SMS for Eloqua: Get More Out of Your CMS

If you’re not familiar with Eloqua, chances are, your marketing team is. Eloqua is Oracle’s SaaS platform for marketing automation, and it’s very powerful.

There are many approaches to marketing in the digital age and a platform or solution to offer each component. That works in your favor, of course, as there are new and innovative ways to implement your marketing strategy, inspiring creatives to design and execute campaigns.

This can also be frustrating as many disparate systems mean learning new platforms and navigating between them, slowing productivity and creating headaches. The time spent crafting and executing campaigns on different platforms can make it challenging to track an overall marketing strategy by looking at the big picture. Thankfully, Eloqua helps.

Eloqua allows marketers to plan their big picture strategy, execute each component, then track and review comprehensive results. It also enables you to automate email messages to target current and prospective clients. SMS for Eloqua brings you to the new era of marketing by allowing you to send and track business texts within Eloqua alongside your email and other activities.

Marketing Game Changer: SMS for Eloqua

Modern marketing plans rely on outreach for a modern era. After all, effective communication starts with speaking the same language as your audience. Since 97% of Americans own a cellphone and the vast majority check their phones 160 times each day, it’s clear that businesses can’t overlook mobile strategy.

If you’re not already using SMS in your marketing strategy, rest assured it’s easy to implement and well worth it. You won’t need to hire someone with agile thumbs to type messages to your subscribers – there are platforms to take care of that for you. And with SMS for Eloqua integrations, you can easily schedule, send, monitor, and report on your business text activity.

Integrating SMS with Eloqua gives you the complete package, providing you all of the benefits of SMS outreach without requiring you to move to another platform or deal with annoying popup windows. You’ll have the ability to design and send and receive messages directly inside of Eloqua without toggling between screens.

More than the ease of use, you’ll easily be able to consolidate and track your text campaigns within the Eloqua platform. Users can see texts all in one place for a more comprehensive view of the customer. And your marketing team will be happy to know that adding a new channel won’t negatively impact their agility or efficiency.

Related: How Does SMS API Integration Apply to My Mobile Strategy?

Enhance Your Eloqua Strategy

Eloqua’s robust marketing segmentation and automation approach can enhance your traditional marketing strategy quickly and easily. The platform makes – and delivers on – some pretty big promises, including increasing your conversion rate and building better brand engagement.

Eloqua streamlines your internal marketing workflows by enabling automatic publication to the platform once content has received approval. Content can also be automatically published into a shared folder, so all assets are immediately accessible by the entire team.

SMS for Eloqua brings the same level of planning and transparency to your business texting strategy. By integrating your SMS platform into Eloqua, your marketing team will have visibility of text-based campaigns, helping you effectively automate and seamlessly sync messaging across channels.

Not only can you craft and send messages, but you can receive replies to two-way texts right within Eloqua as well. With entire campaigns and message threads recorded and time-stamped, you’re sure to cover all bases of customer interaction from outreach to engagement and beyond.

Eloqua also integrates with CRM platforms. Companies will benefit from this multifaceted approach by ensuring seamless strategic outreach and relevant teams’ involvement. Integrating SMS with Eloqua doesn’t simply mean adding functionality to an existing platform. It enhances your marketing approach by making the robust nature of Eloqua even more valuable to teams within your organization.

Benefits of (and Uses for) SMS Marketing

We’ve covered the benefits of integration and leveraging SMS for Eloqua to sharpen your marketing strategy. Now may be a good moment for a bit of a refresher on the benefits of SMS marketing.

Ensure Your Messages Are Read

If you’re going to spend time writing and sending messages, it helps to know that they’ll be received and read. SMS for Eloqua is the perfect approach to delivering marketing messages that will reach your audience. 

SMS has a whopping 98% open rate compared to email marketing tactics, no matter how catchy your subject line is. Not only do the vast majority open SMS messages, but 60% of your subscribers will open your messages in under five minutes. It’s clear with numbers like that: you stand a pretty good chance of your audience receiving and reading your messages.

Increase Engagement

There are several ways you can use business texting to increase engagement with your brand.

The first that may come to mind is two-way texting, and that’s an excellent place to start. Sending messages that invite your customers to respond is a great way to engage, particularly when soliciting feedback or insight. You can create an automated response that will understand keywords and reply accordingly.

