Ron Kinkade
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is the latest and most sophisticated medium for modern text marketing campaigns. It allows you to send branded messages, carousels, buttons, high-resolution photos and videos, and see when recipients read your messages.
RCS marketing involves engaging with potential customers via RCS messages, and it’s transforming the advertising game. With its enhanced capabilities compared to earlier messaging formats, marketers can communicate directly with customers, increase appeal, and better analyze their techniques.
RCS messaging is still new, but it's already surpassed 1.1 billion worldwide users. So, let’s explore RCS marketing's purpose, variations, and best practices, then learn how to implement it for the benefit of your business.
RCS: The Future of Text Marketing
RRCS represents a significant leap over traditional SMS and MMS messages. However, the capability is currently only available for one-to-one, also known as P2P, messaging. RCS Business Messaging, which is RCS messaging designed specifically for businesses, is expected to launch in early 2025.
Unlike its predecessors, RCS Business Messaging will offer advanced features that transform how businesses engage with their customers. From sending branded messages to sharing rich media to allowing your customers to interact directly through buttons, quick replies, and carousels, RCS is setting a new standard in digital communication.
What is RCS Marketing?
RCS messages have many business-related uses: to confirm appointments, share detailed information, and more. However, marketing is one of the most prominent use cases of RCS texting.
RCS marketing includes any kind of RCS advertising message sent to incite interest in your products and services. It is a step forward from traditional SMS marketing, offering a more dynamic and interactive user experience.
As a form of direct marketing, RCS offers an elevated form of promotional text messaging, making it simple to instantly communicate with your customers about:
- Upcoming sales
- Flash deals
- Rewards and loyalty programs
- Discounted items
- Live events
- Other promotions
With universal support on Android and Apple’s recent implementation of RCS on iOS 18, it’s staged to become the new standard for text message marketing.
Benefits of RCS Marketing
It’s safe to say that RCS messaging is on the path to replacing standard SMS and MMS messages. If you’re already using SMS and MMS to promote products, connect with customers, and fulfill other business needs, you can easily use RCS to accomplish the same – and much more!
RCS marketing offers the latest and most advanced messaging features such as:
Better Brand Recognition
RCS won’t just be interactive, it will also be 100% branded. Your messages will now include your logo, brand colors, and all business information directly into your messages. This capability dramatically enhances brand recognition and creates a cohesive user experience that SMS and MMS can hardly ever achieve. Imagine a message that doesn't just say, but shows who you are as a brand, creating a lasting impression on your recipients.
High-Limit Multimedia Messaging
RCS lets you attach sharp, uncompressed photos to your advertising messages. Different carriers vary with their file size limits, but America’s largest traditional mobile service provider caps MMS image files at 1.2 megabytes (MB) and videos at 3MB. Meanwhile, with their RCS services, you can send files up to 100MB in size.
Enhanced Customer Interactions
Rich cards, buttons, quick replies, and carousels are changing the game. With RCS, you're not just sending a message; you're inviting your customers to have an interactive experience. Whether it’s making a reservation, browsing a catalog, or simply navigating FAQ, RCS makes it possible with a touch of a button right within the messaging platform. This level of direct engagement ensures customers feel valued and supported, fostering loyalty and enhancing customer satisfaction.
Upgraded Analytics
Understanding and measuring engagement is crucial. By integrating read receipts, RCS gives businesses unprecedented insight into when their customers read their messages. This allows for more accurate engagement tracking and helps make informed and timely follow-up strategies.
Improved Privacy and Security
Security is paramount in digital communication, and RCS meets this need with end-to-end encryption which SMS or MMS do not have. This keeps the conversations between businesses and their customers private and protected. By guaranteeing confidentiality, encryption not only secures the data but also creates trust with the clientele.
Immediate Connection via Internet
RCS gives you the power to message with just the internet, rather than a cellular service. This means that businesses and customers can stay connected even in areas with poor cellular reception, as long as there is an internet connection available.
Aside from these benefits, RCS also makes it easier to customize your messages with client names, tailored suggestions, and more. This is a huge plus as 83% of consumers prefer when brands practice such personalization efforts and 44% are more likely to recommend your products if you do—making personalization an essential way to increase engagement with your business.
Common RCS Marketing Campaigns
Advertisers use several key RCS marketing tactics to reach out to consumers, spread awareness about their brand, and increase business. A few of the most popular kinds of RCS campaigns include:
- Product promotions: RCS messages can support a wide variety of product promotions. When you’re about to launch a new item or service, create some buzz in the preceding weeks by hyping up its drop. The introduction of carousels and high-quality images and videos will make it even easier for you to share the exciting, in-depth details of your products.
