What is SMS Marketing and How Does it Work?

SMS marketing is just another way to reach your potential customers and keep them in the loop about your services.

What is SMS Marketing?

Before we dive into the benefits of SMS marketing, let’s first give an explanation as to what exactly it is.

SMS marketing is shorthand for short message service marketing. You send and receive text messages every day on your phone… well, an SMS message is a text message… they are the same thing.

SMS advertising is a form of mobile marketing that lets your business appeal to users on mobile devices. It’s a way to text your prospects, customers, and VIPs. It’s a tried and true marketing technique that lets you share text messages to an individual or a group of users.

How it works is simple. Your customers, prospects, and VIPs opt-in to your marketing campaign to receive updates, specials, and important information. It’s a form of inbound marketing that lets you target users who have already expressed interest in your business.

The goal of SMS marketing automation is not only to make sales. It’s also to build your brand and increase customer retention!

You can notify people of upcoming promotions, events, and sales.

The Basics of SMS Marketing

You’ve likely been part of an SMS campaign before. But let’s take a quick look at the basics and terminology.

SMS campaigns revolve around a keyword and a shortcode. People will opt-in to a campaign will receive a welcome message with the keyword and shortcode.

For example, let’s say a hockey team wants to promote their upcoming deals and games.

They might promote the following message through ads, banners, flyers, or any other marketing channel.

Does SMS Marketing Work?

Does SMS marketing work? You tell me…

Do you read text messages that are sent to your phone? Did you test out our example above… did you read what we sent?

Of course, it works… want more proof? Keep reading.

There’s no denying that SMS marketing can be beneficial. But just how effective is this type of marketing?

64 percent of modern consumers think businesses should use SMS messaging more often. Consumers aren’t the only ones who like SMS marketing.

SMS Marketing Best Practices

You might feel tempted to send out a bunch of text messages to your list of subscribers… But hold off.

Keep reading before clicking that send button.

You need to foster a relationship with your SMS advertising list. No one likes being overwhelmed with texts. No matter how loyal a customer is, if you annoy them with too many texts, you’ll lose them forever.

Every business is different… but most text once a week… and some a few times a day – around a special event.

You should also be aware of the time you are sending out your texts. If you send a message too early in the day, it will be ignored or forgotten. Sending messages late at night can also be a problem. Again, this is business dependent. I know of a nightclub who sends texts on Friday and Saturday night after 9:00 PM.

Remember to respect people’s time!

Want a quick tip?

Work to engage with the people on your text marketing list. The best way to get good engagement is to enhance your SMS campaigns by learning how to write great text marketing messages.

Heres a few tips:

Always let your customers know who is sending the text message. You may craft the wittiest, amazing text message only to forget to let your audience know who sent it. Don’t let that be you.
You should also include a call to action in all texts. This will encourage your customers to take action and move down the sales funnel.
Your content needs to be something that is actually valuable to your customers. Cater texts around discounts, promotions, or sweepstakes.
You can also send your customers photos of new products, surveys to get their feedback, and even create a drip campaign.

There’s no wrong way to text. But remember that a little bit of etiquette goes a long way. Follow these best practices to make the most of your SMS marketing campaigns.

40 SMS Marketing Statistics Every Marketer Should See

As 95% of people own mobile phones and short messaging system (SMS) does not need an Internet connection, businesses are bound to make the most of these technologies. SMS marketing statistics show SMS is indeed increasingly becoming a core feature of mobile marketing software.

In this SMS marketing research, we’ll look into SMS marketing market size, the effectiveness of SMS with consumers, how businesses use SMS, and what the future holds for text marketing.

After you’re done with this reading, you just might consider boosting your other channels with SMS marketing. One thing is for sure; you’ll see SMS in a whole new light.

General SMS Statistics

Since the first text message was sent in 1992, SMS has remained largely the same – short (160 characters) and straightforward. This simplicity has driven its massive use, adoption, and staying power. How are developments in the texting landscape? Let’s find out.