Engagement isn’t limited to bidirectional text messages, however. You can also encourage communication with your brand simply by asking for it. That includes sending text message follow-ups to purchases and appointments, asking for feedback. You can send a link to a brief survey – anonymous or not – to gain insights directly from your customers.

You don’t have to wait until after a customer completes a purchase to solicit feedback. You can also send polls to get votes or insights on upcoming product releases or encourage votes on a new design.

Contests and competitions are another great way to encourage engagement. Try using SMS for Eloqua and building a contest or drawing into your marketing activity. Ask customers to text a keyword or complete a survey to gain entry.

Related: How Text Messaging Platforms for Business Help CPG Companies

Build Brand Trust and Add Value

You don’t have to send individual messages to build a connection with your audience and instill a sense of trust and loyalty in your brand. Regularly sending relevant, valuable messages is a great way to build a relationship with your customers and keep them engaged.

You can trigger automated messages based on events, such as a coupon for a birthday. If you’ve tagged your customers by market segment or product interests, you can offer more relevant information to their specific needs or share tips and tricks for recently purchased products.

Adding value can be done in several ways. Use SMS for Eloqua to trigger service reminders or polite nudges about upcoming payment deadlines to help customers avoid defaults or late penalties.

You can also send automated messages when an order has been received or a shipment dispatched. Being proactive helps add value to your relationship with your customer and saves them the hassle of searching for information themselves.

Include tracking information or, better yet, a link to track a package when it has been shipped. A quick note to let customers know when the package has been delivered is often helpful. It can also reduce package theft, something both of you will appreciate.

By using SMS to share relevant messages and offers, adding value through helpful information, and finding creative ways to help your prospective or current customers, you’ll build trust and increase loyalty.

Deliver Time-Sensitive Messages and Alerts

There are times when you may need to send time-sensitive messages or urgent alerts to your customers, and in those moments, text messages are the best approach. Emailing your customers to let them know that you have a power outage, security event, or last-minute cancellation is not likely to ensure they’ve received the message in time. SMS is the only way to go.

As we mentioned above, you can also send short texts as reminders of product servicing and include a link to book an appointment. Do you have a payment schedule with deadlines or due dates? Rolling membership plans that require payments or renewal of enrollment? A friendly text can help increase participation and save customers from payment defaults or lapses in membership coverage.

Reduce Appointment No-Shows

Let’s face it: we live in a busy era with many obligations and the world pulling us in many directions. It’s easy to forget appointments, meetings, and other commitments. The one thing most people don’t forget to carry with them, however, is their phone.

Missed appointments can cost businesses a lot of money and a loss of productivity. When someone is a no-show to a meeting, that equates to time lost for the host who could have done other things or met other customers. For example, the healthcare industry alone loses $150 billion a year due to no-shows.

Sending appointment reminders via text effectively supports both your business and your customers. Include an option to reply with a keyword to cancel or reschedule, making it easy for your customers to make changes to their appointment on the fly.

A Robust SMS Platform Makes All the Difference

Bridging the gap between the marketing efficiency of Eloqua automation and the breadth of opportunity offered by business SMS outreach is native integration. After all, your marketing team should be able to leverage all of the benefits provided by these modern marketing tools without slowing themselves down.

Integrating your SMS platform will achieve just that. With native integration, you’ll be able to craft, send, and receive SMS all from within Eloqua. You’ll be able to send one- or two-way texts with ease, including mass marketing messages at the click of a button. Your SMS communications are contained within the contact page, giving you a single point to communicate and manage client contacts all in one spot.

To leverage the full power of SMS for Eloqua, make sure you choose an enterprise-grade texting platform like TrueDialog. We will help you obtain a dedicated short or long code number for your business so you can get started with SMS outreach.

Our platform is comprehensive and feature-rich and offers native integration into Eloqua. That means your marketing teams can get started with incorporating SMS into their strategy without long learning curves or confusing workflows. Send personalized messages or distribute mass texts with ease. Track interactions alongside other marketing activities within Eloqua. Get in touch for a free trial and see how TrueDialog can help boost your marketing plan.

 

Disclaimer: Please note that this advice is for informational purposes only and is neither intended as nor should be substituted for consultation with appropriate legal counsel and/or your organization’s regulatory compliance team.