Businesses of all sizes still rely on Short Message Service (SMS) to convey important messages. With 82% of text messages sent being received and seen, it is no wonder that SMS is still a widely preferred tool for effective communication.🌐
When discussing communication through SMS, the famous terms “ SMS Automation” and “ Broadcast SMS” are often used. This leads to a debate: “ SMS automation Vs Broadcast SMS.” Which is better? 🤔
If you are also stuck choosing what’s best for your business, Don’t worry! , we’ve got you covered.
This blog will cover everything about SMS automation and Broadcast SMS, including their definitions, benefits, use cases, and our opinion on which one is better.
🔑 KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- SMS automation is a tool that sends automatic text messages according to the customer’s actions.
- Broadcast SMS is a text message-sending system that sends a single message to a group of contacts.
- SMS automation helps provide personalized messages, whereas SMS broadcasts allow businesses to save time by mass messaging.
- SMS automation is used to confirm orders and send automated messages, whereas Broadcast SMS is used to schedule and send group messages.
- Broadcast SMS is best for businesses like government agencies, educational institutions, and event management companies, whereas SMS automation is useful for Tech companies, Healthcare, and hospitality.
What is SMS Automation?
SMS automation is a powerful tool for sending automatic text messages based on pre-defined conditions. Using this text message automation, businesses can send customers messages based on events or specific trigger points.
For example, whenever a customer adds items to their online shopping cart, the system of that particular e-commerce store automatically sends a friendly order reminder text through SMS automation.
What is Broadcast SMS?
Broadcast SMS is the process by which businesses can send one message to multiple recipients or a group of contacts. In this message type, each person receives the business’s texts but cannot see group details.
For example, a software company can use SMS broadcasts to notify customers about urgent updates or changes. This message reaches each customer and ensures that everyone gets the message quickly without the need to send it one by one. Business owners can use it to send promotional messages and one-off campaigns. It is a type of bulk SMS.
SMS Automation Vs Broadcast SMS: Benefits
SMS automation can be a game changer for your business. It helps your business achieve efficiency and productivity by saving time with an automated messaging pattern. It is easy to set up and can be accessible with minimal technical resources.
Text message automation can improve customer engagement by sending personalized messages according to specific customer actions. Also, by automating messages, you can provide consistent and timely information, which ensures customer success.
Broadcast SMS, on the other hand, also provides benefits similar to SMS automation. This messaging system can send text messages to many contacts at a single click. This eventually saves time and eliminates the need for more agents to work on sending messages individually.
Your business will also be able to schedule text messages and send them according to your customers’ perfect timelines, depending on which country, state, or place they live in. This gives you scalability and a global reach for sending messages in text formats to all international clients.
SMS Automation Vs Broadcast SMS: Use Cases
Tools like SMS automation are crucial, especially if your business often requires sending messages at various process points to ensure workflow automation.
Businesses use SMS automation for various uses, some of them are:
- Confirm Online Orders: Businesses can send automated text messages when someone purchases their product or subscribes to their services. Customers are more satisfied when they get a confirmation message.
- Automated Welcome Messages: You can set text messages to be sent whenever a customer starts their journey with your product or service. For example, a welcoming message can be triggered after someone makes their first payment to your business.
- Sending Personalized Offers: As a business, you can set the type of message you want to send in certain situations and points. This allows you to send personalized messages based on customers’ actions to make them feel valued.
- Reminding Patients About Appointments: Health professionals can use an SMS automation system to schedule automated text messages to remind patients about their upcoming appointments.
Broadcast SMS has an enormous scope of use for businesses with multiple clients and provides an efficient and reliable to reach a broader client base.
Some of the Use cases of Broadcast SMS are:
- Mass Text Message Broadcast: You can quickly send a single text message to thousands of customers or clients at once. This helps your business with promotions, announcements, updates, or urgent notifications.
- Scheduling Messages: The scheduling options also make this messaging system more convenient. Simply draft the message you want to send and schedule the timing according to the client’s preferences.