In 1995, the average American user sent 0.4 texts per month. As phones and networks became more advanced, and texting could be done between networks, SMS usage increased. By 2000, the average number of text messages sent in the US grew to 35 per person each month.
By 2007, texting hit 1 billion daily messages and became the most widely used form of communication, overtaking phone calls.
In 2010, an estimated 6.1 trillion messages were sent globally or around 193,000 messages per second.
No exact SMS usage can be arrived at because data from mobile carriers are hard to get. There is also now heavy usage of WhatsApp, Messenger, Snapchat, and similar text messaging apps. However, we put together available figures for SMS and in-app, and we’re looking at an estimated 145 billion messages sent each day around the world.

Demographics & Usage

Among 13 to 17-year-olds in the US, the favorite way of communicating in 2018 was texting (35%). It was followed by in-person (32%), social media (16%), and video chatting (10%).
In comparison, adults have preferred texting as the top form of communication for at least six years now.
American adults in 2018, on average, sent and received 32 texts per day. Considering there are 250 million US adults, the total adds up to 18 billion texts per day, 541 billion texts each month, and 6.5 trillion texts every year.
Text is the single most used feature of a smartphone. In fact, 97% of all smartphone users have texted within the last week. Despite mobile devices taking up the majority of web traffic, people text more than they use the Internet.
59% of US adults say they have used their cellphones to call or text someone while inside a store to discuss purchases they’re planning to make.
96% of adults in the US own a “cell-phone” of some kind. But 15% of the American population does not have internet connection via a smartphone and has access only to basic SMS services. That’s roughly 52.5 million Americans that can only be reached by text messaging.
On a global scale, 5 billion people own a cell-phone of some kind, and 2.29 billion can be reached through SMS/cellular and not via the Internet.

Is SMS Marketing Effective?

SMS is now becoming an integral feature of leading mobile marketing solutions. You can send text messages online or offline, from mobile devices, and from desktop or laptop computers to boost SMS campaigns. How effective is it? The SMS marketing data below, with a focus on customer impact and preference, provides some insights.

9 out of 10 consumers prefer to communicate with businesses through text messages, whether through alerts, reminders, back and forth communication, etc.
In fact, 80% of people use SMS for business communications, finding it convenient, unobtrusive, and fast with near-instant delivery of messages.
More than 50% of consumers would prefer text messaging over phone calls for customer support rather than phone calls. Moreover, US consumers are 5x more likely to send and receive text messages than phone calls.
75% of customers would like special offers sent to them through text messages. Furthermore, CTR for text messages is much higher (9.18%), compared to other marketing channels such as Google Adwords (1.91%) and Facebook (0.90%).
A third of Millennials prefer SMS messages for deliveries, promotions, and surveys.
Among the channels preferred by consumers for receiving loyalty updates from brands, the top spot went to SMS (48%). Other channels include email (22%), app notifications (20%), and direct mail (8%).
SMS is the preferred channel for consumers because opting in is easy. Furthermore, they don’t have to download a brand’s app to receive notifications. Also, SMS is a more direct push notification that won’t get lost in the inbox like email.

Open & Response Rates

SMS marketing beats email marketing with a 98% open rate and only 1% spam.
In contrast, email only has a 20% open rate but 49.7% spam.
90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of being received.
It takes just 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message.
While only 20% of people answer calls they don’t expect, texts are read in 5 seconds on average.
There is a 45% response rate for SMS messages compared to just 8% for email. Interaction is also much higher, with a click-through rate of 36% for SMS and a mere 3.4% for email.
Another source puts the response rate for email at just 6%. If SMS is at 45%, then that would mean a staggering 750% response rate over email. In other words, when promos and offers are sent via SMS, they are much likely to be opened, responded to, and lead to sales.

SMS Marketing & Business Statistics

How are businesses and companies leveraging SMS for marketing? And what have been business responses to consumers’ seeming preference for SMS marketing? Our SMS marketing report found some interesting details.

