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EP346 How Small Businesses Use SMS & RCS to Drive Revenue · Profit With A Plan

• 0:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: In this upcoming episode of Profit with a Plan, we're talking about how small businesses can use text messaging from SMS to the new world of RCS,
• 0:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And to connect with customers faster to convert more conversations into revenue. You'll hear how to get started with a professional texting strategy, real examples of companies using messages to fuel growth, and why the next generation of rich text communication is creating a big opportunity for business owners right now.
• 0:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So if you're looking for a smarter, more direct way to stay in front of your audience and turn attention into action, this is the episode you will want to catch.
• 1:04
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Hey entrepreneurs, are you working too hard for too little profit? Well, welcome to Profit with a Plan podcast, where we help
• 1:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: business owners grow smarter, increase profitability, and build a company that's worth more, whether you plan to keep it or sell it. I'm Marcia Reiner, business growth strategist and the profit booster behind Infinite Profit.
• 1:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Each week, I bring practical strategies, expert insights, and real-world steps to help you grow revenue, improve margins, and build a stronger business.
• 1:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And today's episode is sponsored by Infinite Profit, where we turn strategy into profitable growth.
• 1:43
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But before we jump in, I have something special for you. If revenue has plateaued, or your marketing is producing or not producing the return it should.
• 1:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Get your free Profit Booster Growth Map. In just a few minutes, it helps you identify where to bring in more qualified clients, and where those profit leaks might be costing you money.
• 2:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Go get yours now, or better yet, after the show, at ProfitBooster.biz. And by the way, there's no sales call required.
• 2:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Now let's get into today's conversation. Joining me today is Amanda McGookin-Hager, and she is the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer at True Dialogue, a leading enterprise platform for business text messaging. Amanda works at the intersection of marketing revenue and customer communications.
• 2:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Helping businesses use SMS
• 2:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: to, and the emerging power of RCS to create more meaningful conversations that actually convert into growth.
• 2:44
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: She brings practical, real-world perspective on how companies can meet customers where they already are, which is on their phones, and turn those everyday touchpoints into stronger relationships and measurable revenue. Today, we're talking about how small businesses can start using text messaging right away, and what actually is working right now to turn those quick pings into profit.
• 3:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And why the next generation of messaging is creating a big opportunity for business owners who are ready to use it strategically. Amanda, I'm so excited to have you on the show today. Welcome to Profit with Plan!
• 3:20
  Amanda: Thank you so much, Marci, it's so great to be here.
• 3:22
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, this has been a long conversation coming.
• 3:25
  Amanda: I know.
• 3:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: We've been talking about this for months, so I've been really excited, you know? I think…
• 3:30
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I think text messaging is so cool, but I know a lot of businesses are using it wrong, or worse, not using it at all. So, before we get into text messaging and everything, how did you get into this side of the business?
• 3:47
  Amanda: You know, it's funny, I've been in B2B marketing for 25 years, specifically around demand generation, and the tools that we have are the website and email, so it was a really wonderful opportunity to join, sort of, the next generation of business communications, texting.
• 4:06
  Amanda: I'm… it's been a… I've been here for over 2 years now at the company, and it's been a great ride.
• 4:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Nice. Well, I think texting is so, like, valuable, right? I mean, first of all, my inbox on my email has literally 15,000 emails in it, and I had to create an agent, an AI agent, to help me filter through all the stuff that's going on. But when my phone dings.
• 4:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I look.
• 4:35
  Amanda: Yeah.
• 4:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's really powerful. Yeah.
• 4:38
  Amanda: It is really powerful, and you know, in the world of marketing, we're seeing that the email spam filters are much stronger, right? They're much, much stronger, and so it's really hard when you are emailing your prospects and your customers to break into that inbox, and then
• 4:55
  Amanda: Once you're there, like you said, your competition is all the other emails in that inbox, right? And so, we're seeing somewhat of a diminishing return on email communications.
• 5:05
  Amanda: At the same time.
• 5:07
  Amanda: Apple and their iOS, as well as Android, have launched call screening, and so even getting through by phone call is harder and harder. So, as a small business, where does that leave you? What options do you have? Well, enter text messaging. You know, as you mentioned.
