The stats around SMS marketing are undeniable – SMS has a final read rate of 98%. When you couple that with the knowledge that 42% of consumers are using their mobile devices to read emails, it’s easy to see that combining SMS with email marketing could bridge the gap for retailers trying to connect with mobile customers.
Whether your business is brick-and-mortar, online-only, or omnichannel, there are plenty of ways to make SMS campaigns work for you. The real question here is, how can you get your SMS marketing right from the start?
In this blog, we break down 6 focus points and ideas for your SMS campaigns, while drawing on real-life examples and research-based statistics.
Let’s get started!
One of the first steps to SMS marketing is also one of the most obvious – grow your contacts list!
Before you can send any SMS campaigns, you need to have collected your customers’ mobile phone numbers and their express consent. This means having them give you those details while also providing a checkbox that they can check to opt-in to receiving promotional SMS messages from your business.
But what better place to do this than at checkout?
Capturing your customers’ numbers and other information at checkout will ensure that you’re collecting the details of your most active and loyal customers. When your customers either make a purchase or just create an account with your store (tip: make sure you have a generous loyalty program to incentivize customers to give you their contact details), simply prompt for their contact information and make sure to expressly ask for their mobile number.
When it comes to getting your customers to opt-in to your marketing, you’ll need to add a checkbox and clearly clarify that this is going to be used to send them promotional material for online stores; for brick-and-mortar stores, make sure you’re clearly asking for your customers consent to receive marketing and it’s best to log this somewhere. You can then go ahead and add these customers to your future marketing campaigns and rest easy knowing you’re likely going to see increased conversion rates and higher ROIs simply because you’re targeting enthusiastically engaged customers.
Just don’t forget all those old customers who may not have made a purchase recently! Why not go the extra mile and create a segment for a one-off email campaign that lets customers know that SMS messaging has been added to your marketing toolkit. Prompt those customers to complete their profile by adding all relevant details, including their phone number (and agree to promotional material) to avoid missing out on great deals, new stock, and exciting updates. Simply direct them where to head in their profile to make those edits and voila! You have just added even more customers to your growing list. Note: Vend retailers, you’ll need to make these edits yourself so perhaps adding a survey to collect key data is a workaround here.
As Chantal Tode at RetailDive said, “the most effective ways for retailers to scale their mobile database is through integration into overall marketing initiatives and promotion through in-store, Web, email, print, and social channels like Facebook”. Essentially, use all of the tools in your kit to get your customers’ details updated and add them to your SMS contact list. Your checkout is a direct point of contact with your customers, so a powerful place to request details from them… just don’t forget about all your other points of contact too.
Unsure if SMS marketing is even going to engage your customers?
Consider this: how often do you check your phone? We’re glued to them. It’s often the first thing the vast majority of us do when we wake up (46% of us, according to one study), and one of the last things we look at before we go to sleep. Whether it’s texts, emails or social media, our attention is often consumed by our mobile devices. So why not capitalize on this new level of connectivity?
Use SMS marketing with a virtual number for bulk SMS messages to promote your store, sales, and boost your other marketing and watch as your conversion rates get a boost. With conversion rates of up to 23.3%, promotional SMS campaigns with clear call-to-actions (CTAs) (often followed by a link) and time-frames create a sense of urgency are the perfect addition to any marketing campaign.
Check out this example from Marsello users and dog collar manufacturers, Good Dog. The team at Good Dog is leading the charge when it comes to powerful SMS marketing campaigns that support their other marketing strategies.
Good Dog held a short sale over their summer (the store is New Zealand-based) in which they gave customers 20% off select categories of their stock. Originally promoted through an email campaign, they used SMS to cross-promote the sale and re-engage customers who had not completed a purchase within 60 days. With an astounding conversion rate of 16.3% for the combined campaigns, Good Dog is the perfect example of promotional SMS campaigns taking the hard yards out of re-engaging customers.
With only 160 characters to play with (including your opt-out option, which many providers, including Marsello, add automatically to your message for you), you’re automatically limited in how much you can fit into your SMS messages to customers.