Despite the SMS boom, 61% of businesses have yet to embrace the platform.
But it’s about to change. Businesses are increasingly adopting text messaging as a communication tool. Today, 39% of businesses use some form of texting to communicate with customers. Certain industries such as real estate (73%), agriculture/veterinary (65%), and entertainment/leisure (63%) are expanding their use of SMS.
Pursuant to more SMS adoption, 73% of businesses plan to increase their SMS budgets in 2019.
47% of marketers believe the retail industry uses SMS most effectively.
Over 50% of consumers have tried to reply to a missed call via text. For businesses that are not text-enabled, those are missed messages from potential customers.
Furthermore, 75% of consumers are frustrated when they cannot respond to a business text message because of limitations with certain kinds of testing tools such as short-code texting.
81% of professionals say they use texting for business.
Using branded links or vanity URLs in SMS marketing campaigns can increase brand visibility and boost CTRs by up to 39%.
33% of businesses pan to target loyal customers via SMS rewards.
77% of consumers are likely to have a positive perception of a company that offers to text.
Sending business appointment reminders to customers through SMS reduced missed appointments by 26%.
Up to 80% of consumers preferred to track their orders via text when products were shipped.

The Future of SMS Marketing

What awaits texting in general and SMS marketing in particular in the years ahead? Here are developments and projections shaping up SMS for business.

3.5 trillion SMS business messages will be sent in 2023, up from an estimated 2.5 trillion in 2019.
By 2021, Rich Communication Service (RCS) is projected to be worth $75 billion, driven by greater adoption. RCS will combine SMS with other chat apps to provide a messaging channel that will feature group chat, video, read receipts, and other high-level functionality features.
Chatbots will utilize AI technologies like machine learning and natural language programming to effectively converse with customers via SMS. They can send customers instant replies, reminders, and answers to FAQs.

Include Texting in Your Marketing Mix

Marketers consider SMS as the Twitter of digital marketing. Which is kind of ironic – an analog tool in the digital age. But it is indeed the SMS attribute of not requiring the Internet to send and receive messages that make it a convenient tool for marketing.

While our separate mobile marketing statistics show there are billions of mobile device owners, not all cellphones they carry are Web-capable smartphones. That means there is a huge untapped audience for businesses and an overlooked and underutilized tool in SMS for marketers.

However, as our SMS marketing data indicates, there is a resurgence in the utilization of SMS for business. Major industries, such as real estate, entertainment, construction, automotive, and education, among others, are reaping the benefits of SMS marketing.

Even the banking and finance industries can provide instant account notifications to clients via SMS.

The good thing with SMS is that you don’t have to use it as a standalone marketing tool. It can be used to support your email marketing software, for example.

Other companies setting MS in tandem with their sales or marketing automation software.

The point is that you can include SMS in your marketing mix to make your campaigns more effective. If you haven’t been leveraging SMS for promotions and marketing, now is the opportune time to do this.

Email Marketing vs. SMS Marketing: Which Channel Should You Choose?

For businesses, email has been a tried-and-true method to reach audiences and send mass messages. However, as the use of mobile phones increases, SMS marketing for eCommerce is quickly becoming a great new way to connect with customers.

SMS stands for short messaging service, also known as a text message. Businesses today use SMS marketing to communicate with their customers directly on their mobile devices about new promotions, exclusive discounts, appointment reminders, and time-sensitive updates.

According to Twilio, 9 out of 10 text messages are opened within the first three minutes of being received, making it a great opportunity for brands to capture attention.

While email and SMS marketing are both effective ways to communicate with your customers, there are certain messages that are best suited for each channel. Email is a great medium for sending longer, richer messages that include images and attachments, and can be saved for a later date.

SMS marketing, on the other hand, is the perfect communication channel for concise, timely information or discounts. Email and SMS are complementary channels, and if you use them correctly, you can create a seamless customer communication experience.

Take our quiz below to test your knowledge on when to use email and when to use SMS marketing. Then, continue reading for more insight on SMS and email best practices, and how both channels can help you make a lasting impression in the eyes of your customers.

Combining SMS and email marketing: what’s the best approach?

There is no magic bullet when it comes to integrating your digital and marketing campaigns, but many communication strategies can be even more effective when SMS is used in addition to email.