• 5:23
  Amanda: we're all tuned to our text messages, right? I can speak for myself, it's my family, it's my friends, right? Like, it is, quick, concise, and powerful communications that I might need to know regarding my order delivery status, or, you know, sort of day-to-day, operations of my life.
• 5:44
  Amanda: So it is a… it is a highly engaged channel, a really powerful channel.
• 5:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Well, so that brings up the concern, I think, that I have right now, and I've heard from others, right? It's like, okay, so…
• 5:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: if… if I'm a business marketing, or trying to engage with you, and maybe we don't have that real close friends and family relationship, is my text message gonna, like, really tick them off?
• 6:13
  Amanda: You bring up a very valid concern that I hear from a lot of business owners and business operators. Hopefully the answer is no, your text message will not…
• 6:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: die.
• 6:27
  Amanda: But I'll tell you why, text messaging is such a highly engaged channel. It's because it's a very,
• 6:34
  Amanda: regulated channel. There are opt-in requirements that have to happen before you can start texting. So, ideally, in a world where all things are operating above board, you're not emailing, or you're not texting anyone who hasn't already agreed
• 6:51
  Amanda: to receive them.
• 6:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay.
• 6:54
  Amanda: Yeah.
• 6:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, so then there's those regulations and compliance that have to be done on that. So… so if I've opted in, I've gone to a forum, I've done something, I've… I've signed up for, you know, something of value, and I opted in because I gave them my number and I checked that little box. That's what you're talking about, the compliance, right? Correct. I've done that. Correct.
• 7:17
  Amanda: Yes.
• 7:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I've agreed to it, but I guess the other side to that is how quickly are today's consumers actually going, well, I agreed to that so I could get the thing, and now, as soon as I get two messages, I'm hitting unsubscribe?
• 7:35
  Amanda: You know, it's certainly there, right? It's everyone's right as a consumer to opt in and opt out. The same with email, right? You don't have to receive those messages, you can opt out of those messages as well. The same with the phone calls, you know, you don't answer the phone calls if you don't want to.
• 7:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I don't think I answer any phone calls, you know? I usually let it go or, you know, do something else until my time is free, where I can go then reply to them. But, yeah, you know, this is… it's not… and I didn't mean it to sound like it's an attack on you for… or, you know, your platform of texting, but, you know, these are really good things that are, you know, coming across
• 8:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: everywhere, right? I don't answer my phone anymore. I look at my email when I have time to look at it, or it builds to 15,000. You know, I respond quickly to texts, like, as we're talking, it's flashing over there, and so my eyes immediately drop to it. But it does, it gives the consumer the right to choose them, their adventure, right?
• 8:39
  Amanda: Exactly.
• 8:39
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: want to go on.
• 8:41
  Amanda: Exactly, you're exactly right. You choose the channel that is preferred to communicate with, right? That's email, phone call, text, whichever. So many businesses are not including text messaging in those options, right? And that's where the real opportunity is today.
• 8:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it, I love it. Okay, so how do we, what are some of the strategies, that you're employing that work really well for your customers today, where they're getting the kind of response and engagement they want from text messaging?
• 9:10
  Amanda: Yeah, it's a great question. So, a lot of our customers… well, I should back up and say our customers run the gamut of all different types of businesses, all different types of audiences, and all different types of use cases. So, I'll just pick a handful here to share with you.
• 9:27
  Amanda: one that I'm most excited about, if anyone here follows hockey, the Minnesota Wild.
• 9:33
  Amanda: is in the Stanley Cup playoffs right now, and they are one of our customers who use text messaging to sell tickets to their events and merchandise… merchandise bundles in their events as well.
• 9:46
  Amanda: Not to mention fan engagement, you know, behind-the-scenes footage, all kinds of really smart content-driven elements that they do to keep their fans engaged. They have one of the highest, I forget what they call it, like, filled seats.
• 10:03
  Amanda: In the… in the games of all the hockey, you know, all the hockey teams, and so they really…
• 10:09
  Amanda: continue and keep those fans engaged through the text messaging channel. They ran a recent
• 10:16
  Amanda: study on their messages and saw a 1,200% return on ad spend, meaning the… the money they invested to send the text messages saw a 1,200% return in profit on that. So that is… that is a great…
• 10:33
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's…
• 10:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Fantastic. And by the way, I'm a huge hockey fan, I'm sure you did your research to figure that one out. But funny enough, so my team, even though I'm in Las Vegas, is the Anaheim Ducks, and this is the first time they've made it into the playoffs, and just last night made it into Round 2. But every day that they're gonna play, I get it… funny enough, I get a text message going, oh, here's today's
• 10:57
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: here's today's merch you can get. Oh, if you want to get tickets, and it's just… I was like, oh, okay.
