
Janitorial services
Professional services
Facility services
Textile and apparel
Wholesale
Oil and gas
Staffing
Manufacturing
As a federally regulated bank, altLINE is 100% transparent about their fees and term structures. Factoring rates start at just 0.50%. You’ll also benefit from a fast approval process without an application fee.
In addition to invoice factoring and accounts receivable financing, altLINE also has asset-based lending for businesses. This is another way to borrow money against your receivables.
Triumph Business Capital is a factoring company that’s preferred by trucking and freight companies—and it’s no surprise why.
Freight companies love working with Triumph for invoice factoring because they understand the complexities of freight brokering, working capacity, and how cash flows throughout their businesses.
Triumph’s great service for trucking and freight companies led to them being awarded the Preferred Provider status by the Transportation Intermediaries Association.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a solo operation or if you have a fleet of hundreds of trucks—they provide you with a straightforward and speedy process to get money in your hands as soon as possible.
A few other services that they cater to include:
Trucking
Staffing
Oil and gas
Government contractors
Freight brokers
Another standout feature is their easy-to-use web portal. The dashboard and process is a simple way to manage your funding. You can always stay up to date with your account and information, no matter where you are.
You’ll also have direct access to support from the Triumph Business Capital team. They also offer a wide range of financial services along with invoice factoring:
Breakout Capital offers a very flexible invoice factoring solution that’s great for new and small businesses alike.
More specifically, they offer a very flexible payback schedule that gives small businesses more wiggle room when it comes to when they have to pay Breakout Capital back. These come in the form of daily, weekly, or monthly scheduling options. Not a lot of invoice factoring companies do this.
They also offer a great service called “FactorAdvantage.” It’s a customized solution for businesses that don’t meet qualifications from other lenders and factoring companies. That’s great for startups.
Think of it as a combination between invoice factoring and a small business loan.
Here are some of the top advantages of this service:
Fund receivables before invoices are ready to factor
Increase your over-advance maximum amounts
Access to short-term bridge loans
Remove merchant cash advance programs or liens
Forecast cash flow with AI technology
Breakout Capital is perfect for startups since the approval process is dead simple. There’s no minimum FICO score required, no minimum monthly revenue requirement, and no minimum time in business.
With all of that said, Breakout Capital’s invoice factoring rates are a bit higher than some of the other companies we’ve reviewed. Invoice factoring starts at 1.25% per month.
For startups that want to borrow up to $500,000 using unpaid invoices, Breakout Capital is a top company for you to consider. FactorAdvantage is unlike any other product I’ve seen on the market today.
TCI Capital is great for businesses looking for flexible monthly contracts.
That’s because the amount they charge you changes month-to-month depending on the volume of your invoices. That means if you sell more and you have more invoices, you get cheaper factoring fees.
While some other companies do this too, TCI Capital stands out for doing this monthly as opposed to other companies that might only change your rates once a year.
B2B organizations that use TCI Capital for invoice factoring typically fall into one of the following categories:
Staffing
Telecom and wireless
Heavy construction
Renewable energy
Government contractors
Utility and pipeline contractors
Trucking and freight
Manufacturing
Environmental services
Oilfield services
TCI Capital adds a personal touch to their invoice factoring services. They encourage you to talk to a representative that will help you find the best solution for your current situation and needs. TCI Capital also ensures that the solution works well for your customers.
Like most companies, TCI Capital’s factoring fees are based on volume. So it’s a better option for those of you with higher volumes if you want access to preferred rates and fees.
The TCI Capital website has an awesome tool to help you calculate your factoring costs.
Choose your desired advance rate of 70%, 80%, or 90%, and enter your average monthly sales.
Select your customer payment terms (net 30, 60, 90, or 120), and the tool will automatically calculate your fees.
For example, let’s say you average $10,000 per month with net 60 terms on your invoices. If you want 90% of cash in advance, the factoring fee is $200.
With TCI Capital, you’ll get fast approvals, simple onboarding, and month-to-month terms. They offer high advances and same-day funding to provide you with reliable cash flow.
Riviera Finance is another great non-recourse invoice factoring service. Where they stand out though is their credit guarantee.
They offer a credit management service that guarantees the credit on all of your factored invoices. That means if an invoice is unpaid, Riviera Finance becomes the credit manager and assumes the risk.
They’re also great if you need cash quickly. Riviera offers some of the quickest turnaround rates in the industry, with guaranteed 24-hour funding.