For example, you can send your customer an appointment confirmation receipt via email, and follow up with an SMS message reminder on the day of the appointment. Likewise, you can send a brief mass text message to encourage your customers to subscribe to your email list for exclusive offers and promotions.

Creative approaches like these provide your business with more opportunities to begin or continue rewarding conversations with your customers.

When deciding between sending an email or SMS marketing, it is important to ask yourself these questions:

How time-sensitive is the communication?
Does the message require two-way communication?
Will the message contain rich media?
Will your customers have to access this message at a later date?

The main criteria to take into account when incorporating SMS marketing to your existing email program are archival and urgency. If your message requires urgent action or is time-sensitive, SMS is the more effective communication channel. If your message needs to be saved by your customers for a later date, email might be the best way to go.

It’s also important to consider using both channels for important information, but remember not to message too frequently on either channel.

Striking the perfect balance

By incorporating SMS into your existing marketing strategy, you can reach customers at every stage of their engagement lifecycle with your brand on the channels that they prefer. By optimizing your marketing efforts to meet customer preferences, you demonstrate your dedication to providing top-notch service and empowering your customers.

Leveraging SMS marketing with email is a great way to build brand awareness and award customer loyalty. So, what are you waiting for? Start sending!

Comparing SMS Marketing and Email Marketing

SMS marketing and email marketing have roles to play in your overall marketing strategy. Each holds unique benefits in the way they deliver information to your current and future audiences. But, it can be confusing to know which will give you the most return on investment for each campaign that you’re running. Let’s compare the advantages and disadvantages of using SMS marketing and email marketing.

Comparing SMS Text Message Marketing to Email Marketing

We compared SMS text message marketing to email marketing on key variables that marketers weigh campaign decisions on in the following categories:

Open Rate
Deliverability
CTR
Cost
Customization

1. Open Rate

Consumers today are more distracted than ever. Think about it, have you ever been watching TV while scrolling through your phone, or reading work emails while listening to a podcast? As a marketer, you’re constantly facing the challenge of trying to grab the attention of your audience. Text message marketing has their attention. The average open rate for text message marketing campaigns is 98% compared to just a 20% open rate from an email marketing campaign. Not to mention the average person replies to a text message within 90 seconds, compared to 90 minutes for an email. Even though the world is distracting, text message marketing is a direct route to the attention of your audience.

2. Deliverability

Since SMS marketing requires the customer to either opt in or out, your list is made up of only engaged customers. On the other hand, marketing emails typically have larger lists, with more frequent sends. Even if you’re not doing it intentionally, emails have a higher chance of being sent to the spam folder, damaging your reputation, and breaking trust with your customers. With statistics like 49% of all emails being marked as spam, you’re already having to work much harder to even get your message into your audience’s inbox. On top of that, someone working in an office receives over 120 emails a day, where the average millennial only receives 67 texts each day.

Since there are fewer texts being received, the likelihood of seeing these messages is higher. Overall, using text message marketing means there is a higher chance of your message being delivered to your audience.

3. Click-through rate

For both SMS marketing and email marketing, click-through rate has the potential to be high, but, it depends on how well you craft your call to action. The click-through rate of any campaign is determined by the call to action. The average click-through rate of an email hovers around 4%, meaning that your email was opened, and the customer followed through a link based on your CTA. A good call to action lets your audience know what’s on offer and a good enough reason to click-through.

With text message marketing it’s more challenging to craft a compelling call to action because you’re limited to 160 characters. Since the whole point to the marketing effort is to motivate your audience to act on your offer, the link is the most important asset. When you use a branded link, the customer immediately understands what the CTA is, and is more likely to follow through.

Mobile phone provider, 3, sends out SMS messages to inform customers when their plans are close to expiring and of promotions, they are running. The use of branded links in their messages is multipurpose. First, it increases trust and the chance of click-through, because the audience knows exactly where the link will lead. Secondly, a branded link acts as the clickable CTA. Instead of forfeiting space in your message, branded links help you to get your message across and capture your audience’s attention ins less time.

