Couldn’t help but hear on the radio today that 4 our of 10 employers think it is acceptable, in this day and age, to sack an employee by text. Nice. Not only that but 1 in 4 people believe it’s OK to dump your loved one by SMS. Charming. Anyway, that got me thinking of some slightly more useful, and socially acceptable uses, of the humble text message…
1. Manage your bank account
One of the easiest is to receive updates from your bank. Lots of banks offer to send weekly account balances by SMS, letting you know that a cheque has cleared, that you’re stony broke or that someone’s swiped your identity and emptied out your account. If you’re not the sort to check your account often, SMS bank messages can be a very useful thing.
2. Market products
One of the fastest growing uses for SMS messaging is for advertising. Companies like TextCastLive let businesses sign up subscribers and shoot out text messages to customers. The key is to keep the messages personal and include offers. The best conversions — and they can be as high as 70 percent for some industries — use SMS to make customers feel that they’re valued members of a community.