• 11:02
  Amanda: Exactly.
• 11:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: that, I was like, duh.
• 11:05
  Amanda: Yeah, and you are a dedicated fan, right?
• 11:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: of T.
• 11:08
  Amanda: that's your… you're gonna be involved, you're gonna be, engaged with what they're offering, and… and you appreciate those updates, no doubt, right? Yes.
• 11:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: meet at the games tonight, right?
• 11:20
  Amanda: Exactly, exactly. Now, imagine if they were also showing you, behind-the-scenes footage, right? Like, locker room footage, or them preparing for the game, or funny little clips of your favorite players, or, you know, your attachment
• 11:36
  Amanda: And you're… the depth of your loyalty just goes that much deeper, and it's all done very quickly and right there on your phone, so…
• 11:43
  Amanda: That's one example.
• 11:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's a fantastic example, at least in my space. I'm like, yeah, because I've experienced it, okay, that's.
• 11:51
  Amanda: Yeah, yeah, and you don't have to be an NFL team to employ that, right? You could be a non-profit with your customer base, you could have an event, any other kind of event in your business where you employ kind of those same strategies. Another one of our customers is Post University. They are a university with
• 12:10
  Amanda: 60 undergraduate, you know, offerings. They do classes during the day, during the evening, online. They use text messaging. Obviously, a younger demographic.
• 12:21
  Amanda: today doesn't love to pick up the phone, and as I'm told from other, friends with children, college-age children, they have to be reminded to check email.
• 12:34
  Amanda: So, text messaging is their native language, if you will. So, Post University is using text messaging to drive their enrollment, and saw a 46% increase in their enrollment when they started using that as their communication channel. So…
• 12:52
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: fantastic. Yeah. These are huge numbers. And again, the points you're bringing out are that it's everybody's using it, so why aren't the businesses employing it in a way that,
• 13:05
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Improves the relationship that maybe, like, the hockey that's selling some merchandise, or reminding them that they need to check their email for their next, you know,
• 13:20
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: tasks that they have to do, or something along those lines. So I think it's really useful in ways
• 13:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: But let me ask you a question. So, we're talking some big companies, you know, enterprise is fantastic, they've always got deep pockets and can do these kind of things. How does a smaller business that really is, like, maybe it's a mom-and-pop, you know, pizza joint, or it's a consulting firm, or a law firm, you know, where do they engage or employ
• 13:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Text messaging.
• 13:51
  Amanda: Yeah, I love the use case that you just mentioned, to send a text saying to check your email. In fact, I kid you not, I'm dealing with a home renovation, and my salesperson on this project texted me earlier today and said, I just sent you
• 14:09
  Amanda: price updates in your inbox, you know, please take a look. So, just that extra nudge. In the past, I think, in sales, we used to do the 1-2…
• 14:20
  Amanda: punch, which would be to send the email and then leave a voicemail and say, I just sent you an email. But as we just talked about, phone calls, no one's really answering those. I even don't even really listen to them. I read the transcripts when I get around to it.
• 14:36
  Amanda: But the text message is just another nice way to, alert someone that there's an update there, so that's a very…
• 14:43
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: important, yeah.
• 14:44
  Amanda: Yeah, it's a really low-hanging, you know, use case there. I think any company of any size could adopt that easily, as a way to communicate. And then, you know, if you have a sales process, the communication there, if you have a marketing strategy, the communication there is also great. I think.
• 15:03
  Amanda: That might be a way for small businesses, mom and pops, to start dipping their toe in with text messaging.
• 15:11
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it, I love it. Okay, so, what are some of the do's and don'ts, right? We've talked about some do's. What are some of the don'ts you want to do… want to avoid when text messaging for business use?