4. Cost

The cost to send an SMS message varies by country if its local, the length of the message and the number of messages sent, overall it does cost more than an email marketing send. Email marketing is the most cost-effective way to send non-time sensitive messages to a large audience. Since the customization in email marketing varies from business to business and send to send, the direct cost of each campaign can vary completely.

5. Customization

Email was the clear winner here, because of its ability for personalization. Whether you’re using HTML or text only sends, email lets you add attachments, hyperlinks, images, and videos. Email marketing gives you more freedom to customize messages to fully connect with your audience as your brand, from the colors you use to the type of copy, to the use of images, gifs, or video.

Email and text marketing should both play a role in your overall marketing strategy. The biggest takeaway is to weigh the costs and benefits of each, as both of these programs are both time and money investments that should be done with care and precision. Use email marketing as a “slow burn” to build relationships and communicate complex information and keep text message marketing for quick updates and reminders that require action.

Boost eCommerce Sales With SMS Marketing

SMS messages with an open rate of 98% compared to only 20-30% for email, eCommerce merchants are using SMS marketing to foster good relationships with their consumers. Text messages are extremely useful when done in the right manner. This article focuses on the basics of using SMS marketing for eCommerce.

Top 5 SMS marketing strategies to generate more sales

1. Segmentation

Hyper target your customers by using segments and send them personalized text messages, just like you do in email marketing. For example, target customers for a personalized SMS marketing campaign who haven’t purchased in the last 30 days with an average order value of $40+.

2. Abandoned cart reminders

The average cart abandonment rate is as high as 75%, so you must focus to reduce it. Your customers are juggling many things at once, and it’s up to you as an eCommerce business to remind them to take action and make it easy for them to finish checking out.

Here’s an example of an SMS cart reminder.

3. Write simple, understandable, and short messages

Get to the point and don’t make your text messages too long. Use emojis whenever possible to engage the customer and make the offering and the message that much more personalized.

4. Start a giveaway

To boost customer engagement, successful eCommerce merchants entice their customers to join their VIP club. One of the best way is to set up is a landing page for your VIP customers to give them special offers and discounts.

5. Send it at times when customers are more likely to act

Be strategic on the timing of your automated SMS marketing campaigns to ensure that you stay top-of-mind, even after the customer has left your site. Avoid sending in the middle of the night and do A/B testing to find the most optimum time to send the messages.

5 things Shopify merchants need to know about SMS marketing

For product marketers and eCommerce managers, SMS is an increasingly essential part of multi-channel marketing —, especially with a mobile-first online retail market.

In this article, we’ll summarize 5 benefits you may not know about SMS marketing. We’ll also outline how to use SMS effectively for better lead acquisition, closing rates and customer loyalty for your Shopify or Shopify Plus store.

By the end, we hope you’re ready to integrate SMS marketing right away!

1) SMS is one of the most immediate channels available

SMS (a.k.a. text message marketing) is perhaps the most direct route to customers when it comes to D2C marketing. With a 98% open rate and a 5x click rate compared to other channels (such as email marketing), SMS is a more casual and less threatening channel for customers.

Not only do standalone SMS campaigns have a high success rate and proven ROI for Shopify merchants, but they also enhance and support other marketing channels like email and social marketing. As mobile shopping activity continues to rise, shoppers expect to receive offers, discounts, consultations, and other promos through mobile messaging.

2) SMS can help you recover lost sales

Merchants not utilizing SMS as part of a mobile marketing strategy are missing out on building direct relationships with customers. As a result, this could mean sacrificing sales.

Littledata found that, on average, nearly 60% of mobile shoppers abandon their carts before completing checkout.

Many of these incomplete checkouts may be due to unanswered questions. And while automated messaging may not solve these barriers to purchase, it can certainly reengage shoppers through incentives or simple reminders to complete their checkout.

3) SMS helps you better understand your customers

You can learn more about the purchasing behavior of your customers by studying back-and-forth conversations.

For example, SaveMySales is a performance SMS marketing app that offers a dashboard showing customer conversions from which merchants can track trends, like commonly asked questions or concerns preventing them from purchasing.

This type of insight helps merchants understand the customer journey (and blockers) their customers face, which can lead to better Shopify conversion rates.