Depending on your business type, industry, and clients, Riviera Finance will fund up to 95% of qualified invoices. You’ll have complete flexibility for funding on-demand.
As a result, no debt is created on your end and the company protects you from bad debt on all of the invoices that they factor.
Riviera Finance has an exceptional receivable management system as well. They can handle the following AR tasks:
Maintain an efficient process with your clients
Automated invoice uploads
Mailing and processing for all invoices
Processing and posting of invoice payments
Real-time alerts related to returns, disputes, or payment issues
Check the status of outstanding invoices
Custom management reports
You’ll benefit from instant access 24/7 to all of your account receivable information through an online account dashboard.
How to Choose the Best Invoice Factoring Company For Your Business
Invoice factoring can be a solid solution for your business to help overcome cashflow issues caused by late paying customers. By getting your money quickly, you’ll be able to reinvest that income and maintain an emphasis on growth.
But it’s important that you find the right invoice factoring company to meet the needs of your business.
There are certain factors you should look for when you’re evaluating an invoice factoring service. This is the methodology I recommend for narrowing down your options.
Compare Quotes From The Best Invoice Factoring Companies
Get matched up with an invoice factoring company that fits your needs.
A good invoice factoring service gets cash back in your pocket quickly and painlessly. The best services provide quick approvals and turnarounds.
Many invoice factoring companies such as BlueVine boast approvals “as fast as 5 minutes” upon receiving a qualified invoice.
Other factoring services such as altLine take a little bit longer—around four days to complete. That can be a looonng time in certain circumstances.
Depending on where you are with your company, you might want money quicker in order to address short-term needs or lucrative investment opportunities.
You also want to check with the factoring company to see how long it takes for funds to be available. Ideally it will be within a day of approval, but sometimes can take up to three days.
Remember that you’re factoring because you want cash quickly. So be sure to check to see how long the approval and funding process takes with each factoring service.
Industry-Specific Factoring
Some invoice factoring companies specialize in specific industries. These can be lucrative as they know the proper procedures to obtain payment from your unpaid invoices.
These factoring companies understand your industry and business. They’ll help the factoring experience go as smoothly and optimally as possible because of that.
For example, Triumph Business Capital helps small and mid-sized businesses in transportation (e.g. trucking and freight brokers), energy (e.g. oil and gas), and government (e.g. contractors).
TCI Capital is another great factoring company that focuses on B2B organizations such as telecom, manufacturing, utility, and staffing.
Look for a factoring company that knows your industry to ensure the best experience.
Factoring Fees
A lot of business owners see the short-term benefits of invoice factoring (i.e. upfront cash). But they overlook the fees that go with it.
Some invoice factoring companies lure you in with low factoring fees, but then hit you with additional fees like:
Application fee
Service fee
Renewals
Transfers
Early termination
Origination fee
I recommend an invoice factoring company that offers transparent pricing. You should only have to pay the factoring fee, without any of these additional charges or hidden fees.
Recourse vs Non-Recourse Factoring
What happens if one of your customers fails to pay an invoice to the factoring company? Depending on the company you choose, you could be responsible for this debt.
That’s because invoice factoring comes in two forms:
Recoursefactoring means that if your client doesn’t pay on their invoice to the factoring company, then you are on the hook financially for the invoice. The trade off is the fees are much lower.
Non-Recoursefactoring means that the factoring company assumes some of the risk. The fees are higher, but you’re at less of a risk of losing out on all of your unpaid invoice. This is a better option for businesses who can’t risk a client withholding payment.
No matter what, you want to make sure that the invoice factoring company you choose does everything that they can to try and attain payment from your client. You don’t want them sitting on the invoice, making no attempt to reach out, and then ding you when your client doesn’t pay.
When researching companies, verify what steps they’ll take to collect. Make sure their outreach is polite (you don’t want your customer to hate you, after all) but firm.
Factoring Flexibility
Flexibility on the requirements and types of invoicing is great when it comes to these companies. As such, you’ll want to find a factoring company that doesn’t try to lock you into a strict contract while also giving you the credit you need.
Some of you may only want to factor one or two invoices. Doing this on-demand is known as “spot factoring.”
You’ll have complete control over which invoices are factored and when it happens. You’ll also have more of a say in your term length, which is always nice.
Some invoice factoring companies require “whole ledger factoring.” In this case, you won’t have as much control. Generally speaking, spot factoring is the preferred choice for business owners.
Also, you’ll want to keep an eye out on the types of credit lines these factoring companies offer as well.
