Is SMS Marketing Still Relevant in 2020?

SMS is now regarded as an “old” form of communication, but the art of SMS marketing is making a comeback all the same.

According to recent data, SMS messaging increased by 197% between 2015 and 2017 alone. That’s because the majority of consumers would rather text with a business for scheduling or appointments than by email or phone. Meanwhile, social media and marketing influencers like Gary Vaynerchuk are asking their audience to text them directly.

With all this in mind, we’ve asked marketing experts why SMS marketing is making a comeback in 2020. We also asked them to share some tips for leveraging the technology to engage with new leads and existing customers alike.

Why SMS Marketing Is Growing

SMS Marketing — texting customers and leads — is a viable direct marketing strategy for both B2B and B2C brands. “Consumer behavior is constantly evolving and today mobile devices are becoming more personal than ever,” said Fara Rosenzweig, the chief content officer at ManyChat. She believes the instantaneous and personal feel of SMS marketing makes it enticing for businesses looking to create relationships and satisfy customers.

“CMOs and senior marketers are investing heavily in business texting as a means to engage potential customers and drive the digital customer experience strategy,” said Matt Reid, CMO at EZ Texting. He believes text messaging is one of the most exciting technologies for direct marketing today because the strategy yields much higher engagement rates than email, print, and even social media. “It can act as a proxy to email marketing when you find your target audience is ignoring email newsletters,” explained Aaron Watters, CEO of Leadhub. Consumers prefer texting and are much more likely to respond to texts from brands, so it’s an excellent method for customer re-engagement.

SMS Marketing Tips & Strategies

While it’s clear that SMS marketing is effective, there are some best practices to make the most of the strategy.

Respect Consumer Privacy

Watters warned that “buying a bunch of cell phone numbers and sending blanket texts to everyone on the list is frowned upon and will yield similar results to an ineffective email campaign.” He believes it’s critical to respect consumers’ privacy, or it could negatively impact your brand’s reputation. Watters added, “If you’re going to text them, make sure you have substance and a specific purpose.”

Get Permission First

Rosenzweig suggested brands get permission from consumers first. “People forget when they opt-in to lists all the time,” she said, “so make sure you keep a record of people with opt-in agreements.” And don’t forget to include the option to opt-out as well. Otherwise, you could violate consumer data and privacy laws if you’re not careful who you message. Text marketers, therefore, need to focus on respectful and compliant communications.

Don’t Spam Consumers

Since texting is a more direct form of communication, it’s especially important not to spam consumers. “No one wants to receive a ton of messages from any business anyway,” Rosenzweig said. That’s why she suggested limiting the text messages you send to only two to six per month. “Occasional texts throughout your text sequence should also include an opt-out option,” she added. Following these tips will help your brand to avoid being perceived as too spammy.

Own Particular Keywords

You need to reserve particular keywords for consumers to text and subscribe to. “When people text your shortcode — or the special five or the six-digit number for your business — with the keyword,” explained Rosenzweig, “you can respond back with an automated and customizable response.” It’s critical to make it easy for people to subscribe, so consider owning multiple keywords for specific promotions and deals as well.

Focus on Lead Generation

“You can collect leads from your SMS campaign,” Rosenzweig recommended, “It’s then ideal to move them to other marketing channels.” She believes promotional texts in the hopes of a sale aren’t nearly as effective as lead generation and driving traffic to other marketing channels. “Use text conversation to start building the relationship, then encourage people to move the conversation on other platforms like a messenger bot, which you can use to guide them to purchase,” she said.

Stop Overlooking SMS Marketing

“SMS marketing is a powerful tool to use for shop abandonment, appointment reminders, tracking, promotions and more,” explained Rosenzweig, “as well as a way to create conversations and build relationships with your customers.” That’s why digital marketers shouldn’t overlook SMS marketing to engage with new leads or re-engage with existing customers.

In the end, Reid concluded, “SMS marketing and service provider features help businesses interact more seamlessly with new consumers, garner more leads, provide effective customer service and maximize team effectiveness.” SMS marketing, therefore, is making a strong comeback in 2020, and the strategy is one that digital marketers shouldn’t overlook.

What is Ecommerce Personalization?

Ecommerce Personalization (broadly known as customization) consists of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate specific individuals, sometimes tied to groups or segments of individuals. A wide variety of organizations use personalization to improve customer satisfaction, digital sales conversion, marketing results, branding, and improved website metrics as well as for advertising. Personalization is a key element in social media and recommender systems.

