While traditional digital marketing channels like email and paid social media are incredibly important, there’s another powerful tool that many ecommerce businesses are overlooking: SMS marketing. By sending personalized marketing messages directly to customers’ phones, businesses can build stronger relationships, improve customer experiences, and ultimately drive more sales.
So, let’s explore the power of personalization in SMS marketing and show you how to use it to take your e-commerce business to the next level.
Benefits of SMS Marketing
SMS marketing has several benefits that make it an effective tool for e-commerce businesses including increased engagement and customer loyalty, improved customer experience, and higher conversion rates. Let’s look at each one a bit more in-depth.
Increased Engagement and Customer Loyalty
Most customers first touchpoint with a brand’s website is on mobile phones. In the last three years, we’ve seen that 80-90% of customers are visiting our clients’ websites with a mobile device. It makes sense to engage with customers on the device that they’re most comfortable with.
SMS messages have a significantly higher open rate than email, making it easier to capture customers’ attention. By sending personalized messages, businesses can create a sense of connection with customers and foster a stronger relationship that can lead to increased engagement and customer loyalty.
Improved Customer Experience
SMS marketing allows businesses to send personalized messages that are relevant and useful to customers. By providing valuable information, recommendations, and promotions, businesses can enhance the customer experience and build trust with their audience.
Higher Conversion Rates
SMS marketing has been shown to have higher conversion rates than other marketing channels, such as email. By sending personalized messages that are tailored to customers’ interests and preferences, businesses can increase the likelihood of customers clicking to the website and making a purchase.
Personalization in SMS Marketing
Personalization is a critical component of SMS marketing. It’s not enough to add *FIRSTNAME* for customers and call it personalization. Think about creating more engaging and effective marketing campaigns by creating messages specific to customers’ interests and preferences. This allows businesses, like yours, to connect with customers on a more personal level. By sending relevant and meaningful messages to customers, businesses can build stronger relationships and increase customer loyalty.
There are several ways businesses can utilize personalized marketing SMS messages. These include:
- Product recommendations: By analyzing customers’ purchase history and browsing behavior, businesses can send targeted product recommendations that are tailored to their interests.
- Personalized discounts: Offering discounts and promotions that are customized to customers’ preferences and behavior can be a powerful way to drive sales and increase engagement.
- Personalized marketing content: By sending personalized content such as blog posts, videos, and articles that are relevant to customers’ interests, businesses can increase engagement and build trust with their audience.
There are many examples of successful SMS marketing campaigns that use personalization to great effect. For example, Sephora sends personalized product recommendations based on customers’ purchase history and browsing behavior. Walmart uses SMS to send personalized discounts and promotions to customers based on their location and purchase history. These campaigns have been highly effective in driving engagement and sales because they help a customer feel like they are known rather than a blanket blast out to everyone on the list.
How to Implement SMS Marketing in Your E-Commerce Business
Implementing SMS marketing in your e-commerce business is relatively easy.
- Build a subscriber list & start segmenting your audience
- Craft some strong SMS messages based on segments
- Carefully choose when you send those messages
- Analyze the results.
The first step in implementing SMS marketing is to build a subscriber list. You can do this by offering customers the option to opt-in to receive SMS messages through your website, social media channels, or in-store.
You must follow all relevant laws and regulations, such as obtaining customers’ explicit consent and providing clear opt-out options. SMS marketing is highly regulated and you don’t want to be on the other side of a lawsuit, so please be careful. Choosing the right platform can help you with that!
Once you have a subscriber list, start segmenting your audience. With our clients, we like to segment based on purchase history (how long it’s been since someone has purchased) or even the types of products they’ve purchased.
Once you know your audience, you’ll need to craft engaging and relevant messages. Keep messages short and to the point, use clear and concise language, and personalize messages based on customer behavior and preferences. Even if you have a really well-written message, timing is also important.
You need to choose the right time to send messages to ensure that they are not intrusive and are more likely to be read. For instance, sending messages during business hours or on weekends when customers are likely to be active on their phones is advisable.
Once you’ve sent a few messages, you need to track and analyze the results regularly. This practice will help you identify what works well for your customers, and what doesn’t. Then you can make the necessary adjustments to improve the campaign’s ROI. Use metrics such as open rates, conversion rates, and click-through rates to monitor the effectiveness of your campaign.
Best Practices of SMS Marketing
It is absolutely crucial to obtain customers’ explicit consent before sending them SMS messages. Additionally, provide clear opt-out options and respect customers’ preferences regarding the frequency and type of messages they receive. You’ll also want to ensure your messages offer value to the customer by providing personalized content and promotions. Use data to personalize messages based on customer behavior and preferences to increase engagement and conversions.
Don’t forget to regularly test and optimize your SMS campaigns to improve their effectiveness. A/B testing different messaging strategies, experimenting with different call-to-actions, and analyzing the results can help you identify what works best for your audience.
By implementing the best practices we’ve discussed in this blog, you can create effective SMS campaigns that engage and convert your audience.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