A place like BlueVine will give you credit for up to $5 million, and they’ll also work with you if you have a low credit score (530 FICO minimum) and have been in business for as little as 3 months.
The Top Factoring Companies in Summary
Invoice factoring helps businesses turn unpaid invoices into cash today. By working with one of the top invoice factoring companies like BlueVine or Resolve, you’ll get paid as soon as possible.
Don’t let your non-paying customers get in the way of growing your business. Our guide has an option for everyone.
Compare Quotes From The Best Invoice Factoring Companies
Get matched up with an invoice factoring company that fits your needs.
Companies use SMS (short messaging service) to have two-way texting conversations with their customers. Texting is a powerful tool, yet SMS marketing strategies often fail because texting gets treated like “just another channel.” It’s not.
Texting with a customer is personal, immediate, and disruptive. These can all be good factors, but only if you have an appropriate SMS marketing strategy.
SMS marketing is the use of text messaging to communicate with your customers.
You’ll use trackable links and shortcodes in order to get customers into your system to start a two-way conversation.
There are a lot of different ways you can use this channel to get new customers and refresh relationships with old ones.
As you consider various strategies for using SMS marketing, here are some key considerations:
SMS marketing is permission-based. People have to formally opt-in for you to send them promotional messages via SMS. There are steep fines for companies that send SMS to people who haven’t opted in (or who have formally opted out).
MMS is standard now. Older business texting services struggled with multimedia messaging service (MMS), which lets you text GIFs, emojis, and images. Today, any decent SMS marketing platform lets you send MMS, no problem.
Opening this channel is a huge opportunity. SMS has a nearly 100% open rate, and it’s not even surprising. I check all my texts, and so do most people I know.
SMS marketing is not email marketing: Texting is more personal and immediate than email will ever be. People are more receptive to texts, but also more turned off by texts they don’t want.
Timing is critical. Who needs their phone buzzing on a nightstand at 3 AM to know their order has shipped? Yes, they opted in for text updates, but come on!
SMS marketing offers your company a powerful way to connect with customers, but it has to be approached in the right way. You have to be strategic about using such a potent channel.
5 Parts of Every Successful SMS Marketing Strategy
The ultimate goal of any SMS marketing strategy is to send the right message, to the right subscriber, at the right time.
It takes time and effort to get all three right. No single campaign or tactic is going to deliver messages that check all these boxes on day one. You need an overarching SMS marketing strategy that helps you determine the best use of your resources over time.
Now everyone reading this post is going to have different objectives, customers, and so on. You’ll have to be smart about the particulars of your industry, but here are the five most important factors that all successful SMS marketing relies on.
Note: I’ll be using SimpleTexting to provide visual examples of SMS in action. It’s as easy-to-use as it gets for a first-timer, and you’ll be able tosend your first 50 texts for free(no credit card required).
1. Deliver Real Value to Subscribers
Permission-based marketing like SMS requires people to opt-in in order to receive texts. If you are serious about using this channel, getting the opt-in is more than just checking a box for regulators.
The goal is to offer real value to your customers. “Here’s a discount,” is nice, but you are still asking the consumer to come to your site and spend their money, even if they’re getting some savings.
Promo discounts and special offers are great, don’t get me wrong, but you can be smart about how you get people to take the first step:
Offer concrete benefits: Give customers the option to receive order confirmations and updates via text. That’s a real benefit, and maybe they’ll opt-in for promotions as well. Also, consider sweepstakes and other “Text-2-Win” type contests where customers trade their contact info for a shot at a free prize.
Sweeten the pot: Access to exclusive offers, gated content, loyalty programs, and newsletters are other great ways to offer more value to customers for opting in.
Make it easy: The less of a chore it is to subscribe, the better. Make it as few clicks and questions as possible.
Keep it toll-free: Let customers know that you’ll pick up the tab for the cost of the message with toll-free shortcodes and numbers.
Offer a clear opt-out: this guarantees that people who don’t want to hear from you won’t, which saves everyone time. It makes your offer look more transparent and trustworthy, too, not like you’re trying to trick them
A good business text messaging service makes it easy to set up forms on your site, social media, or create catchy print advertisements. These tools help you stay compliant with texting laws, generate shortcodes, and keep track of campaigns.
Here’s a good example of a graphic built on SimpleTexting that would work well on a website or in real life.
Focus on making the experience better for consumers. Runners go through shoes frequently. One text a week makes sense for a runner looking to jump on a deal every once in a while.
