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you might think u201cI donu2019t want My phone blowing up with text messages from everyone I shop with.u201d Fortunately, while thatu2019s the way of email, the good news is that SMS marketing automation is far from that.
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The world of eCommerce is absolutely exploding. Every day there are hundreds of new online stores that are popping up around the world and for good reason…that’s where the money is. In fact, over half of all internet users somewhat regularly shop online. Almost 75% of all millennials prefer to shop online over an in-store experience.
What is SMS Marketing? SMS marketing for eCommerce is simply marketing to your customers via text messaging. Its effectiveness is incredible, though. It allows you to cut through the clutter of most traditional marketing channels by engaging your customers where they’re spending more and more time…their mobile devices. If you sit back and think about it, not many people ignore their texts. In fact, over 90% of all text messages are read within 5 minutes.
Why You Should Care As previously stated, owners of eCommerce stores got to use every digital marketing method within the book to grow their business and win online. Many are experiencing huge success with SMS marketing automation. While there are many reasons why text messaging should be the next weapon in your marketing arsenal, here are a few key reasons why this should have your attention. Incredible Open Rates Total open rates for text messages hover around 99% and the majority of that happens within the first 5 minutes—that’s insane! Compare this to email marketing where you’re likely seeing a 25% open rate at the best. There’s no contest. If you’re looking to drive immediate traffic, it’s silly not to have SMS marketing software in place.
Click-Through Rates Higher Over Email Let’s draw the same comparisons with click through rates. The average click-through rate for a SMS marketing campaigns is around 36%. Compare that to email click-through rates and it falls to the floor at just above 3%. Some eCommerce site owners have actually claimed they split large text messaging lists up into segments, as single large text blasts drive an excessive amount of traffic directly.
How eCommerce Uses SMS Marketing So, we’ve made it abundantly clear why you’re missing the train if SMS marketing isn’t in your toolbox of marketing channels. With that said, however, it’s helpful to see how existing eCommerce merchants are leveraging text message automation in various capacities. Here are 7 actionable ideas for putting rubber to the road and putting a strategy in place.
Grow Your List at Checkout You may have asked yourself, “how will I keep people hooked to my VIP text list as a web store?” Texting to join has always been the number one way that people subscribe to personalized SMS marketing lists and the process is quite simple. When you launch a text program, you will create what’s called a “keyword.” It’s a word or phrase that people will text to a short phone number called a shortcode.
One-Off Promos ending one-off SMS promotions is perhaps the foremost common and documented use case for text marketing. It’s pretty straight forward too. You’re simply doing a text blast to your subscriber list with some sort of offer that drives people to your website. The key to maximizing your success here is to do a few specific things.
Unique Coupon Codes Sending unique coupon codes may be a home run eCommerce. Depending on your SMS provider, you’ll have the power to supply each subscriber in your text blast with a singular coupon code which will only be used once. This helps to prevent abuse and makes people feel like they’re part of an ultra-special group that has access to offers that other people don’t. When that light goes off and they understand that they are entitled to something valuable, you’ll have these people on your text list forever.
Birthday Rewards Take the private touch to an entirely another level by offering happy birthday personalized messages to your customers. Nothing says you’re paying attention like scoring them a unique deal on their special day. Automated Purchase Reminders Do you offer products that customers return to get on a daily basis? Setting up automated SMS reminders can be really helpful for reminding people to replenish their stock on certain items.
Shipping Notifications Shipping notifications are an easy one. Each message brings value along, especially if you’re including links of the delivery status updates. While these messages probably aren’t marketing related, it helps your customers to become easier communicating together with your brand via text.
Feedback Collection A less common way that eCommerce sites are making good use of SMS marketing services is by asking for feedback from the existing users. It’s amazing how many merchants who already are using text messaging look past this as a source for capturing such valuable data. Some text message marketing services offer survey features that allow you to simply conduct automated, multi-question feedback loops. Pro Tip: Branded links in text messaging is now a best practice, as they’re known to increase trust between your brand and your customers, as well as increase the deliverability rate of your SMS messages due to the fact that they’re not at risk of being marked as spam. Marketers can create branded links using platforms like Rebrandly URL Shortener.
Conclusion The state of eCommerce continues to evolve as the landscape becomes more competitive. Merchants are dually pressured by increased ad costs and new online competitors. As a consequence, teams are getting leaner, larger merchants are cutting staff, and smaller startups are comfortable running lean and leveraging technology to achieve results with less. Traditional enterprise marketing software is designed and made for large teams who come up with grand plans and have large upfront cost campaigns and technology investments. The new breed of advanced and fast-growing merchants want software that just works.
