Email marketing is probably already being used by you to communicate with your clients. However, have you thought about SMS marketing? It’s a potent tactic that merits being at the top of the list as a tool for connecting with people.
85% of consumers would respond to a text message from a business, and 66% of consumers prefer to communicate with businesses this way.
Undoubtedly, people think that communicating with brands and online shops via text is simple and convenient. We’ll go over the ins and outs of SMS marketing in this post to increase sales and enhance customer satisfaction.
Let’s get going!
What is SMS Marketing?
The process of interacting and connecting with your audience through text messages sent to their mobile phones is known as SMS (short message service) marketing. SMS marketing is a tool that brands use to share deals, advertise goods, solicit customer feedback, retrieve abandoned carts, and more.
Despite being simple and efficient, SMS marketing is still one of the least used strategies. According to Attentive, more than 90% of people are either open to or have already received texts from businesses. However, according to G2, only 44% of marketers make use of SMS marketing software.
However, businesses that do text their customers frequently report impressive outcomes. According to one study, open rates for SMS messages can reach as high as 82%, particularly in comparison to 20.4% for emails.
We can understand why you might be sceptical when we tell you that SMS campaigns are simple to set up if you’ve ever created a marketing campaign.
Here, however, is evidence of how quickly you can get going.
1. Pick a Phone Number for Your SMS Marketing for E-Commerce Efforts
Selecting a phone number serves as the initial step in your e-commerce texting journey. When creating a SimpleTexting account, you can choose to register a toll-free number that can send and receive texts or a 10-digit local number.
Additionally, we assist with provisioning a committed shortcode.
2. Providing alerts, notifications, and shipping updates may be one of the most basic but crucial applications of SMS marketing.
You can use SMS to inform your customers about important post-purchase information, such as store openings and closings, updated store hours, new products and services, special events, ticket sale alerts, and notifications of back-in-stock situations.
Customers should receive purchasing and shipping updates shortly after placing an order, giving them the impression that they have started a machine. In addition to reducing support tickets, keeping your customers informed about shipment details convinces them that their order has been received and is being processed.
3. On your checkout page, including the sign up for SMS option.
When a customer purchases something from your online store, they probably enter their email address. A simple method to collect phone numbers and expand your list is to include an optional SMS opt-in form.
Once more, don’t forget to include a disclaimer and an incentive. For instance, “Sign up for text updates to receive special offers. You consent to hear from [Brand Name] on occasion by providing your phone number.”
4. Text-to-win Competitions
Text-to-win competitions You can encourage customers to text a special,simple-to-remember SMS contest number by advertising in-store or online.
Remind customers that texting the competition number will opt them into receiving marketing messages. After gathering the data supplied by customers, select the winner. Data analysis for your marketing plan can be easy and effective.
5. Set Your Success Criteria
Setting goals for your text message campaigns will help you monitor your progress, just like with any project. Specificity is key to the success of these objectives: Set the precise number of customers you’d like to add to your SMS list or specify exactly how much you want to boost customer satisfaction.
You’ll make it simple for your team to stay on task and keep enhancing your SMS gateway strategy by setting clear goals.
Pro Tip:
Segment your SMS contact list to ensure timely delivery to the appropriate audience.
The secret to improving your SMS marketing strategy is personalization. Segmenting your subscriber base into separate groups will ensure that your messages are as pertinent as possible.
Following are four typical SMS audience segmentation techniques:
- Determine engaged/unengaged subscribers: Open rate and click-through rate data are typically used to make this determination.
- Identify current buyers and past buyers: Different forms of communication are required for those who haven’t purchased and those who are already familiar with your goods.
- Segment based on place: If you’re holding a pop-up sale in a particular city, send messages to customers who reside nearby.
- Determine VIP clients: Keep your biggest spenders happy with rewards, referral bonuses, or a straightforward text message of gratitude.
Starting an SMS e-commerce Business
Owners of online stores occasionally hesitate to request customers’ phone numbers. But as you’ve seen, consumers want to text their favourite brands, and those texts have the potential to bring in more money than other forms of marketing.
It matters how you communicate with customers, but it also matters where you communicate with them. Instead of an inbox or social feed, a text thread serves as that for many of them.
Starting an SMS marketing campaign is simple. Just keep in mind to respect your SMS subscribers by sending them only messages with genuine value. Find a fantastic tool to expand your SMS subscriber list as well (Guni is a great choice).
Your SMS strategy will be off to a great start if you can do that. You’ll gain more from having immediate access to your customers’ SMS inboxes as you grow your list.
Start thinking outside of email marketing and start using SMS!
