2-Way SMS allows businesses to build closer relationships with their contacts than ever before. By properly taking advantage of 2-Way SMS, businesses can increase their top-of-mind awareness by taking their message straight to consumers’ phones.

If you’re looking for a powerful new avenue that will connect you to your customers, consider how 2-Way SMS may be right for you.

Below, we’ve put together three of the most important ways that 2-Way SMS can benefit a business: through the creation of surveys, autoresponders, and campaigns. We’ll look at each one in depth so that you can decide how to best incorporate this functionality into your own SMS campaigns.

What Is 2-Way SMS?

First, let’s start with a brief recap of 2-Way SMS. This form of SMS differs from A2P (Application-to-Person) communication in that it allows for consumers to respond to automated messages.

As you may have already noticed, this provides a number of benefits to businesses employing 2-Way SMS. Notably, because it gives your contacts the ability to provide instant feedback, 2-Way SMS can offer a sense of community and trust between your business and its customers.

With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the game-changing benefits offered by 2-Way SMS.

1. They Allow Businesses to Create Surveys

What better way to keep your customers engaged or get feedback than by creating surveys? From helping chip companies develop their next flavors to getting real feedback about customer experiences, surveys allow businesses to perform a wide range of services.

When used correctly, these surveys can help improve a business’s SMS marketing campaign. So what might these surveys look like?

With SMS.to, you can prepare the survey from our software and have it hit the phones of all your contacts. Let’s say that you own a local pizza restaurant, for instance, and you survey your contacts about which special to run for the upcoming weekend. Your contacts could then message you back from their phones—giving you access to the critical information you need.

As you can expect, your survey questions can range in seriousness. Used wisely, they can provide both the short-term and the long-term critical insight you need to get started growing your business.

2. They Let Businesses Establish Autoresponders

Autoresponders are particularly useful for businesses that attract large crowds—such as bars or restaurants. This is because autoresponders allow individuals to opt-in to your SMS marketing campaign by texting a number. When doing so, they give their consent to join your contact list.

How might businesses use these? Again, let’s look at our pizza restaurant example. You may announce to your customers that they can text the word “PIZZA” to a certain number to sign up for alerts, updates, and more. Or, you may choose to add this to your receipt.

Customers who accept the offer will automatically be part of your SMS campaign.

3. They Give Businesses the Opportunity to Start a Campaign

Finally, these SMS services give businesses the flexibility they need to start a true SMS campaign. With this campaign in place, you can be sure that you will be able to send updates and notifications to your customers—no matter where they are.

These powerful benefits can strengthen any business’s marketing campaigns.