RevOps, or Revenue Operations, is the essential business function that aligns marketing, sales, and customer success teams to drive revenue growth. It’s all about breaking down silos and optimizing the entire revenue-generating process to create a more efficient and predictable revenue engine.
Where do business communications like SMS fit into that equation? To dive deeper into this topic, Amanda McGuckin Hager, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer here at TrueDialog, gathered four panelists for a recent webinar. While everybody brought their own diverse background, they all have extensive professional experience with B2B communications, and have worked at companies that are leaders in the world of marketing ops.
Meet the Team
Amanda was joined on the webinar by the trio of Ali Rastiello, Mike Rizzo, and Sara McNamara Ali formerly worked at RackSpace, Big Commerce, CornerStone On Demand, and Health Catalyst. She then founded GTM Edit, a fractional consulting firm. Mike is the founder of Marketing Ops Community, a community of 6,500+ marketing operations professionals. It’s a brain hive for practitioners to tap into, and they’re on a mission to create a tech-agnostic certification path for those who want to build and develop their career in this space. And Sara, formerly of Salesforce and Marketo, is the author of The Marketing Operations Strategist. She is now a RevOps guru at Vector.
One thing everyone agreed on right out of the gate was that in our world of generic communications and spam, relationship-building is crucial. Personalizing your messaging is the only way to consistently stand out to your audience and get results.
“I’ve seen reps who just send a generic message and it flops most of the time because people identify it,” said Sara. “I also have worked with other reps who look at the person’s profile, really understand who they are, and try to get some intel. It’s not about ‘We want to sell you something.’ It’s more like, ‘Hey, this could help you.’”
Our panelists agreed that the time and effort put into building relationships is always a worthy investment. Not only does it generate short-term results such as conversions, but it helps brands establish a reputation of caring about people.
“We’re now seeing a resurgence in the focus of the brand’s value and its relationship to its customers,” explained Mike. “Despite AI and all of its ability to do things, sometimes at that scale, it’s just not quite as personalized. But it can give you a significant leg up if you just then put the human in the loop to sort of tie up the loose ends and build the relationships.”
5 Key Takeaways for Modern Businesses
Let’s take a closer look at five of the highlights from our webinar. Each point takes a different perspective on business communications and provides valuable insights for those who are either looking to introduce SMS into their operations or give their existing communication strategies an upgrade.
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Texting is irreplaceable for relationship building
In order to build connections with people, you need to meet them where they are. This might sound like a tall order for brands because there’s no way that you could get face-to-face with your audience on a consistent basis. But thanks to smartphones, you know where your audience is (on their phones). Research shows that 84% of people report that they can’t go a day without their phone in their hand, making it a conduit that provides unparalleled opportunities for reaching your audience. There are multiple methods for these communications, including email, calls, and social messaging. But the first choice is clear, as 72% of people say that texting is their preferred channel.
Sara pointed out that texting has remained more relevant than other channels because it hasn’t been corrupted. Hundreds of billions of emails are sent out daily, most of which are spam that have no personalization. Even more modern channels, such as Slack, can become overwhelming due to the volume of notifications and messages.
“Texting is an intimate channel,” agreed Amanda. “My mom, my children, and my best friends are there, as well as my vendors, my coworkers, and everyone else. It’s almost like the bat line into your prospects and customers.”
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Texting is perfect for promoting and supporting events
Whether you’re a brand trying to build awareness for a webinar (like we’re doing right now) or a professional sports team hyping your next matchup, texting is an excellent way to engage your audience in real time. Why? Because the only time people don’t have a phone in their pocket is when they’re holding it in their hands.
“The fastest way to get someone’s attention when you’re at an event is on their phone via text,” said Mike. “They’re not going to read their emails.”It’s worth pointing out that texting can even surpass the impact of in-app notifications from apps that are directly connected to events. This might seem counterintuitive, since notifications appear right on a phone’s homescreen. But as Ali pointed out, there’s a difference between a text and a notification that can easily be cleared away. Messages provide a direct connection to people, while notifications lack that immediacy and can actually begin to feel like clutter.
Thanks to the more personalized nature of texting, people check their messages faster and more reliably than with other channels. So when you’re trying to get crucial engagement at an in-person event, such as sending out Uber credits or promotion codes for everyone attending an after-party, there’s no better method.
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Texting is incredibly versatile
Of course, use cases for texting go far beyond events. Brands can use it at all stages of the funnel to attract and engage their audience. Popular examples include:
- Sales promotions
- Order updates
- Product launches
- Appointment reminders
- Customer support
- Recruitment
- Payment reminders
- Informational content
While text messages have traditionally been basic in format and appearance, RCS (Rich Communication Services) is an upgrade that can change that. It enables modern chat features like high-resolution photo and video sharing, read receipts, typing indicators, and longer messages over a data connection (Wi-Fi or mobile data). Ultimately, it’s providing a more secure and dynamic messaging experience.
“From a marketing and RevOps perspective, RCS allows us to send what I refer to as an HTML email in your text,” said Amanda. “You’re going to have carousels and call-to-action buttons, you can send polls and surveys. It’s going to open the world up. Text will be the channel for which fun and surprise and delight comes back.”
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Text campaigns can also be intimidating
Despite all the benefits that can come from texting, some brands are reluctant to embrace texting because it can seem overwhelming to put an effective program into place.“I think it scares brands more than anything else, particularly on the B2B side,” said Mike. “We’re all very used to, as consumers, interacting with text nowadays from businesses. But I think when B2B executives even hear the whisper of the idea of text message marketing, they’re like ‘That sounds kind of scary. How do you execute that?’”
Our panelists pointed out that not only is the process seamless when partnering with the right SMS partner, but it’s already happening at the desk level. These brands’ representatives are likely texting with customers and making deals happen. So the logical next step is to put a system in place that syncs these conversations and gets everybody on the same page.
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You’ve got to pay attention to compliance
While there’s nothing to fear with business texting, there are certainly considerations that must be taken seriously. At the top of this list is compliance. There are many factors to be aware of in order to ensure that your team stays in line with all the latest regulations.
By creating a uniform texting strategy with a trusted platform, you can alleviate some of the concerns. For example, if the wealth advisors at a bank are using their own devices for unofficial texts, there will inevitably be client data on their phones. When those text exchanges take place within a secure system, that data is then kept off individual phones and is protected from risks.
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Check Out the Full Webinar
If you liked these suggestions from our webinar, please click below to view the entire conversation. You’ll find excellent tips and strategies for everything from purchasing hardware for your employees to hyping your next event to elevating your cross-team efficiency.