4) SMS will increase customer engagement

SMS marketing can help you directly build 1:1 relationships and trust with your customers.

Shoppers appreciate messages that make them feel valued or special, especially when messages include personalized responses from real humans that solves their barrier to purchase.

Whether shoppers are casually browsing before a first-time purchase or they are returning for a repeat purchase, shoppers are more likely to buy when they experience a level of brand trust.

5) Without proper tracking, it’s all for naught

While you’re building this high-converting engagement channel for your brand, for Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants, one thing matters just as much as engagement — tracking each step of the customer journey.

Luckily, Littledata’s smart analytics app for Shopify connects your store data to Google Analytics or Segment, and tracks every event, from casual product page clicks to final purchase. It’s automatic tracking our merchants can trust.

If you’re on Shopify Plus, check out an enterprise plan to get a dedicated account manager to help with data setup, reporting and optimization.

Final Words

SMS marketing is becoming an increasingly essential channel as a direct line of communication to get in front of shoppers, recover lost sales, understand customers, and increase customer engagement.

SMS can be used as part of a multi-channel strategy for engaging with customers at each stage of the customer funnel to help increase conversions and ROI for your Shopify store.

We recommend using SaveMySales to build the most personalized SMS marketing strategy that will impress your customers and help them build a relationship with your brand.

Helpful Tips to Personalize SMS Marketing

Utilizing personalized SMS marketing as part of your marketing plan is one of the best ways to reach consumers. Study after study shows that texting is a highly effective way to connect as it has the highest open rate of any other type of communication, such as phone calls, emails, etc.

In fact, nearly all text messages received are read, 98% of which are read in the first 3-5 minutes further proving that personalized SMS is a highly effective way to connect with loyal and engaged consumers. It is also the most direct as 91% of the world’s population owns a cell phone which is within reach nearly every minute of every day.

Texting gives the sender the ability to customize each message, making the interaction more personal. By adding mobile SMS marketing to your arsenal will ultimately make your entire mobile SMS marketing campaign more effective. So how do you create personalized mobile SMS marketing strategies that work? Follow these four rules of thumb and you can’t go wrong:

Surveys can be as short as five questions that can give you the insight needed to improve customer service and be as relevant as possible. This instant feedback from customers is like free research that could pay dividends, so make the effort to get to know your customers.

Don’t become a nuisance

Consumers enjoy text marketing because it is less intrusive. By abusing this notion and over-sending text messages, customers will most certainly opt-out of receiving your SMS notifications. Only send information that’s appropriate, timely and useful to the receiver. The infamous 3am text sent by Barack Obama’s 2008 election team announcing his vice-presidential pick did not go over well. Be cognizant of time zones and texting plans (assume that not everyone has unlimited texting) and map out your mobile text marketing campaign accordingly.

Be organized

Whether it’s a billing notification or a special offer, keep your opt-in lists organized. Getting information wrong or sending a text to the wrong person is a big no-no and can create unnecessary discord. Getting details right – like an unusual spelling of a common name – is the kind of thing that will set you apart from brands that make the same old mistakes. Never assume, always double check, and offer consumers an easy way to update your records if their details change.

Know your customers

As a brand, you know what services and products you offer. Take the time to find out personal preferences of your customers so that you can home in on what they like and need with a targeted marketing campaign. Collecting this information can be done in several ways, including:

Keyword-based opt-in
Surveys
Leveraging existing data

Everyone loves free stuff

Let your customers know how much you appreciate them by giving something away…it’ll come back ten-fold. Time and time again, free content is one of the best ways to get a response. Incentivizing your customers to engage will create good will and increased business in the future. And, the beauty of SMS marketing is that text messages allow the sender to link to websites and other content immediately as most mobile device users have access to the internet.

Why is SMS automation important for your eCommerce business?

Given the high response rates of SMS, it is widely used as a marketing channel in 2020. Most of the major eCommerce companies even use SMS to send order confirmation alerts and OTPs for 2-factor authentication. However, most of the online businesses are yet to realize the full potential of SMS Marketing as a customer engagement and support channel.