- Personalized offers: As mentioned, 83% of consumers prefer getting personalized messages from brands—and the same percentage enjoy receiving custom offers. Sort through your customers’ purchasing history, determine what kinds of products they’ll love, and send them messages highlighting your most relevant offerings. Consider offering discounts to increase your customers’ purchasing potential.
- Appointment reminders: Missed appointments waste organizational time and resources, frustrate employees, and subtract from your bottom line. In medical settings, appointment reminder texts have reduced no-shows by up to 11%, but these reminders have applications well beyond the doctor’s office. Send reminders leading up to meetings to optimize your chances of staying on schedule.
Experiment with different RCS marketing strategies to find what works for your business. Your industry's specifics and organizational goals will determine exactly which techniques you implement.
Best Practices for RCS Marketing
RCS is set to become the standard for marketing messages and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) communication. Soon enough, nearly every phone on the American market will likely support RCS. The total global market size of RCS marketing is currently projected to expand by a whopping 16.7% annually.
To leverage RCS marketing for your business’s benefit in the coming years, keep these essential best practices in mind:
Personalize message content
Consumers crave personalized recommendations, but to provide this, you first need to acquire the necessary data. While some customers may hesitate to share their phone number, name, and other information for fear of spam, 74% of consumers are willing to disclose their information for a discount, deal, or freebie. If your clients are tight-lipped with their personal data, offer them something in exchange for sharing with your brand.
Use rich media
Plain text doesn’t excite customers as much as pictures, videos, GIFs, and other media files. Upgrading your SMS message to a picture-containing MMS, for instance, has the potential to boost brand engagement by 300%. RCS is even more advanced than MMS. It lets you include higher-quality files, interactive rich cards, and more to pique your recipients’ interest and drive engagement even further.
Optimize RCS for user interaction
RCS boasts many new, interactive features that SMS and MMS simply can’t. You can generate rich cards with brand information, pictures, and multiple calls-to-action (CTAs) so consumers can pick their own path to your brand. You can also create carousels with multiple products so clients can browse your offerings right within their native messaging apps. Be sure to take advantage of these interactive features to utilize the full potential of RCS.
While RCS marketing is quickly becoming a leading strategy amongst marketing teams, it's not the only platform you should leverage to connect with customers. You could, for instance, use RCS in place of SMS and MMS messaging while maintaining other channels like social media, email, and web.
In fact, RCS can effectively drive traffic to your other marketing platforms. Include links to your social media pages, products on your website, or an invitation to sign up for your email newsletter. This way, you can create a cross-promotional marketing mix in which different channels help boost engagement with one another.
How to Start With RCS Marketing
To implement RCS marketing into your business strategy, first look to your SMS and MMS campaigns for information and inspiration. If you currently use texting to connect with your contacts, you should have the phone numbers, names, and other personal information necessary to begin your RCS campaign.
Next, consider the goals and tone you want to establish. If you already have a characteristic texting language from your previous messaging campaigns, carry it into your RCS efforts to maintain customer interest and support your objectives.
RCS, as noted, is far more capable than SMS or MMS. To make the most of its features, don’t send RCS messages solely from your cellphone. Instead, use a digital texting platform that can:
- Brand your messages with your logo, colors, and business information
- Collect read receipts and message delivery confirmations
- Send high-quality pictures, videos, and other marketing materials
- Create browsable carousels that let recipients sort through multiple options within a single message
- Encrypt messages for added security versus SMS and MMS
- Provide quick replies so both you and your customers can communicate with speed and ease
Once you’ve selected your platform, you can begin sending RCS messages in line with the best practices laid out in this article. Collect performance data on your campaign and tweak your messaging to find the RCS marketing strategy that best supports your organizational goals.
Take Your RCS Marketing to the Next Level with Text-Em-All
When RCS Business Messaging is released, it will immediately become a must-use medium for digital marketers, and you’ll need a company ready to support you. Text-Em-All is an easy-to-use, all-in-one RCS marketing platform that will allow you to quickly send branded RCS messages to your contacts, compile and analyze read receipts, and send high-quality media. Our team is actively working to ensure we’re ready to provide you with top-notch RCS support the moment it becomes available.
Set up your account today and learn how you can use RCS to transform your brand’s marketing strategy and increase revenue.