To help you nail it each time, keep these 8 tips in mind:
Whatever you’re calling it; coupon, discount or promo codes, they’re all largely the same and they’re a powerful marketing tool to have in your kit, particularly when you consider the rise of shopping from mobile devices!
Last year alone, smartphones were used for an estimated $1 trillion in retail sales. Increasingly, customers are also moving between different devices and even sharing what they like with the devices of their friends, helping them to make informed purchase decisions (tip: it’s a good time to assess your website’s mobile compatibility and make sure you’re nailing those crisp product images and fast load-times). Use this knowledge as power and target your customers with specific discount codes in your SMS campaigns that feel exclusive and incentivize them to make a purchase.
Check out this example from Good Dog’s Valentine’s Day campaign. The combination of personalization, holiday-specific coupon code, and a juicy deal mean customers will feel like they’ve just received an offer they can’t refuse.
Automated marketing campaigns are the bread and butter of every retailer’s marketing toolkit. Born from the desire of busy business owners to be able to ‘set-it-and-forget-it’, automated marketing campaigns allow you to optimize your emails and SMS to send when triggered by a customers’ activity and if you aren’t already using them, then you’re missing out!
Using SMS marketing campaigns to re-engage your customers is just the icing on the cake. Imagine you target all of your customers with a win-back email designed to get them shopping with you again by offering a coupon code, but a portion of your sending list doesn’t even open that email. Each week, you could set up a segment for SMS campaigns designed to send an SMS message to customers who haven’t seen your win-back emails. Checking the segments each week will not only keep you abreast of the message’s relevance but will also ensure that you’re always targeting the right customers. With the astonishing open rates and conversion rates that SMS campaigns are presenting, you can rest assured that you’re recapturing an even larger portion of that audience.
Clothing retailer, Parker Panache has done a great job of recapturing customers with the above example. They created an email promotion for the Black Friday sale and chose to also reach out to customers with an SMS campaign. From their Black Friday combined campaigns, they saw $6302 in revenue.
Some examples of the automated SMS campaigns that you could create include:
We’ve touched on this a little bit already, so now is the perfect time to break it down and give you the tools to really apply the theory.
Customer feedback is vital for pretty much any business and there are more than a couple of ways to go about it:
One option is to direct customers to an online survey with a shortened URL. This would give you the option to prompt for as much detail as you would like, and give you the opportunity to use their responses to improve your business or share those responses. Just be sure to keep all of this brief, to the point, and easy to navigate.
So why not ask customers for product reviews through SMS campaigns? Simply send a message offering a discount to customers who leave a review on social media or your online store.
Now that you’re collecting feedback, just make sure you’re actually using it. Share it on your website, incentivize customers to add it to social media and popular reviewing platforms like Google and Yelp. You could even include a fresh new quote at the bottom of each email that you send to customers, possibly even increasing the chances that other customers would also leave reviews. If you’re getting feedback that you’d rather not share, perhaps it’s a good time to assess what those customers are saying and figure out which of your process could do with a refresh.
Navigating any new form of marketing can seem like a bit of a minefield and it’s important to feel confident that you can get it right from the start. You’ve got the tools to start creating an SMS marketing strategy, but there are just a few things to make sure you’re on top of.
Remember to prioritize scaling your list, getting express permission to market to your customers, and complying with SMS marketing laws. Why not create a checklist or format for your SMS marketing to make sure that each message contains the necessary information. Once you’ve got the key steps in place, you can look at creating a variety of campaigns to give your marketing that special SMS boost and continue developing your customer contact list. And don’t forget to tie it in with your loyalty program.
Be concise, creative and give your customers a reason to want to receive your SMS marketing campaigns. Don’t be afraid to experiment too. Reward your customers for activity, give them updates on their own accounts, and prompt them for feedback on your store and/or products.
Looking for an SMS Campaigns tool to get your power-up your marketing? Marsello’s SMS Campaigns feature gives you the power to create clever SMS campaigns that boost conversion rates, while you stay compliant with anti-spam messaging laws.
SMS Marketing is fast becoming the most exciting new tool in retailers kit, and you now have the grounding to start making powerful campaigns that encourage your customers to make a purchase.
