6 ways texting can boost your business

Whether you are a small-scale business or operate several locations, garden centers can benefit from business text messaging. Did you know that 95% of texts are read within three minutes and the average response time for a text is only 90 seconds?

For your garden center, that means adding texting to your communication and marketing strategy can significantly improve customer service and customer relationships, resulting in increased revenue, more online reviews and overall customer satisfaction.

Want to get started? These six steps can help you start texting and grow your garden center business.

1. Announce new product arrivals through SMS marketing.

Social media and email marketing are great ways to promote your new product arrivals, and adding texting on top of them will only help you reach your customers faster.

There’s a good chance that your business is missing out on selling more items because your customers aren’t seeing your emails and social posts. The best way to reach your customers is by texting them about your latest products. Share pictures, too, to make it extra eye-grabbing.

Garden center: Happy Friday! We just received a brand-new shipment of beautiful poinsettias. Come by this weekend to check them out!

But how do you ignite those customer conversations?

When customers check out in store or online, ask them to sign up for SMS alerts at the register or checkout screen. From there, you can text them your newest offerings. It’s as simple as that!

2. Upsell your products and services.

It’s often easier and more profitable to sell ancillary products or services to existing customers, such as landscaping services, seasonal décor and new items they may like based on past purchases.

After a customer has purchased something and has already signed up on your SMS subscriber list, text them customized products to complement their purchases.

Garden center: “Hi, Jane! We just got fertilizer and fresh pine straw. It would be great for those saplings you picked up last week. Do you want us to set some aside for you?

Customer: “Hey! Yes, that’d be great. How about 1 bag of fertilizer and 2 bales of straw?”

Engaging consumers like this is a great way to remind them of products that pair with the products they already have.

3. Promote seasonal specials by texting customers.

You need to keep your customers coming back throughout the year, even during the off season. Cash flow eases business headaches when you’ve got steady revenue year-round.

Texting comes in handy when it comes to bridging the communication gap between your business and your customers.

Take advantage of what each season has to offer and capitalize on those products and services. For example, encourage customers to buy their saplings from you in the spring. Or when it gets too cold to grow plants outside, encourage customers to explore indoor options.

Garden center: “Too cold to grow in the garden? Come by today to take a look at our houseplants and indoor supplies so that you can keep growing all year round!”

4. Generate leads with SMS chat.

Want to make the most of your website? Texting can help. Consider adding SMS chat to your homepage so that potential customers can easily reach you and ask questions. Being available for a potential sale is crucial and SMS chat allows you to provide solutions on the go.

Here’s how it works: Customers can start a conversation with you via SMS chat on your website, and from there, they can carry the text conversation to their phone. If you aren’t available, you can always set up an auto-response that tells customers when they should expect a response.

Customer: Hi, this is Jane. Do you have any fiddle leaf figs in stock? I’m looking for new houseplants.

Autoresponder: Thank you for contacting our garden center! Our business hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Sunday. We’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as we can!

Garden center: Hi Jane! Unfortunately, we are out of fiddle leaf figs at the moment, but we have a bunch of other great plants for your home! How about a snake plant or a monstera?

SMS chat greatly increases your customer engagement. The big impact is that it keeps the conversations going even after you leave the website, which is huge for engagement and retaining those sales opportunities. The quicker you can respond to a customer, the more sales you can close.

5. Encourage customers to sign up for your events.

If you want more people coming to your workshops and other events, texting is a great way to spread the word.

Text photos of your events to customers to pique their interest. For example, you may run a workshop every other weekend but customers might not know about them. If you text them, you’ll be on their radar.

Garden center: “We’re holding our bi-monthly gardening class this weekend! Learn how to prepare your garden for the upcoming winter and what you can do to preserve and protect your flowerbeds. Want to join? Text back YES to secure your place!”

Get your customers signed up to your SMS subscriber list so that they are always the first to know about your events. Also, be sure to ask for customers’ phone numbers as they’re registering for events to send event reminders, so they do indeed show up, and to then text those customers later about other events, promotions and more.

You’ll get more people coming to your events, which means more opportunities for sales, more chances for customers to share their good times on social media and increased chances to get introductions to new customers.

6. Earn more favorable online reviews.

Online reviews matter for your business. Your garden center needs to be at the top of the search results page, and to get there, you’ll need stellar customer reviews.

Reviews are also a great way for customers to vouch for your business and stand out amongst your competition.

Encourage satisfied customers to leave you the feedback you need. Text a link to your review page after a purchase or service. This eliminates the hassle of searching for the review page and directs customers to where they need to be. You can even offer them a special discount for submitting a review!

Garden center: Thank you for shopping with us! When you have a moment, would you leave us a review? We’d be happy to offer you a 10% discount on your next purchase upon submitting your feedback! Just follow this link to leave your review: [Link]

Texting makes it easy to build your online reputation. By earning more reviews, you’ll be able to gain the trust of your customers and take your garden center to the next level.

Texting helps you connect with consumers, resulting in happier, returning customers and an increase in cash flow to grow your business. The most important thing is that you start texting today!

The author is a content marketing specialist at Text Request, a business texting solution.