• 15:24
  Amanda: Well, I will say that a cold text message, meaning not having an opt-in, purchase lists,
• 15:34
  Amanda: you know… Texting without permission, I'll say, is frowned upon and could actually get your brand shut down.
• 15:42
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh!
• 15:42
  Amanda: By the carriers, yeah. So, there are 3 main carriers in the United States, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, and all text messages pass through their networks.
• 15:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Mmm.
• 15:54
  Amanda: And they are really, strong believers in keeping the channel sort of spam-free, right?
• 16:02
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Oh, okay, so now we've got these 3 big gatekeepers that are out there going, you know, like, we have, in the email space, we have these, like, we have to be, approved, we have to have all these, you know, rules in emails so your email doesn't go into the spam box. We have that now with the text messaging with the 3 big carriers.
• 16:22
  Amanda: Yeah, we do, and… and because they are, so… because they feel so strongly about it is one of the reasons that… why the channel is so engaging, right? Why it's such a trusted channel, is that they are doing a really good job of making sure that all the traffic, all the messages on their website are coming from verified senders.
• 16:42
  Amanda: Right? You have to get your brand registered, you have to get a phone number issued to you, and they have to know who you are and why you're texting in order to do the texting. So…
• 16:53
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Got it, got it. Okay, so I'm not gonna… if I'm a business, I'm… I've got to go through the regulatory, to get that, and, you know, what's popping up in my head is a while ago, maybe it was, in the last couple years, they had… I… there were a lot of companies that would just call out and immediately leave you a voicemail, right? That wouldn't even… the phone wouldn't even ring, the voicemail would
• 17:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: just pop up. And I know that got shut down, or at least really strongly frowned upon.
• 17:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: We're not talking about that here with text messaging. We're talking about the… we've gotten it, we've registered with the companies, we've got a proper text phone, we're sending verified and approved conversations through there. We're not, like, doing massive spams of, you know, oh, I'm gonna send out a bulk message to 5,000 people, right?
• 17:49
  Amanda: Yeah. Yeah, my goal is not to scare anyone away from text messaging, right? It does… when you start to mention words like regulatory and compliance, it can be scary, but… but the reality is, is the application is very simple. It can be approved in a matter of days.
• 18:05
  Amanda: And the, any good vendor will help guide you through that process of what's required. It's… the requirements are very minimal. You'll need your employee identification number, you'll need your, you know, your mailing address for your
• 18:21
  Amanda: for your business, you know, it's not that, encumbering, I should say. It's not that high of an obstacle.
• 18:29
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay.
• 18:29
  Amanda: But it does make it a lot easier for, everyone else in the business when we know it's a trusted channel, right?
• 18:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Yeah, you're playing with… with the… you're playing in a fair space, right? You're not getting with those bad guys that are spamming out and doing all those nasty things that we're… that we, you know, that we… we think of, right?
• 18:49
  Amanda: That's true.
• 18:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: consumer, we're thinking, oh, how do I block all this stuff? But then at the same time, this is a fantastic opportunity for businesses to really engage, right? I'm a huge proponent of going, meet your customer where they are buying, right?
• 19:07
  Amanda: Yeah.
• 19:07
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Not bring them into your world, but you go into their world, and texting is right at top.
• 19:14
  Amanda: Yeah.
• 19:15
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Stop that.
• 19:16
  Amanda: It really is right there. It is a very trusted channel.
• 19:19
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, cool. So, what are some of the great ideas that you're using today? You had mentioned the hockey, and you had mentioned the school environment, but what are some of the things that, companies can use and really elevate to improve their profitability, right? To get more of those sales? What are some of the ideas that we're looking at these days that are working?
• 19:44
  Amanda: Well, it's very good for e-commerce, right? The ability to send pictures of image of product merchandise. We saw that with the hockey team. We've signed a number of other, e-commerce
• 19:58
  Amanda: customers that use it in that way.
• 20:02
  Amanda: the sale… supporting the sales process, whatever your sales process might look like. Okay. It could be a longer sales cycle, it could be a very short transactional cycle, but using text message through that, is a great… is a great way. In fact, one of our customers is a company called Human Good. They are a senior living,
• 20:22
  Amanda: senior living community. They have a number of different facilities throughout the United States. I think they're one of the largest in the United States. But they're using it at the community level. They're, they're…
• 20:36
  Amanda: I don't know that they call them salespeople per se in that world, but their community managers are using text messaging to communicate with prospective families who are looking to move their parents or their loved ones into the community. And so.