- Sending Helpful Messages with Reliable Support: Often, the broadcast text message service provider offers 24/7 support and robust security mechanisms, which can be used to deliver information as fast as possible and to as many people as possible.
- Personalized SMS: While sending SMS broadcasts, you can update the names and other individual details so that each recipient feels that the message is solely targeted to them.
SMS Automation Vs Broadcast SMS: Personalization and Targeting
Using SMS automation, businesses can customize the messages before putting them into specific triggers for automation.
For example, When customers purchase a product or service, they get a different message format than an automated text message sent to customers for other reasons, such as appointment reminders.
SMS automation is vital for any business that prioritizes customer engagement and requires personalized interactions, such as E-commerce, Healthcare providers, Hospitality, Tech Companies, etc.
On the other hand, broadcast SMS also offers customers a personalized experience. While sending the collective message, you can update the clients’ information to make them feel valued with the customized message.
A broadcast SMS messaging system is crucial for a business that requires consistent messaging to reach a large group of customers for various reasons. SMS broadcasts are especially used for marketing purposes, such as announcing a sale, offering discounts, or sending event invitations.
SMS Automation Vs Broadcast SMS: Frequency and Timing
In SMS automation, messages are sent based on pre-determined specific triggers, such as purchasing or ordering a product or making a service subscription. Also, the system sends welcome messages after the SMS automation system detects new subscribers. Sending automated SMS asking for feedback requests after the completion of service can be good timing, too.
Maintaining the frequency of messaging is important to avoid making your customers feel overwhelmed and annoyed by continuous messaging. A report shows that sending an average of 5 messages monthly can maintain a balance between engaging the audience and not annoying them.
On the other hand, broadcast SMS is sent especially to inform customers about upcoming campaigns or announcements or to inform them about business or urgent updates as a whole. It is perfect for sending SMS broadcasts when your business needs to make quick announcements about product launches or special events. It can also be sent as regular scheduled messages like weekly newsletters.
To maintain consistency, you can send 2 broadcast messages per week with your whole subscribers as a minimum frequency.
SMS Automation Vs Broadcast SMS: Which is Better?
SMS automation and broadcast SMS use cases and benefits are similar. Both primarily aim to send text messages to their customers. But if we compare both hand in hand, we can find out which is better for your business.
If your business aims to set automated text messages for customer actions, then it’s clear that you should go for SMS automation. However, to send messages to a large audience at once, you shouldn’t rely solely on automation. Here is where the importance of Broadcast SMS comes in.
With Broadcast SMS, sending appointment reminders or messages to a large group of people is not only possible but also convenient. It also offers personalization options. However, you won’t be able to automate SMS with Broadcast SMS.
For a quick glance,
Suppose you are in a business niche that requires automated SMS with personalization, sending automated reminders, and text messages to engage customers after each action, such as purchasing a product or completing the service. In that case, nothing is better for you than using an SMS automation system.
Whereas if your business often needs to send a message to a large group of customers and requires a reliable support system, scheduling messages, and personalized mass text, then consider choosing an SMS broadcast system.
Overall, SMS automation and Broadcast SMS enhance customer engagement and improve customer experience. Consider using both to power your communications and customer service experiences, if possible.
Conclusion
Businesses require SMS automation and Broadcast SMS to leverage their customer experience and increase the company’s efficiency. Both provide similar benefits, including saving time, increasing efficiency, personalized experiences, and effective customer engagement. Businesses can excel in delivering timing reminders and reaching their customers using these text message systems.
Choosing between SMS automation and Broadcast SMS depends on the business model and requirements. SMS automation is widely used by healthcare, tech companies, hospitality, and e-commerce businesses to remind about appointments, confirm orders, and send greeting messages.
Whereas Educational institutions, government agencies, and event management companies often use SMS broadcasts to inform every customer of any offers, events, or emergency alerts at once.