“Text2Win” type campaigns can also be great for building your list. You’re offering entry into a sweepstakes for opting in. It doesn’t cost them anything to reach out and make that first connection with your brand.
2. Warm the Channel
When I give my number to someone, I don’t want to receive a flood of text messages. Maybe we’ll start texting a lot over time, but it probably won’t be zero-to-sixty. The same is only more true if I give my number to a brand.
SMS is a channel that you really have to warm. If the goal is to be conversational, you have to “text with people,” not text at them.
One of the most common ways to get the ball rolling is to set up a short welcome series of texts using an autoresponder.
In this example from SimpleTexting, an autoresponder is configured to offer a special deal to customers for signing up immediately after they opt-in.
From here, you extend your welcome series with more discounts, special perks, and access to exclusive content. You can also use the opportunity to educate your customer about your offerings and increase brand awareness.
A basic welcome campaign is usually 3-5 texts spaced out over a few weeks. With premium SMS services, you’ll be able to use autoresponders to start gathering information about your customers that can help you target your offers better.
In this example, you can see the beginning of a short welcome series after someone has opted in by texting “Bookworm.”
There’s a short welcome text followed by a short question to get some basic data about this customer’s preferences.
“Novels” is quite a large category, so you can’t send them glass-slipper fit recommendations yet. But you have certainly started to warm the channel using a conversational feel.
If setting up multi-level autoresponders seems like too much work, don’t underestimate the value of simple texts to keep the ball in the air. The following post-purchase text is a great example of keeping the channel warm:
This short text confirms their order and invites them to check out content that you know is relevant to them based on their purchase. This delivers value and keeps someone connected to your brand without having to set up a full welcome campaign.
3. Set Clear Expectations
Texting is all about instantaneous responses. So if you put it out there that your company is going to be reachable by text, then you had better be able to respond quickly.
People may expect that the ability to “text with your brand” means that they can get customer service on-demand. Do you have the staff to support that? It’s fine if you don’t, just be transparent with customers about what to expect.
Going back to the opt-in advertisement from SimpleTexting, you can see how the terms are clearly stated:
All that this company is promising is a weekly text. There’s nothing in this offer that says the company is going to be reachable 24/7.
I don’t think too many people would be shocked to receive only automated texts after opting in on that text. And autoresponders and chatbots are an important part of any large-scale SMS strategy. They can do wonders to prevent business-owner fatigue at managing simple questions.
But chatbots can’t fully create the “conversational” and “two-way” experience that customers expect via SMS. So if you have the staff to put customers in touch with a human, great. If you don’t, make sure that you are not promising customers more than you can deliver by opening up SMS as a channel.
If this offer read something like, “Questions? Text RUN to 900900,” some customers would likely expect more of an authentic conversation—with a real person on the other end of the text conversation. The last thing you want to do is set up a situation where your customers feel like they have to fool a chatbot in order to speak with a real person. We’ve all been there, and it’s really frustrating.
My advice is to use automation to your advantage. Setting up automated replies for after-hours messages, for example, can ensure you and the customer stay on the same page. They get an instant response that lets them know exactly what to expect:
This is a basic example, but you should always be thinking about how you can communicate boundaries and expectations with your customers.
4. Get to Know Your Customers
As part of your conversational SMS strategy, you will have many opportunities to learn more about your customers: who they are, what they like, dislike, and so on. All of this is incredibly important information that you can use to better target your offers.
Likely, you grabbed a little bit of info from people when they opted in to receive texts, but it’s just the basics. You don’t want to make it too tedious to sign up.
I’d recommend using Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters, which are code snippets attached to the end of the links you share with customers. UTM parameters are free to use through Google Analytics, and let you track where leads are coming from.
This way you can find out which outreach strategies are bringing in the most new customers. UTM parameters may also be able to pick up a person’s email, zip code, and other information that could be useful.
Over time, you should reach out to find out more, logging all this information in your CRM software or SMS platform.
If you are using a platform like SimpleTexting, you can easily build questions, surveys, and polls to get a better sense of what people really think.
It’s not complicated in the slightest to set one of these polls up, and you can tie them to a specific keyword or campaign.
Then you send it out to the appropriate group and wait for the data to roll in.
You can keep the conversation going by sharing results with subscribers, posting the results on your social media, or running another poll based on what you discovered.
Do what you can to know your customers, and remember the answer. If someone checks that their preference is vegetarian, make sure you’re not sending them deals on steak dinners.