• 20:53
  Amanda: By using a platform, they're able to get those messages off of the
• 20:58
  Amanda: Community manager's personal phone, and into their system.
• 21:03
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Got it.
• 21:04
  Amanda: Yeah, and I… that may not sound like it's driving sales, however…
• 21:08
  Amanda: if that community manager leaves, so do all the messages on their phone. There they go out the door with the community manager and their personal cell phone, right? So, this is a great way for businesses to own the relationship with the prospective
• 21:24
  Amanda: customers.
• 21:26
  Amanda: To… to have text messaging inside their business systems.
• 21:30
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's fantastic, too, because when you're talking about a CRM, right, a client relationship management tool, and you're going, okay, well, what are my… what are my 12 points of contact that I'm going to have with this prospective customer until they buy? If we're text messaging, we want to have that in our CRM as well. Exactly. So… so having that kind of tool that says, oh, here was the message I sent.
• 21:55
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So if, Bob gets hit by a bus, right, you know.
• 21:59
  Amanda: Or wins the lottery.
• 22:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Take over.
• 22:01
  Amanda: I like to say, or wins the lottery.
• 22:04
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Everyone wins the lottery. I like to get excited.
• 22:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, so Bob wins the lottery, Sue can step in and take over that role, because the conversation and the communications, whether it's email, phone calls, you know, face-to-face, or now texting.
• 22:25
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: can all be in your CRM, right?
• 22:28
  Amanda: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if, let's say that the marketing team is sending out text messages around an upcoming promotion, and the sales team is to follow up on that, when it's all in the same system, everyone can see the activities of the other teams and make for a unified customer experience, so…
• 22:45
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow, that's fantastic, because…
• 22:48
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I'm working with a company right now, and we're setting up some… some operating procedures, and, you know, my team and I are doing some marketing for them, and… and, you know, having… having all… everybody on the same platform, right, that can see all that through, including the customer and the conversation that goes, I think it's essential for it, so this is a fantastic way to…
• 23:10
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: To keep, keep track, keep compliance, keep the conversation moving forward.
• 23:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Really, really good. Okay, so then now, let's talk about, I know we spent a lot of time on texting as general for it, but there's two types of texting, right? There's the traditional SMS, which are words, right? I'm sending, you know, I'm sending you words and going through, but there's other kinds of texting available now, right?
• 23:36
  Amanda: Yeah, this is where I get really excited about the features for text messaging. So, what you mentioned is SMS, short message service. That's plain text with a potential for a link, right? It's basically…
• 23:51
  Amanda: that simple. We also have MMS, which stands for Multimedia, Multimedia Messaging Service, which… that's where it's the plain text with an image, right? We talked about the e-commerce companies that are sending images of their products. That would be an MMS message.
• 24:08
  Amanda: And now, what's just coming out now is called RCS, Rich Communication Service, or Rich Communication Messages, and this is, in many ways mind-blowing.
• 24:20
  Amanda: for Apple users. If you are an Android user, you have had this on your phone this whole time. What has changed is that Apple finally agreed to support it. In the last 2 years, Apple has said, yes, we will support the RCS messaging. So, in the United States, most… I think the market share is owned by Apple, so…
• 24:41
  Amanda: the majority of people are just now getting introduced to RCS message, and what it is, is it's very interactive. Imagine
• 24:49
  Amanda: A plain text email that you receive.
• 24:52
  Amanda: And then imagine an HTML email that you receive.
• 24:56
  Amanda: Right? Maybe an email from someone you know, and then an email from a brand that has images, it has colors, it has different call-to-action buttons, it has different sections.
• 25:07
  Amanda: RCS message is just like that. It is like an HTML email in your text message box. So, it allows for…
• 25:17
  Amanda: Different call-to-action buttons. Those call-to-action buttons can interact with the maps.
• 25:21
  Amanda: application in the phone. If you wanted to send the details of an event, or where to park.
• 25:28
  Amanda: If you want to… or the office location, right? If you're a doctor's office and you want to… want to send where they can find you. It inter… it interacts with the phone app, so if you want to do a click-to-call, you can do it right there. You can send people to your phone.
• 25:45
  Amanda: It also interacts with any web browser, so any web URL you wanted to send.
• 25:51
  Amanda: It's really powerful. The colors can be branded your color. You can have emojis, no emojis. You can send, in plain text, you can send up to 160 characters.
• 26:04
  Amanda: In an RCS message, you can send up to a thousand characters.
• 26:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow, okay.
• 26:09
  Amanda: Oh, okay. I would discourage you from sending a thousand characters, that's a little bit long.
• 26:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Not designed for text messaging, right?
• 26:17
  Amanda: But it does give you more room to play, and then you can also send, images, GIFs.
• 26:24
  Amanda: And… videos.
• 26:26
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay.
• 26:27
  Amanda: So, and that is just one card. What I explained to you is just one card. You can send up to 10 cards a message. So imagine… let's just take the Anaheim Ducks. Imagine if the Anaheim Ducks were sending a card with the next game, and where to get tickets, and then the card after that was the merch
• 26:45
  Amanda: for that particular playoff game. You can buy it now, you can visit the store. Some of the messages will even link to the wallet in the phone, so if you wanted to buy it now, you could literally buy it now.
• 26:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow.
• 27:00
  Amanda: The next message, maybe that's a video from the coach saying how excited he is about the game, the upcoming game, and how excited he is about the… how his team has been performing, and then the one after that is behind-the-scenes video from the locker room, you know, showing
• 27:19
  Amanda: How they're all getting pumped up and excited to play the game, so…
• 27:23
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, I'm totally excited. This is… this is fan, this is pure fan things, but think about this. If you could do, kind of, like.
• 27:31
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: this model, right? This is a hockey team, right? Or a football team, or a baseball team, or whatever, you know, that has huge amounts of fans, but fans is the big word. What if we could start to develop that kind of feeling for your customers?
• 27:48
  Amanda: Yes, exactly, exactly.
• 27:51
  Amanda: It's really, really powerful. And really, the options are endless. I just, you know, came up with that off the top of my head, but the options for any business, you know, depending on what your business is, and what your offerings are, and how you drive your business.
• 28:08
  Amanda: This RCS messaging just gives you,
• 28:13
  Amanda: A crazy amount of tools in your tool belt.
• 28:17
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Well, this is just, just flying through my head right now. Imagine you're a dental practice, or an orthodontist, or something like that, right? And then you're announcing your specials, and then, look, you can get a free whitening, and there's a whitening piece on it. Oh, and look at the, you know, we help… we're gentle, right? Painless, you know, and oh, you can book your appointment right here, and I mean, I can just imagine
• 28:40
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: The… the capabilities that would allow, this type of
• 28:46
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: product to be kind of a landing page of sort, when you think about it.
• 28:51
  Amanda: Exactly, and it's… the way that it operates on the device is that on an Apple device, it's a swipe left and right. So imagine you had 10 cards, and we'll take the orthodontist appointment, right? You know, free consultation, first card. Second card, you know, March specials.
• 29:08
  Amanda: Third card, case study, right? Look at our… look at our patient case study, or our patient story here. Fifth card.
• 29:16
  Amanda: or, you know, the next card, A, book now, the next card, find… find the nearest location, right? The options are really, wide open.
• 29:28
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Okay, so this sounds really powerful.
• 29:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Question for you, is it, is it hard to create this stuff, or is there sort of a, plug-and-play or drop-and-drag kind of features that allows you to build this, or do you need to have some sort of team on your… in your company to help do this?
• 29:48
  Amanda: You know, that's a great question. Right now, a lot of the providers out there offer this functionality via API, which would require a development team to help you create the messaging.
• 29:59
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I'm kidding.
• 29:59
  Amanda: That's certainly an option if you have a strong development team, or you have a strong development agency or consultation or consultant company to help you. However, most people don't, right? So, I can say at TrueDialogue, we've created a drag-and-drop RCS composer, which makes it really easy for anyone to build.
• 30:19
  Amanda: To build these messages.
• 30:21
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Cool, because I think that's really important. You get the… you get the owner going, yeah, we want that, let's go do it, and he says, okay, marketing team, go do this, and they're, like, going, I don't know what this is, I'm not… I don't build that, I don't know how to do that, right?