SMS marketing automation – i.e., to automatedly send and receive SMS based on customer event triggers – helps businesses effectively use SMS as a customer engagement channel. SMS automation can help eCommerce boost customer satisfaction, customer retention, conversion rates while lowering support and operational costs.

Benefits of SMS Marketing Automation

Improve conversions and sales

Make the most of SMS channel’s superior open rates by sending missed cart offers, personalized birthday and anniversary promotions, annual event reminders (e.g. flowers for Valentine’s Day) and more via SMS. See how you can optimize conversions with A/B testing and Textlocal URL tracking.

Boost customer retention and renewals

Send timely service expiry reminders, renewal alerts for subscriptions, regular payment, and service reminders, annual health checkup notifications directly to your customer’s mobile phones.

Capture data feedback at the right time

Reach the customer at the right time and right channel by sending survey questions via SMS post product purchase or service (e.g. hotel stay, AC repair). See how Textlocal mobile-friendly surveys can easily capture data and feedback.

Delight your customers

Provide instant, on-demand information to your customers by receiving inbound SMS inquiries and setting up automated SMS responses. Go one step further with Textlocal and send multi-media files (e.g. informational brochures, PDF menus, rate cards, location maps) with our SMS attachments.

Lower operational costs

Logistics and eCommerce companies can cut down on operational costs by sending pre-delivery confirmation messages e.g. “Send YES to confirm product delivery at 10 am tomorrow. Send NO to reschedule delivery.”

What SMS can be automated?

Welcome messages

As soon as your customers register with you, send personalized bulk SMS campaigns welcoming them and include some handy bits of information like website links, intro videos or how-to guides.

Reminders

Automate reminders so your customers never miss appointments, bookings, renewals, offers & more. This can be the day before, an hour before, or whenever it works best.

Updates & Notifications

Send instant purchase and delivery notifications, support ticket updates, failed/successful payment alerts, usage/expiry alerts, and many more.

Feedback & Reviews

Sending an automated SMS Survey immediately after they made a purchase can really help you get an increased response and quality feedback.

Offers/Newsletters/Tips

Send personalized weekly or monthly tips and offers to customers based on their activity and pre-defined triggers. Also, send offers on milestones like anniversaries.

Referral Requests

Send automated SMS to your customers asking for referrals on a frequent basis or post-purchase. Keep expanding your customer-base with minimal effort.

Contextual Alerts or Offers

Trigger specific text messages to be sent to your customers based on their favorite topic/product feature, based on their purchase behavior or based on any specific set of actions or activity.

Re-Engagement Campaigns

‘Out of sight, out of mind’ holds true for brands as well. You can send a series of SMS with exclusive offers when customers are inactive (no usage or purchase) for a specified time period. Why is SMS automation important for your eCommerce business?

Tips for effective SMS marketing

SMS solutions indeed offer a good marketing path to the businesses. But blindly messaging your potential customers about the product will only deteriorate the scene. For that purpose, it’s good if the marketer follows some essential and effective tips for SMS marketing automation.

Tips for effective SMS marketing

1) Always send messages to only those customers who have opted-in for messaging services

It is a wrong notion that bulk SMS attracts customers to products/services. The truth is, right bulk messages, sent at the right time, to the right audience will catch the attention of customers to your products/services.

2) Focus on targeted message sending

Not all bulk SMS is meant for all people. Keeping in mind this rule, send bulk SMS only to your target audience who will show interest in your product, rather than sending it to people who may willingly ignore your messages.

3) Mind the length of the message

Nobody likes long speeches and orations giving away the details of the product. Hence, for SMS marketing for eCommerce to be effective, mind the length of the message and try to give away only essential details.

4) Respect customers opting out of bulk messaging service

With the number of spam messages and emails increasing, privacy has become an issue for customers. Therefore, as a marketer, you should not only provide your customers opt-out facility, but you should also respect that opting-out of your messaging campaign.

5) Crisp details about the product

The magnificence of bulk SMS is that you can (have to) convey your information in an as crisp and concise way as possible. Since there is already a limit of 160 characters imposed on text messages, you can convey your information in the simplest manner possible.

