Your customer comes in, browses through your store and finally decides what to buy. Your sales staff solicitously takes the goods from her and brings it to the counter for check out. They chat a bit, and your staff kindly asks your customer if she would like to be part of your mailing list. She obliges and hastily completes the form. They say their pleasantries before your customer rushes out the door.

But alas, your sales staff looks forlornly at the filled out form. In your customer’s haste, her handwriting appears illegible and your sales staff can’t make out the email address your customer indicated.

You just lost a perfectly good email address.

This happens all too often to many businesses who still use the traditional triumvirate of clipboard, sign-up sheet and ballpoint pen to enroll your customers into your mailing list. It’s a huge waste of time and effort—not to mention lost opportunity.

But did you know that you can use your SMS marketing service to increase your mailing list? You can! What’s better is it makes the process easy and convenient for both you and your customer. It’s a win-win situation.

Curious about how you can use the text marketing platform to expand your email list? Here’s how:

1.     Through traditional media: television, radio, print, outdoor.

Let everyone know through traditional media about your email list and encourage them to opt in. Give them a number to text in and sign up—with their email address—for a promo or contest.

2.     Through events

Instead of having attendees sign up through a tedious form that causes long queues behind the registration table (or worse, having to pass around the same cumbersome clipboard!), let them know that there’s a number they can text in to register. You can even have them enter a contest, receive a gift or join a promo to encourage them to sign up. Flash the text-in number on-site, have the emcee announce it during the program or even pass around a card with instructions.

3.     Through your store

Your sales personnel can still actively participate in your email marketing campaign. They can still chat up customers and encourage them to sign up. This time, however, they can just hand a flyer or show a poster on how customers can text in and sign up.

What’s nice about this process is that your customers need not rush because they can sign up whenever it’s convenient. It’s also convenient for you and your staff you need not encode anything. Because the system has SMS automation, the information is automatically added into your database.