1. Health

Many hospitals, insurance companies, private practices, and pharmacies are using mass texting to provide services. It allows for a more organized and personal approach to better serve their patients and get them the information and care they need.

1. Communication with staff
   • Quicker shift coverage
   • Hospital/Office- wide information sharing
2. Patient interaction
   • Appointment reminders and scheduling
   • Reduce the number of no-show appointments by allowing patients to schedule, reschedule, and cancel via text.
   • Prescription refills
   • Test results
3. Best practices
   • This is particularly relevant to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Remind patients to stay home, wash their hands, and wear medical masks if they have to go out. 
4. Customer service
   • Get feedback from your patients. Shortcodes can be used to conduct surveys and receive helpful tips for future interactions. 

2. Beauty

The beauty industry relies on interactions with clients. Mass texting allows salons, brands, and even self-employed stylists to meet their audience where it is most convenient for them: over text!

1. Communicate with clients
   • Appointments
   • Like the health industry, use SMS to schedule appointments and send out reminders. Individual stylists suffer financially from people who don’t show up for appointments which can be reduced by sending text reminders.
2. Customer feedback
   • Customer service is extremely important to the beauty industry. Most people won’t leave a review online, but they’re much more likely to participate in a survey or give a rating over text.
3. Tips and Tricks
   • Texting can also be used to inform and educate customers on good hair/beauty techniques. Salons or brands can go above and beyond by sending out beauty tips and reminders for healthy habits.
4. Communication among stylists and managers within a salon
   • Chair/appointment coverage
   • Availability 
   • Important staff updates

3. Hospitality

The hospitality industry contains many different categories, including food and beverage, travel, hotels, and events. Communication is one of the most difficult things to navigate in such a large scale industry, especially when dealing with a large staff. Any industry where reservations are popular can benefit from incorporating mass texting. The fact is, when it’s easy to do something, people are more likely to do it. Make it easy for your customers to support your business!

1. Communication throughout departments
   • If you’re split into departments, being able to send out one text to each employee is incredibly useful. Make sure everyone is getting the important updates.
   • CanaryText allows you to create groups from your contacts. If you want to send an update to the programming staff only, you can do so with only one text.
2. Communication to all staff and volunteers for an event 
   • If you’re planning an event, you likely have a staff and volunteers. Send out dress guidelines, where to meet, when to arrive, updates on cancellations, and inclement weather information.
3. Communicate with vendors
   • Texts can be used to help vendors smoothly navigate their way through the event.
4. Hotel and restaurant reservations
   • Reduce the number of late checkouts.
   • Reduce no-show reservations.
   • Send reminders on when customers/guests should arrive.
   • Provides easier reservations, meaning your customers are likely to repeat business.

4. Retail

Retail is one of the most popular industries for SMS marketing. It’s a great way to communicate the exciting things happening in the store and online to customers. Staying in touch with your customers will let them know that you care about them individually. 

1. Send coupons and offerings
   • With CanaryText, you can create target markets that allow you to share specific content with each segment of your market.
   • Let your customers know about upcoming sales.
2. Receipts and shipping information
3. Customer support
   • Texting gives them an easy way to ask questions and hare their complaints and praises.

5. Education

When considering a marketing tool, most people don’t immediately jump to schools and higher education institutions. However, consistent communication is crucial to the education system. Mass texting is a great way to disperse information to a large audience of any kind.

1. Emergency weather procedures/updates
   • Let students and parents know about cancelled classes.
   • Share weather updates and how the institution plans to deal with inclement weather.
2. Course alerts
   • Professors can use SMS to alert students that grades are posted, remind them of assignments, remind students of office hours, etc. 
3. Information for parents of younger students
   • Bake sales/fundraiser reminders
   • Sports games/practices
   • Tests/homework
   • Lunch menus
4. Communicate with staff and teachers/professors
   • Updates on policy and any information that all teachers/staff should be aware of and updated on.

6. Banking

Online banking has provided easy access and the ability to go paperless. As we are a part of an increasingly digital age, the need for brick and mortar services like banks is going down. Most banks offer online services already, and many have already begun implementing SMS services.

1. Payment alerts
   • Remind customers of payments and/or automatically withdraw payments from their accounts.
2. Check balances
   • Use shortcodes as an easy way to check account balances.
3. Initiate transfers
   • Make it easy for your customers to transfer money between their accounts.
4. Communication between bank staff
5. Update on bank hours
   • Let your customers know if you will be closed abnormally or if there is a sudden change in hours.

7. Personal

While you probably don’t have your own marketing department, you can still benefit from using a mass texting service. CanaryText allows you to create groups from your contacts, making it easy to communicate a single message to a large group of people.

1. Send party invitations
   • This allows you to communicate with your texts without starting group messages or going through your contact list to send individual texts.
2. RSVP over text
   • Your friends can let you know if they plan to come over text.
3. Send reminders about time and place

Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels