Karolina Petraškienė
Content Marketing Manager
Reading Time: 6 minutes
Over the last few years, SMS has been reborn as a prominent marketing channel, empowering retailers to get closer to their customers than ever before. The number of text messages sent by ecommerce businesses has grown exponentially, with Omnisend alone sending more than five million messages in Q3 2020, generating stunning results – a 9.77% click rate and a 2.35% conversion rate. These numbers represent a 19% YoY lift in click rate and an amazing 98% YoY lift in conversion rate.
If you are looking for ways to enrich your existing marketing toolkit, look no further than SMS and MMS marketing. These messages are personal, engaging, and, according to studies, can be a very effective add-on to your digital marketing strategy.
Let’s take a closer look at what use cases are best for MMS messaging, when they are the most effective, and at some inspirational examples.
MMS marketing is an extension of SMS marketing but has an additional benefit of including more text characters, static or dynamic images, and other rich media elements.
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SMS vs. MMS Messaging – The Best Use Cases
SMS and MMS are very similar and retailers use them for the same purpose. When it comes to choosing whether to send a text message or an MMS, the message you wish to convey will help determine which one will best resonate with subscribers.
Best Use Cases For MMS
You can benefit most from MMS when sending promotional messages, big announcements, or automated messages to customers with a high intention to buy. In these situations, bold visuals help you get the desired attention of customers.
The best use cases for an MMS are:
- New sale announcements
- New collection/product introduction
- Welcome messages
- Cart/Browse abandonment messages
- Birthday or anniversary messages
- Back-in-stock messages
- Invitation to a competition or loyalty program intro
In other words, use MMS for creating emotion – an interest, fascination, or even a little fun. It will make your messages more compelling, encourage customers to take action, and will help increase sales.
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Best Use Cases For SMS
If announcing a seasonal sale you might want to send a bold and engaging MMS message, but reminders of that sale don’t have to be so special. In this case, a simple text message could be your move. With that being said, the SMS is perfect for:
- Coupon code and sale expiration reminders
- Sale extension notifications
- Flash sale announcements
- Cart/Browse abandonment reminders
- Order and shipping confirmations
SMS is the best channel for time-sensitive messages, also, where being “short and sweet” is enough to get the ball rolling. See an example of a three-message campaign below. The first one is introducing the sale, that’s why it’s a bold MMS message. The other messages only remind the recipient about it.
MMS Marketing Best Practices
Sending an MMS isn’t rocket science. However, some good practices can help you kick off your new channel communication smoothly, and avoid the hiccups that newbies often encounter. These are our recommendations to follow when creating your first MMS campaign:
- Use personalization. Even if you send a bulk MMS campaign to all your subscribers, include the first name in the text part of the message. The SMS/MMS channel is one of the most personal that retailers can reach their customers with, so be personal with your messages.
- Keep the visuals clean and minimal. Using overly complex and colorful images can make it difficult for viewers to comprehend the information. Also, be mindful that due to different phone models complex images can look cramped.
- Although visuals in MMS don’t have many technical requirements, your images or GIFs shouldn’t exceed 500kb.
- If you’re creating an animated GIF for your MMS campaign, limit the animation to 3-4 frames/second. This way, it will still convey your creative idea and keep your file size within scope.
- If you send the MMS, don’t forget to add the main text components to make your message successful. See the example below.
9 MMS Marketing Examples
We discussed the use cases and the best practices for MMS, now let’s take a look at a few MMS examples for both promotional and automated messaging campaigns.
MMS examples for promotional campaigns: New collection announcement
1.Haute Jewels is introducing a new collection and immediately offers 20% off. The image doesn’t have too many details, keeping the focus on the new products.
2.Indigo Boutique is doing the same – introducing a new collection, offering a discount, and using the image to showcase new products.
3.Halo Life is introducing a new mask design. As you can see, the image is very simple and clear.
Early access/Sale announcements
4. This second example from Indigo Boutique announces an online-only sale. With a clean and minimalistic design, this image is more for grabbing customer attention than showcasing various discounted products.
5. This example highlights an early-access/limited-edition MMS by bulldognutrition.com. Offering early access via SMS can be one of the motivators for customers to sign up for your SMS program. This is one way to use SMS to create value for customers.
6. Crust Club offers a bonus–free cookies–for every order. What a great incentive to buy! This MMS focuses on the product–delicious-looking cookies–and promotes the free mini cookies with a banner in the image, which may be all that’s needed to entice a mouth-watering click.
MMS for marketing automation
MMS messages also can be used for marketing automation – sent alone or integrated with email and other channels (read more on how to do that here). Here are a couple of examples of how to do that.
7. Abandoned cart MMS. Abandoned cart messages, whether emails, web push, or SMS/ MMS, are extremely effective for generating sales. You can combine emails with the SMS channel to lead customers toward a purchase.
8. Happy birthday MMS. You can send an image and gift in the message, or direct them to their birthday email with a, “Happy birthday, check your email for your gift” message. An automation like this can help you create more touchpoints with your audience and help revamp your email engagement.
9. Lapsed-purchase MMS. A “We miss you” message and a compelling offer to come back can help you retain dormant customers. For more on how to run a lapsed-purchaser series, read here.
Wrap Up
It’s never been easier to get in touch with your customers and drive sales than it is now, and SMS and MMS allows you to send attractive and compelling messages directly to their phones! Take advantage of this rising marketing channel and increase engagement with your customers. Ecommerce businesses using Omnisend’s SMS features are seeing great results and we’re confident you will too.
Join the thousands of other online retailers using Omnisend to increase their sales. Sign up for Omnisend today and try SMS and MMS for free!