6) Pay attention to who you are integrating with

As a marketer, you should pay utmost attention to who you are integrating your SMS solutions with, because if integration is done with wrong or complicated software provider, then people may not favor your SMS services.

7) Personalized message

Always ensure that bulk messages are being sent to the users by addressing them by their names. Random promotional messages sent to random people may or may not be preferred. For example:

8) What’s-in-there-for-me?

Keep in mind a simple fact that most promotional messages will be read-only when there is something in store for the customer reading the message, because the first thought that strikes a customer’s mind on opening a promotional message is, what’s-in-there-for-me?

Dos and Don’ts of SMS Marketing

A perfect choice in business, if you want to communicate well with your customers or audience in an efficient, fast and cheap way, is SMS marketing. Today, there are way more than 6 billion mobile devices in the world. SMS reached over 3 billion people using these 6 billion devices. This means that SMS is currently ruling the mobile market and remains the most used tool on smartphones, in spite of mobile development with an abundance of mobile apps and easy to access and surf the internet on a mobile phone.

SMS marketing is also known as text message marketing is one of the most effective ways to engage customers, grab their attention and gain their loyalty. Supporting this claim, we will offer you a few reasonable data points:

1. 90% of SMS messages are read in just 3 minutes

2. Redemption rate is10 times higher for mobile coupons compared to printed coupons

3. 98% of text messages are opened and read

Having known all these, using SMS for marketing purposes might seem easy but in actuality, communicating effectively using SMS requires a bit of effort. Just like any other marketing activity, SMS marketing also has its rules and good and bad practices. Below are the Dos and Don’ts of SMS marketing.

THE 3 DOS of SMS MARKETING

1. Call-to-action (CTA)

SMS messages are short with just 160 characters long. One very good way to craft an effective text message is using “5 W’s and one H” of journalism –What, Who, When, Where, Why and How. The last W (Why) and the H (How) are the best foundations for your call-to-action (CTA). You are simply telling your customers what to do after reading your SMS marketing message. Example: WHY – to get your coupon; HOW – by texting the keyword to a shortcode.

2. Always Be Brief

As it was mentioned above, SMS is short. You have to be focused and skillful to write short but yet effectual SMS marketing messages to grab the attention of your customers. The application of the KISS principle is the best way. It means: Keep It Short and Simple.

3. Do Start With Attention Grabbers

You must make sure to use each character of the 160 smartly! This is why finding something effective that will engage your customers and immediately grab their attention is a must-do. Start your SMS marketing message with an attention grabber – one or a couple of words in upper case. Examples are: “NEWS,” “SALE” or “SPECIAL OFFER.”

THE 3 DON’TS of SMS MARKETING

1. Never Bombard Customers with Messages

Timing is essential but the frequency is equally important. Don’t ever send text messages just to say you are sending something. If you have nothing useful to say or offer, simply stay quiet. Your SMS marketing messages must deliver value and some real-time benefits to those who opted in for your SMS communication. Otherwise, you will end up annoying people and eventually start losing subscribers. Remember, less is more!

2. Avoid Text Slang and Abbreviations

Even though there are just 160 characters to work with, texting abbreviations are very risky to use in business communication which is also the same that applies to text slang. Remember, not everyone understands texting abbreviations and slang. It might seem smart to take advantage of the so limited space in a more rational way, you are only risking confusion of your customers. You can also disable them so that they can comprehend your message correctly. If your customers are clueless about what you are talking about, they will end up simply ignoring your message, or decide to unsubscribe at worst, Professionalism in SMS marketing communication has to stay on a certain level. Unprofessional language can affect negatively, the perception of your brand.

3. Never Forget to Identify Yourself

Just as in any other life situation, when you are meeting someone new, the first thing you do is to introduce yourself to them. SMS marketing communication is not any different too. Ensure your subscribers know who is messaging them as this is of key importance for your brand recognition. Once you make yourself known to your audience, your messages will immediately become engaging and relevant. Otherwise, your messages might be considered spams if you text anonymously.