Web Personalization

Web pages can be personalized based on the characteristics (interests, social category, context, etc.), actions (click on the button, open a link, etc.), intent (make a purchase, check the status of an entity), or any other parameter that can be identified and associated with an individual, therefore providing them with tailored user experience. Note that the experience is rarely simply accommodation of the user but a relationship between the user and the desires of the site designers in driving specific actions to achieve objectives (e.g. Increase sales conversion on a page). The term customization is often used when the site only uses explicit data such as product ratings or user preferences.

Technically, web personalization can be achieved by associating a visitor segment with a predefined action. Customizing the user experience based on behavioral, contextual and technical data is proven to have a positive impact on conversion rate optimization efforts. Associated actions can range from changing the content of a webpage, presenting a modal display, presenting interstitials, triggering a personalized email or even automating a phone call to the user.

According to a 2014 study from research firm Econsultancy, less than 30% of e-commerce websites have invested in the field of web personalization. However, many companies now offer services for web personalization as well as web and email recommendation systems that are based on personalization or anonymously-collected user behaviors.

There are many categories of web personalization including

Behavioral
Contextual
Technical
Historic data
Collaboratively filtered

There are several camps in defining and executing web personalization. A few broad methods for web personalization may include:

Implicit
Explicit
Hybrid

With implicit personalization, web personalization is performed based on the different categories mentioned above. It can also be learned from direct interactions with the user based on implicit data, such as items purchased or pages viewed. With explicit personalization, the web page (or information system) is changed by the user using the features provided by the system. Hybrid personalization combines the above two approaches to leverage the best of both worlds.

Web personalization is can be linked to the notion of Adaptive hypermedia (AH). The main difference is that the former would usually work on what is considered “open corpus hypermedia,” whilst the latter would traditionally work on “closed corpus hypermedia.” However, recent research directions in the AH domain take both closed and open corpus into account. Thus, the two fields are closely inter-related.

Predictive Personalization

Predictive personalization is defined as the ability to predict customer behavior, needs or wants – and tailor offers and communications very precisely. Social data is one source of providing this predictive analysis, particularly social data that is structured. Predictive personalization is a much more recent means of personalization and can be used well to augment current personalization offerings.

How to Choose a Marketing Automation Tool in 2020

If you’re new to marketing automation, choosing the right marketing automation tools for your business could be an overwhelming and intimidating process. Long gone are the days when your decision was limited to the top ten leading tools out there.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing automation makes processes that would have otherwise been performed manually much more efficiently. It helps you deliver personalized messages across multiple channels (email, SMS, notifications, ads, social media, direct mail, etc.) in order to attract, convert and retain more customers with fewer resources and in a more scalable way.

How to Select the Right Marketing Automation Tool

Marketing automation is so ubiquitous today that you’re probably using at least one marketing automation tool already without calling it like that. With so many tools available, it might be hard to decide what exactly do you need.

To help you with that process, we’ve put ten easy tips.

1. Start with your business model

Your business model and processes are greatly going to impact your marketing automation needs. Do you run a B2C or B2B business? Is your business software as a service (SaaS), a mobile app, eCommerce, marketplace, or a service? What does your selling process look like — do you rely on a product-led, self-serve onboarding or you have a traditional high-touch sales model?

There isn’t a single perfect solution that caters to all types of businesses. By understanding your business model, your acquisition processes, and your customer persona, you can make more knowledgeable decisions when selecting your marketing automation toolset.

2. Identify the stage of your business that needs the most attention

Based on the business model and maturity of your company, you may experience challenges at different stages of your marketing funnel. Do you have difficulties attracting traffic to your website? Do you manage to convert that traffic to qualified leads and those leads to customers? What is your average customer lifetime value, and for how long do you retain your customers?

3. All-in-one Vs. best-of-breed marketing automation platforms

Marketing automation platforms come in two general forms: all-in-one suites or best-of-breed tools.

Which one you decide to go with depends on your personal preference, your marketing needs, and your budget.

All-in-one platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua or Sharspring have hundreds of features: CRM, content management system, landing page, and form builders, email marketing, visual automation builder, SEO tools, social media scheduling tools, and so on.

On the contrary, best-of-breed tools focus on providing the most robust and sophisticated solutions to a single feature or set of features. For example, Mailchimp helps you with email marketing, Buffer with social media, and Ahrefs with improving your search rankings.

4. Consider your budget

Last but not least, you need to consider your monthly budget allowance for marketing automation software. Using the right set of tools is crucial, but what makes a good tool great is the marketer using it. That’s why you need to carefully decide how much you want to spend on these products.

Big platforms like HubSpot, Eloqua, and Market tend to get extremely expensive if you use their full set of features. Fortunately, most of them offer their suite as separate products, so you can subscribe only to the features that you need.

Best-in-class software products like Buffer, Leadpages, SEMrush, etc. are usually most cost-effective, but you might need to use a few of them to cover all of your marketing needs.

eCommerce Marketing Trends 2020

So where is eCommerce now? Well, by the end of 2019 (according to data from Statista) the global eCommerce market had sales reaching $3.5 billion and represented 14% of the total share of global retail sales.

And what’s coming in 2020?

This data predicts that by the end of 2020, global eCommerce sales will reach $4.2 billion and makeup 16% of total retail sales. And these numbers are only predicted to go up as we continue into the ‘20s.

1. Augmented reality enhances the reality of online shopping.

While fast shipping options have been able to lend online shopping almost the same instant gratification of retail shopping, there has historically been one downside: you can’t feel the product or see it on your body or in your home. AR makes visualizing the product in your life possible.

Burrow, a DTC furniture brand, uses AR to help customers visualize how their couches will fit in their living rooms. Their Burrow at Home app uses ARKit to place true-to-scale 3D models of Burrow’s couches in photos taken on customers’ iPhones and iPads.

2. There will be a growing volume of voice search.

Loop Ventures forecasts that 75% of U.S. households will own a smart speaker by 2025. People are increasingly relying on voice assistants like Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa to do everything from check the weather to buy products online.

As more and more households gain this technology and grow more comfortable using it to make purchases, there’s a lot of untapped potential for eCommerce businesses looking to get in on the ground floor.

3. AI helps shops learn about shoppers.

Another aspect of brick-and-mortar shopping that has historically been lost in online shopping is a helpful in-store associate who can offer product recommendations and personalized guidance based on the shopper’s needs or requests.

As artificial intelligence and machine learning grow more sophisticated, many eCommerce businesses have already begun leveraging it to make smart product recommendations. Not only will this likely increase in 2020, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of ways AI can contribute to retail and eCommerce.

4. On-site personalization uses those insights to create individualized experiences.

As mentioned above AI is increasing in eCommerce and with a number of applications. One way AI can be used is to gather information about visitors and then help adjust the site to their wants and needs. Humans value experiences and products that have been tailored to them. This again is something that is often lost in the switch to online, self-service shopping.

Implementing personalized experiences on-site or in marketing efforts has been shown to have a strong effect on revenue, with one study finding it had a 25% revenue lift. Recent data also shows personalization efforts can reduce bounce rates by 45%.

How to Do SMS Marketing Right: 10 Tips for Successful Text Campaigns

The effectiveness of SMS marketing is indisputable.

Texting has the highest engagement rate of any marketing medium by far at 82% open rates. 90% of messages are read within three minutes of receipt.

And most powerful of all?

Your customers want you to use this channel. Over half of all consumers say they prefer to contact support via SMS over all other channels. And most say they prefer to get order status alerts, reservation confirmations, and appointment reminders via text.²

So — how to do SMS marketing effectively? We’ll cover the essentials of text message marketing, including best practices and examples from leading brands, to help you use this channel to engage and convert more customers.

What is SMS Marketing?

Let’s start with a simple SMS marketing definition.

SMS stands for “short message service.” These messages can be sent between phones or from a computer to a mobile device. SMS marketing involves sending marketing messages to customers via text messages.

Some of the best SMS marketing campaigns to help inform your strategy are explained below

1. Get Permission & Make Opt-out Clear

You must have permission to send users text messages. Otherwise, you’re just spamming people, which can mean irreparable damage to your brand. Not to mention breaking the law and potentially racking up significant legal fees.

Get subscribers to opt into text messaging with promotional campaigns that ask them to send a keyword to your shortcode. Or let them check a box during the checkout process alongside email subscriptions. And to encourage opt-ins, be clear about what subscribers can expect. What types of messages will they receive and how often?

For example, “Text ‘SAVINGS’ to 12345 to receive weekly coupons.” The shortcode serves as the phone number customers text the keyword to. The keyword goes in the body of the message to signify which SMS campaign they’re signing up for.

You can encourage signups on any of your current marketing channels: email, website, in-store, social media, direct mail. For example, Payless prints flyers and posts signs near the store checkout, and Pizza Hut spreads the word on Facebook.

2. Know the Rules

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) requires SMS marketers to include “msg & data rates apply” in auto-reply messages. Most text marketing services will add this disclaimer automatically, but it’s on you to ensure it’s included.

3. Less is More

How many SMS is too many?

Upland Software’s in-depth analysis of ideal SMS frequency recommends starting with 4-5 messages a month and slowly increasing to 10 a month — as long each message provides real value. Of course, you should closely monitor unsubscribes for an uptick in churn to find the sweet spot for your own subscribers.

It’s also a good idea to include frequency in your welcome message so users know how often they’ll hear from you:

When it comes to message length, think short and sweet. Most carriers limit text message length to 160 characters, so the faster you get to the meat of your message the better. State value upfront, include a crystal clear call to action and use a URL shortener like goo.gl or bit.ly.

4. Timing Matters

When it comes to timing your text messages, think about your audience’s daily habits. When are they most likely to be on their phones?

According to Mobile Marketer, Mondays have the lowest response rates. Unless your message is specifically relevant to that day, avoid it.

You should also steer clear of common commute times, typically 6:30-8:30 am and 4-7 pm, when people are likely driving and unable to read or respond to texts.

In general, standard business hours of 10 am – 8 pm are most effective for SMS marketers. Just be sure to localize send times for your user’s specific time zone. No one wants a coupon code or appointment reminder at 4 am.

5. Keep it Fun!

SMS is a highly personal and informal channel, making it ideal for entertaining campaigns. Think games, promotions, polls, interactive content, and one-on-one conversations. Use it as an opportunity to deliver fun, memorable customer experiences.

Note: many SMS marketers use shortened to text speak like “ur” and “txt” in campaign copy. Feel free to do the same, as long as your message is easily readable.

Starbucks has long used SMS to delight customers with trivia games, quirky memes, and personalized rewards. This campaign from 2013 takes advantage of the immediacy of SMS by rewarding the first 100 correct responders. And it cleverly reinforces the essential role music plays in their customer experience.

This recent campaign pairs the informal nature of SMS with summertime fun, featuring intergalactic cat gifs, silly “Pew Pew!”s, and OMGs. And it delivers real value with 50% off coupons and extended happy hours for subscribers.

6. Segment

You wouldn’t talk to a brand new visitor the same way you would a loyal customer. The same goes for SMS. Segment your audience to ensure that each user gets relevant, valuable content.

New visitors could get free shipping or promo code, while repeat customers get early access to new products or an invite to your rewards program.

Use profile data to send birthday promotions, new customer discounts, or location-based campaigns to give each user a personalized experience and up conversions.

7. Instill Urgency

One of the central benefits of SMS is immediacy. So use that to your advantage.

Pair SMS with location-based campaigns to send tempting promotions to users when they arrive or pass by your store. Include phrases like “valid till,” “expires soon,” or “today only” in your message copy to create a sense of urgency and prompt recipients to act.

8. Make It Exclusive

One way to keep subscribers from opting out of your SMS campaigns? Send exclusive offers or VIP content they won’t get on any other channel.

AMC Theaters uses SMS to keep its Stubs club members up to date on their rewards points and membership benefits. Subscribers get access to free movie screenings, special event invites concession discounts and movie swag giveaways.

9. Track Open & Click Rates

As with any other medium, you should track how users are engaging with your text campaigns. How many open your message? How many clicks the link or send a response? How many opt-out?

According to the current SMS marketing industry benchmarks, 70% of customers open SMS messages within 60 minutes. 19% of recipients click on a link.

Like any other channel, you should A/B test messaging, audiences, and timing to keep improving your SMS marketing strategy.

10. Use SMS as Part of an Omnichannel Strategy

Today’s mobile users demand a consistent customer experience regardless of channel or device. An omnichannel strategy is essential to building a strong, lasting relationship with your brand.

Your SMS campaigns shouldn’t be one-offs. They should complement and connect with your push, email, and social campaigns to reinforce customer relationships and provide a seamless experience.

5 Ecommerce Marketing Strategies for 2020

As 2020 approaches, the stakes have never been higher for online retailers trying to compete with sellers flooding marketplaces from retailers like Amazon and Walmart—and, in some cases, the direct-to-consumer retailers themselves.

But, thankfully, it is not a hopeless task: We compiled 5 of the best expert-approved eCommerce marketing strategies that you need to try in 2020. By implementing these strategies, eCommerce brands can find the holy grail, which remains the right consumer on the right device at the right moment.

1. Tap into UGC and influencer marketing

Like email signups, Prafull Sharma, CEO of content marketing agency LeadsPanda, recommends brands encourage their fans to produce their own content in exchange for an incentive. This will increase engagement and conversions, as well as build trust within the brand’s digital community. Camera brand GoPro is a good example. Its YouTube channel has nearly 8 million subscribers and a library of high-quality videos from customers.

2. Try filters and QR codes

Sneh Ratna Choudhary, a content marketer at proximity marketing company Beaconstac, said filters on social platforms like Snapchat and Instagram can yield unique shopping experiences for eCommerce brands. That includes denim brand Levi’s, which allowed Snapchat users to scan QR codes in-store to virtually try on a jacket they could then by online, and Kylie Jenner’s makeup brand Kylie Cosmetics, which used Instagram filters to let users see what her new lipsticks looked like.

On a related note, QR codes in print ads allow consumers to easily visit advertisers’ websites.

3. Make shopping social

Aalap Shah, the founder of Amazon/eCommerce-focused agency 1o8, said to consider social commerce platform CommentSold.

“I’m finding for my apparel and beauty clients in particular that this tool creates an effective new sales channel to drive directly into Shopify or owned e-comm sites and stores,” he said. “Social selling in itself is not new, but the tools to create momentum and ease [through automated invoicing, sales analytics, customer data, and inventory and order management] are getting better and better.”

4. Send personalized emails

It’s an oldie, but a goodie: Email marketing. Especially personalized ones.

Brands that are looking to incentivize signups should consider lures like coupons and free trials.

Bernard Wong, the digital marketer for eCommerce site Vape Club, said this strategy has helped the online e-liquid store amass a list of over 45,000 emails so far in the U.K. In addition, he said customers of eCommerce platform Shopify can easily implement the tactic by installing apps from the Shopify App Store like Woohoo.

5. Write newsletters and blog posts

And, of course, you’ll want content. Lots of content.

Calloway Cook, president of dietary supplement company Illuminate Labs, suggests guest blogging as an effective—and cost-effective—a strategy for 2020.

He recommends using a tool like a browser extension MozBar to find the domain authority of sites and to only reach out to those with a domain authority greater than 40.

“It’s a proven way to get high-quality backlinks pointed to your homepage and increase your site’s domain authority [and thereby increase your site’s organic rankings],” Cook said.

Must-Use Facebook Ads Strategies for Ecommerce

As someone actively promoting an online store, I bet you’ll agree:

Whatever marketing channels you use, it’s never enough.

You constantly need:

More conversions to meet sales targets.
Highly relevant traffic instead of accidental visitors.
And a way to increase repeat sales from past customers.

And yet you’re unsure about trying Facebook Ads.

Why?

With 1.39 billion monthly active users, the largest number of ecommerce orders from social media and a typical ROI from Facebook ads at 152%, not advertising on the platform is a missed opportunity.

If you’re unsure how to get started with Facebook Advertising though, read on.

Here are some of the strategies I use to help online retailers increase traffic and conversions.

1. Use Dynamic Product Ads

Dynamic product ads might be the highest ROI strategy eCommerce sites can use – a chance to bring back hesitant customers by showing them tailored ads based on their activity on your site.

You’ve probably seen large sites like Amazon.com retarget you on Facebook with offers for the exact products that you recently visited.

But did you know that you could remarket on Facebook just like Amazon?

With Dynamic Product Ads‘ templates, you don’t have to create ads for each product in your catalog. Instead, templates will pull images, product names, pricing and other information from your product catalog, based on the product details you upload to Facebook. So if you have hundreds or thousands of products, this could be a great solution for you.

With dynamic ads you can display single or multi product ads to customers who have visited your site based on products they viewed, added to the cart or even purchased.

To get started with Dynamic Product Ads:

Upload your product catalog to Facebook Business Manager. Include all products you want to promote with information to display for each product (name, price, image,).
Add a custom audience pixel to your site. Modify it to report on customers’ buying behavior.
Create a dynamic template. Facebook will automatically populate it with the right products and associated info. Give your ads a title, specify keywords to pull in images, product names from the product catalog.
Set up Display Product Ads in the Power Editor. Specify if you want to advertise products from your entire catalog or just certain categories and …. run your ads.

2. Use Multi-Product Ads

Facebook Multi-product ads give you the ability to show multiple products in a single ad.

Multi-Product Ads can give your customers more options to choose from.
They can help you increase conversions. The more relevant products a customer sees the greater the chance of them buying.
You can also use them to show different benefits of a single product.