• 30:35
  Amanda: Right.
• 30:36
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: a platform like yours that will allow them to just drop and drag, and be able to make it really user-friendly for anybody, and not have to hire the dev team to build out a whole new site. That's fantastic.
• 30:49
  Amanda: Right? And I failed to mention one of the key points that I love about RCS, which is the verified sender. So we talked about sending text messages, we talked about the compliance and regulations there. Those same compliance and regulations apply to RCS messages.
• 31:05
  Amanda: But what that gives you is you don't send the messages via a phone number.
• 31:10
  Amanda: Which, this was hard for me to wrap my head around, so you.
• 31:13
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Really?
• 31:13
  Amanda: You're getting a text message, but it's not through a phone number.
• 31:16
  Amanda: No, it's not through a phone number, it's through what's called an RCS agent.
• 31:21
  Amanda: And what it shows up in for your prospects is a verified sender with a blue checkmark that you are a verified person. So that makes it really valuable for companies that are,
• 31:33
  Amanda: In an industry where there might be a lot of spam or a lot of impersonation, you know that your customers can verify and trust the message that they're getting from you because of that verified checkmark.
• 31:47
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow, and because it's the checkmark, and because it's in LinkedIn, and Facebook, and it's on emails, and it's on websites, and it's, like, when you go to make a purchase, it's got that, it's already… we don't have to train our consumers.
• 32:01
  Amanda: Right.
• 32:02
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That verified checkmark means that it's safe.
• 32:04
  Amanda: Right, and it has your brand, it has your logo and your brand name on there too, so there's that brand affinity and sort of brand reinforcement of your company as well, so…
• 32:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Wow. I'm excited about this. Amanda, this could be so much for so many people, and it could even level the ground for the small guys, the little guys, to be able to compete a little bit more with the bigger guys that have deeper pockets.
• 32:28
  Amanda: Yeah.
• 32:29
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So, yeah, this sounds really fantastic. Okay, so, we've talked about the scariness of it, we've talked about… and that was from the consumer side, right? Because the consumers, they've got their… they've got their warnings up already, you know? But then we've knocked that down with the fact that it's super easy, it's super obtainable, they're getting a verified checkmark, right? You know, they're doing all the right stuff, and it can be
• 32:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: managed in a way that anybody can have access to. So I really like this. I really like this platform. So how does one start to consider putting this into their business?
• 33:06
  Amanda: It's a… that's a great question. So, if I were to give 3 tips to how to get started texting, we'll just start with basic texting. The 3 things that I would recommend are, one.
• 33:17
  Amanda: Understand the compliance opt-in checkmark on your forms on your website, or, you know, anywhere else where you might collect your prospect's information.
• 33:28
  Amanda: There are some… some language that the carriers require in order to be approved to send text messaging there, and sometimes it involves an update of the privacy policy and terms and conditions.
• 33:41
  Amanda: Now, I say that most small businesses have access to the privacy policy and the terms and conditions pretty easily. Some larger businesses don't, right? They have to go through outside firms, they have to go through
• 33:53
  Amanda: They have to get in line with the legal teams, etc. So, it can be a lot easier for small businesses to make these updates.
• 34:01
  Amanda: So that's the first thing I would recommend, is go ahead and get that opt-in on your… on your website, so that all the information you're collecting from this point forward is already opted into your text messaging strategy, and that's how you'll start to build your list.
• 34:18
  Amanda: I think that's the very first thing that… that anyone can do, whether you have a texting platform or not. Just start to collect that information, start to collect your list, start to develop that opt-in.
• 34:28
  Amanda: The second thing I would recommend is to, think about your business and start thinking about the business operations and your growth levers, and start thinking about where text could fit in there. How could you incorporate text messaging as a channel
• 34:44
  Amanda: In these different processes, or in these different levers, in a way that you could really measure
• 34:49
  Amanda: growth that the text message is driving, right? So…
• 34:53
  Amanda: Just everyone's business is a little bit different, everyone might have different use cases or different opportunities there, so that's the next thing I would think about. And then finally, the last thing I would think about is looking at your providers, looking for text messaging providers that will be your partner in compliance, that will help guide you and coach you.
