Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021.  Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Text Will Be Key Tool for Businesses During COVID-19 Pandemic

By Norman Happ, CEO at EZ Texting

At the end of 2019, no one could have predicted what this year would look like. Businesses are relying on new ways of engaging with customers, and they’re doing it fast.

We’ve seen a huge growth in businesses using texting as a way to communicate with their customers, manage contactless interactions and provide ways to shop and order food by mobile. Companies have adapted quickly, and we predict that usage will grow even more in 2021.

Additionally, many businesses have been forced to transition to a fully remote workforce and have adopted texting as a quick way to reach and be productive with their employees. They’re implementing remote-first strategies that will help them continue to be efficient into 2021.

Our leadership team reviewed the text marketing landscape and compiled a few predictions we can anticipate for 2021 and beyond, including how machine learning will be put to good use and become integral in remote-first working environments and how a boom in digital will lead to a texting evolution for digital agencies.

Norman Happ, CEO of EZ Texting

• Mobile and Text Lead New Consumer Behaviors Shaped by COVID

COVID’s disruption to business as usual has launched text marketing into the essential service category, driven by a clear need for an immediate and impactful communication channel-a need that won’t evaporate in 2021. And text is also essential to perfecting expected new customer-focused safety protocols, such as curbside pick-up and contactless delivery.  

• Text Marketing Emerges as an Omnichannel Essential

Text communications will become indispensable to omnichannel campaigns. Text enhances the effectiveness of digital and traditional marketing efforts with just a single text reminder dramatically lifting email open and response rates. Increased investment in text will, in turn, lead to an increased sophistication in text as a marketing tool, with more businesses understanding how voice, images, video, and emojis all impact engagement.

• Customers and Businesses Will Drive More End-to-End Text Interactions

Texting is fast, focused and flexible, allowing savvy businesses and marketers to complete full end-to-end text interactions with customers. Promotions and convenience drive opt-ins at the top of the funnel, while delivery or pickup notifications complete the transaction at the bottom. Wily marketers will follow up with an offer for the next purchase.

• Business Texting’s Skyrocketing Growth in 2021 as COVID Shapes New Consumer Habits

We’ve already seen epic growth in the number of businesses adopting text messaging and using it to adapt to the ways COVID has disrupted “normal operations.” Specifically driving the need for real-time communications with customers and staff, the conditions set by the pandemic will lead business texting from the early adopter phase to becoming an essential service. Meanwhile, new safety workflow additions, such as curbside pick-up and contactless delivery, are now expected customer service offerings, and text is essential to making these procedures streamlined for both retailers and customers.

• Rise in Text as the Ultimate Customer Engagement Tool

While SMS marketing is a great way to acquire new leads, text is proving an incredible tool for engaging with customers and building loyalty. With less foot traffic, retailers can use texting to stay top-of-mind with promos and inventory updates. Yet businesses are also broadening the scope of their text comms, like providing pick-up or shipping updates and even streamlining their customer service through two-way messaging. The efficacy and scalability of text communications will allow retailers to continue to nurture customer relationships and engage with them even as face-to-face time has become limited.

• Text Will See Upticks in Both Omnichannel Integrations and End-to-End Interactions

While we will continue to see more complete, end-to-end text interactions taking consumers from initial discovery to final sale, all via text, bigger growth will happen in the omnichannel space, where text has been proven to help improve email open and response rates. And texting platforms will become more robust with deeper omnichannel integrations.

Rachel Cochran, VP of People

• Remote First

Work-from-home will continue for most companies through much of 2021, and another round of high-profile companies will likely shift to a “remote-first” future. A new realm of remote working and collaboration tools will emerge in response to help keep teams connected. An increase in real-time reminders will help replace organic, in-office follow-up. In-office perks and benefits as a differentiator for employee experience will continue to ascend as a trend. I also anticipate a move away from continuous feedback strategies, which are easier in an in-office environment, and a shift back toward more structured methods of collecting team feedback. –

Craig Klemp, VP of Strategy & Partnerships

• Digital Agencies

Thanks to the phenomenal growth in digital, there will be a corresponding explosion in the number of digital agencies, and those agencies will find many clients requesting integrated campaigns that address channels beyond email, primarily texting. The text space is also likely to see an uptick in solutions designed to ease users comfortably through compliance. 

Navin Jagannath, VP of Sales

• Consumer Profiling

Many organizations build out customer profiles based on that customer’s interaction with their website and buying habits. I believe businesses will turn to texting en masse to build more complete profiles of their customers. Text promotions add a fresh dimension to demographic information while they grow sales. Tracking customer responses adds a new engagement metric, and both get you closer to your customers than ever.

Mark Little, Chief Customer Officer

• Increased Sophistication

There will be an increased sophistication across a booming text communications landscape, from platforms with more integrations and streamlined workflows to more robust tracking and the matured usage of texting tools such as MMS (picture and video messaging), linking strategies, and even voice, with an increased adoption of emojis and text-speak in marketing messages. 

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About the Author

Norman Happ is EZ Texting’s CEO. Previously, he was at Evernote since 2016 as Senior Vice President of Sales and Partnerships and was responsible for growing company revenue worldwide. Having previously spent 8 years in go-to-market executive roles within Intuit’s Small Business Group, he knows the challenges of high-velocity SaaS sales. During his time at Intuit, Norman developed and designed a series of breakthrough customer-targeting data mining algorithms. Prior to Intuit, he spent 5 years at H&R Block in diverse leadership roles, where he was responsible for building and scaling the company’s first inside sales organization. Early on in his career, Norman founded two technology companies and worked extensively throughout Europe. He credits his career beginnings as a technologist for setting the foundation for his tools-driven, analytical, yet customer-oriented approach towards revenue growth.