5. Segment Subscribers to Personalize Offers
With the information you have about your customers, you can start to segment them into different groups. If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, check out this article I wrote on generational marketing that explains the basics of segmentation.
The goal is to deliver content and offers that are relevant to specific customer segments. You want to approach a frequent buyer differently than a first-timer, for example. Or you might have products for seniors that you don’t want to market to young buyers.
Segmentation is using what you know to target the right people. In this example from SimpleTexting, you can see how a text is only going to be sent to a specific segment: only subscribers in Beverly Hills, CA, 90210.
This is a really basic example, but you can see how you could set up the segmentation criteria based on any information you have: age, interests, gender, location, and much more.
You might send a special offer to everyone who has bought something within the last week to capitalize on the post-purchase high. Or send a more exploratory text to all subscribers that haven’t purchased anything in 90 days.
Automating these tasks isn’t hard either. You could create triggers that would send an SMS seven days after a purchase, or after 90 days of account inactivity.
If you have an online store, you can set up a lot of automated triggers based on how people shop. The main criteria for segmenting users in an online store are:
Browsing behavior: Did the customer look at certain types of products? This can tell you a lot about a person’s taste, what they are really interested in, and what they are likely to ignore.
Buying behavior: Has the customer bought before, and if yes, how much and how often? Typically, a huge chunk of a company’s sales come from a relatively small percentage of loyal customers.
Location: What is the customer’s time zone and zip code? This will help you pace your offers to arrive at an appropriate time of day. Knowing the local weather of a zip code can help retailers market certain goods to people who really need them.
The better job you do learning about and segmenting your customers, the more targeted and personalized you can get with your SMS marketing strategy.
20 SMS Marketing Tactics – And When To Use Them
Now that we have an understanding of the big-picture strategy to win the hearts and minds of your customers, it’s time to drill down into the tactics you can use to put your strategy into action.
There are a million ways to use texting to connect with customers–here, I’ve listed 20 of my favorite SMS marketing tactics.
Instead of listing them in one long run, I’ve grouped them by objective, starting with tactics for getting people to opt-in and become subscribers.
Of course, you can use tactics at different times with good results, but these groups will be helpful if you are just starting off.
SMS Tactics for getting more subscribers
People have to opt-in to receive texts. Here are some of my favorite ways to get potential customers to initiate the conversation:
Sweepstakes: People will “Text-2-Win” if it’s something they want.
Social campaigns: Share great offers and time-sensitive deals across groups and channels mesh with your market.
Gated content: Trading access to premium content for contact information is a win/win
Referral programs: Reward your subscribers for inviting new ones
Order tracking: People want to receive texts about the status of their purchase, so see if they’ll accept promotional texts as well.
Free shipping: Waive the charge if people opt-in to receive texts.
Pop-ups: Put a simple form with your offer in front of every website visitor.
VIP Access: Give someone access to special benefits or exclusive offers by becoming a VIP subscriber.
Focus on delivering more than just a discount. What is gated content your type of customer would really want? What product could you give away in a sweepstakes that would grab people’s attention? What kind of exclusive access will make someone feel like a VIP?
In this example from SimpleTexting, texting the keyword “Pawprint” automatically enrolls a subscriber in a VIP text club. Now they can get exclusive offers on products every pet owner needs.
SMS tactics for nurturing leads
Once someone has opted in, you’ll want to warm up the channel and entice subscribers to engage more with your brand. Here are a few ultra-successful SMS tactics for building that all-important connection:
Welcome campaigns: Onboard your customers and educate them about what you offer. Delight them with free content and get them to want to know more.
Loyalty programs: Give people a way to earn exclusive gifts, prizes, or redeemable points on every purchase or $1 spent.
Drip campaigns: Send a series of scheduled messages to get people responding. Trigger different events based on responses.
Weekly updates: One text a week with tips, insights, or special deals can keep the channel warm without overwhelming your subscribers.
Special events: Whether you invite people to your physical store or a digital event like a webinar, text invitation gatherings can really build a sense of community with your brand.
Find a cadence that works, and use segmentation to make sure you’re communicating the right way with the right customer. Some subscribers may want a lot more attention, whereas others may only want to see the absolute hottest deals.
Not every text has to sell something, either. Update your subscribers about big company milestones and where your brand is headed.
This brief text from SimpleTexting invites subscribers to watch an interview with the CEO. Sharing such “insider” content is a great way to get people to feel like they are part of your brand.
SMS tactics for driving conversions
A solid SMS strategy takes advantage of how immediate text messaging is. The average person reads a text between 1-3 minutes after receiving it, and often responds just as quickly.
Here are some great ways to create a moment worth seizing:
Post-purchase followup: Tap into that post-purchase high to offer another product they almost bought, or ask them to leave you a public review.
Time-sensitive offers: Alert subscribers to incredible deals and steals that won’t be around tomorrow.
Holidays and Anniversaries: Reward someone on their birthday or one-year anniversary of being a subscriber. Holiday-themed offers work really well, too.
Abandoned cart: Reach out to see if they are still interested in the items they selected but didn’t follow through on purchasing.
New product release: Invite subscribers to check out the latest and greatest that your company offers.
Back-in-stock notifications: Use a person’s purchase history to update to let them know the out-of-stock item they wanted is now available.
Geofencing: Send a text to people who walk by your store or arrive in a very specific area.
You can get really, really crafty with these tactics, especially if you’ve done the backend work of segmenting your audience.
That said, you don’t need to set up elaborate marketing automation software or geofencing to find success with SMS. Don’t underestimate the power of a simple SMS offer delivered at a sensible time.
The following example from SimpleTexting is something any restaurant could find success with:
Important SMS Marketing Metrics
It’s crucial to be able to see how well your SMS marketing strategy is performing. If revenue is going up, great, but you still want to know why. The goal is to identify which specific tactics are working well, and which you might want to change.
Here are the essential metrics you need to know in order to assess how your SMS strategy is progressing:
How to Use SMS Metrics to Improve Performance
Knowing these metrics can help you pinpoint problems. Your delivery rate should be close to 100%–if texts are failing to send or not getting delivered, there are some technical issues you need to address right away.
Anticipate that your open rate is going to be really high with SMS. If you are coming from email marketing, you may be blown away by getting an SMS open rate of 90% or higher–sorry, but that’s just SMS.
If you’re not getting a high open rate with SMS, then you might want to think about who you are sending these offers to, and how you are building your list. Are you really reaching out to the right folks?
Similarly, if you get a high click-through rate (CTR), but your conversion rate is super low, it might be time to switch up your offer. What can you do to sweeten the pot for people who were interested enough to click through but not enough to convert?
Your list-growth rate is going to tell you a ton about how successful your SMS strategy is. Break this number out across campaigns to see which ones are the most successful at retaining customers, and apply those tactics to areas where you’re seeing a higher unsubscribe rate.
When you use an SMS marketing platform like SimpleTexting, it’ll calculate these metrics for you, and allow you to view trends over the last week, month, billing cycle, or campaign:
With this kind of visibility into performance, you can see which campaigns are working well, and which ones need to be tweaked.
And because you can break out this data by billing cycle, you can get a real-time read on your customer acquisition costs (CAC). This number is important to track, and you can lower it by increasing the subscribe and conversion rates.
So long as you have a good estimate for the average lifetime value of your customers, you can subtract the CAC to get an idea of the kind of incentive you can offer. How much can you really sweeten the pot before it gets too expensive?
You can also drill down into the specifics of a campaign. See how many people subscribed via each link or opted out. SimpleTexting automatically calculates the CTR for each link:
I strongly encourage you to try out a variety of approaches and tactics. Engage in A/B testing to see what types of offers find traction with your audience.
In this example from SimpleTexting, you can see how half of the subscribers get a 10% discount and the other half get free shipping:
At the end of the A/B test, you’ll want to look at things like the CTR, conversion rate, and unsubscribe rate. It should be pretty obvious which offer is performing better, and that tells you how to pitch the next round of SMS.
If more people respond favorably to your free shipping offer, then that’s a sensible play to make with future subscribers.
Knowing how your SMS campaigns are performing will let you find incremental gains that compound over time. Each small win counts, and the more wins you can find, the more success your SMS marketing will have.
Summary
SMS marketing is an affordable and effective way to reach consumers, but it’s hardly a turnkey solution. The speed and intimacy of the channel provide a unique opportunity, and with a thoughtful SMS marketing strategy, you can take full advantage.
We’ve covered the basics of SMS marketing, the crucial parts of every successful strategy, and 20 tactics you can use to start campaigning today. We also looked at the key SMS metrics that will help you capitalize on success and steer away from failure.
All that’s left to do is launch your first SMS campaign. Good luck!
from Quick Sprout https://ift.tt/FpbMwzr
via IFTTT