• 35:13
  Amanda: Through adopting this in your business, you know, seeing this through with the full potential that it has for your business, versus someone that might just think of you as just another customer.
• 35:25
  Amanda: kind of, you're on your own. So…
• 35:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Well said. Yeah, it's important to bring in, vendors that really understand and can support and help you, especially in a new field like this. It's not new, but with the new technology and the proper way of using it so you have success, I think that's where your partner comes in, and someone like True Dialogue, to have that kind of base will allow you to, again.
• 35:51
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: make something successful out of it, and…
• 35:54
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You know, when you look at your competition.
• 35:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: are they using text message? And if they are, you better be doing it yourself, and if they aren't, look at the opportunity you as a business has by saying, how do I meet my customer where they are, and get more, more closer to them?
• 36:13
  Amanda: Yeah.
• 36:14
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: them what they want in the… in the… in the space that they want, so…
• 36:18
  Amanda: Yeah, well said, well said. I think if your competitors are using text messaging, then it's important that you also learn to adopt it. And if they're not using text messaging, well, that's clearly an opportunity for you, right? That's an opportunity to get ahead.
• 36:33
  Amanda: So…
• 36:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Cool. Amanda, I could talk about this for a long time.
• 36:37
  Amanda: Yeah, because he…
• 36:37
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: so much fun, and I just… I see the opportunity to it, and it has to be done really well, and that's where a partner like you, it's so important to have on your… on your team, to be able to go, look, this is the best way to do it, so you have long-term success, and you don't get blocked and shut down and, you know, get that red mark on you, you know, you have that… you have the success that can be done by this.
• 37:00
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: So where can listeners find out more about you, about True Dialogue, about learning how to use the… the multiple avenues of text messaging, and the new, the new RCS messaging?
• 37:12
  Amanda: Yeah, so our website is TruDialogue.com.
• 37:15
  Amanda: We have a number of resources on the website on how to get started. We have different, information on our different integrations and different CRMs, integrations into Teams and Outlook. There's all kinds of resources there. I think…
• 37:30
  Amanda: The most exciting piece we've put up lately is the Ultimate Guide to RCS. It's a 23-page long-form guide available on our website, TruDialogue.com, under the resources section, and it will tell you, everything that you need to know about RCS and how to get started with RCS.
• 37:50
  Amanda: So…
• 37:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I think opened the idea market on there, too, going, wow, I didn't know I could do that. That's cool, right?
• 37:55
  Amanda: Yeah. In studio.
• 37:56
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Projects are always fun.
• 37:58
  Amanda: it's 23 pages, I will say a lot of them are images, right? Just to get those creative juices flowing, right? Like, think about the possibilities available, so…
• 38:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: That's fantastic. And they're gonna go get that where again?
• 38:11
  Amanda: It's at TruDialogue.com on our website, under the resources section.
• 38:16
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: Excellent.
• 38:16
  Amanda: The Ultimate Guide to RCS.
• 38:18
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I love it. This is such a cool topic, it's such a cool space to be in, and I think, really, truly, the real hammer on this is that your customers are using it. They're using it for their life. There's… there's…
• 38:34
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: When done well, it could be a really fantastic tool for your company to really leverage the opportunity to stay in communication with potential prospects and clients, so…
• 38:45
  Amanda: Yeah.
• 38:46
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: I would say, yeah, go and consider this. Oh, great, thank you so much.
• 38:50
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: All right, listeners, thanks for tuning in today. I hope you're walking away with some new, fresh ideas on how you can put text messaging into your business and work it out, and make sure that it can help you grow and be more profitable, as well as add value to your business.
• 39:08
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And before we go, if you want to have a clearer path to more revenue and a stronger profit, go grab that free Profit Booster Growth Map right after the show. It'll quickly show you how to, what the top 3 opportunities to grow revenue and stop those profit leaks that may be holding you back.
• 39:27
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: You can get it anytime at profitbooster.biz, B-I-Z.
• 39:32
  Marcia Riner | Profit Booster®: And if this episode gave you value, which I'm sure it has, be sure to subscribe and share it with other business owners who may need to hear it. And I'll see you next week with more strategies to help you grow smarter and profit stronger. So until then, make your plans and profit with them. Thanks so much, Amanda, this was great.
• 39:53
  Amanda: Thank you so much, Marcia.