But do they work?

Adobe discovered that their customers experienced:

A 50% to 300% increase in click-through-rate (CTR).
Up to 35% reduction in cost per click as a result of higher engagement.
More efficient cost per acquisition.

Multi-product ads can easily be set up in the Power Editor and can also be used as part of a dynamic product ad campaign or as a stand alone ad.

3. Install Conversion Tracking Pixel

A conversion-tracking pixel is a small snippet of code that tracks your customers’ behavior on the site. But it does so much more than that.

In addition to tracking customer behavior and conversions, Facebook can use the data from conversion pixels to optimize your campaigns and to build a lookalike audience to target your ads.

By placing a conversion-tracking pixel on your checkout page, you’ll be able to track actions (like sales, etc) people take after clicking on your ad and measure your ROI.

But to achieve the best results, I recommend installing the pixel long before you run your first campaign.

This way you’ll give Facebook time to learn the types of people who are converting into customers on your site even when they come from other marketing channels. If Facebook hasn’t tracked any conversion on your site yet, they’re going to have trouble optimizing your campaign for conversions.

4. Run General Retargeting Campaigns

72% of online shoppers on average abandon their carts without completing a purchase.

Without retargeting, only 8% of them will come back to buy.

With retargeting however the average site can bring back 26% of abandoners to complete a purchase

According to Wishpond, the source of the data above, 70% of web visitors who are retargeted with display ads are more likely to convert on your site.

And the average CTR of retargeted ads is 10x higher than standard display ads.

It goes without saying then – not retargeting your visitors costs you conversions and sales.

You can run retargeting campaigns via the Power Editor and target your visitors with general offers, coupons, single and multi-product ads and more.

5. Find New Customers with Lookalike Audiences

Facebook can help you to find new customers based on your past customers characteristics.

Lookalike Audiences help you advertise to people who are similar to your existing customers and likely to be interested in your products as well.

I’ve found that Lookalike audiences are usually one of the highest performing target groups for most of my clients.

To create a Lookalike Audience you need a Custom Audience to base it on. Alternatively, you could also build it from your Facebook Fans or data from the conversion-tracking pixel.

Lookalike Audiences will utilize Facebook’s algorithms to to find people with similar demographic characteristics and interests to your customers.

Of course you can also use Facebook’s other interest and demographic targeting options to find relevant new customers.

HOW TO USE SMS MARKETING FOR ECOMMERCE

The customers have spoken!

According to a study by Twilio, nine out of ten customers would like to be able to communicate with businesses through text messaging. And the majority of those customers prefer SMS as their texting medium.

Here’s how those percentages are divided based on country:

If you haven’t started with text message marketing to communicate with your customers for your eCommerce business, here’s everything you need to know:

Let’s look at

What advantages does SMS offer eCommerce businesses?
What do you need to get started with SMS marketing for eCommerce?
How can you use SMS to communicate with customers?
Text message templates for eCommerce
Looking for an SMS service for eCommerce? Try Call Hub

What advantages does SMS offer eCommerce businesses?

Why use text messages for eCommerce?

They are immediate.

90% of all texts are read within 15 minutes. Having a flash sale? You waste no time getting information to customers.

They are broad

Most users of smartphones still use text messaging, despite access to instant messaging apps like WhatsApp.

They are personal

Competing with giants like Amazon is tough. They set a high bar for customer expectations. One way you can meet those expectations is by having personalized and direct communication with customers through texts.

They are engaging

SMS is built for two-way communication. Have conversations with customers through text, i.e., responding to customer support tickets.

They are accessible.

Text messaging can reach anyone who has access to a mobile phone, And 91% of Americans have a mobile phone at hand at all hours of the day.

They are effective.

Text messages have a 98% open-rate, while for email, it ranges from 15-22%. Since most people are used to texting each other, they will be acquainted with using it as a communication medium.

What do you need to get started with SMS marketing for eCommerce?

For eCommerce businesses, using SMS marketing does not involve sending texts from your cell phone. Instead, you will be using a texting tool (like CallHub), to set up campaigns.

Here’s what you need to get started with SMS marketing:

A texting tool (like CallHub): This will give you a secure dashboard and enable you to set up multiple texting campaigns. Your tool will let you access campaign analytics as well as give your agents a single platform to use.
A CRM (like Salesforce): This integrates with your SMS platform and enables you to map every response back to each customer. You can also use the CRM to segment your audience and send alerts and notifications based on customer behavior.

And that’s it.

For basic use cases, like sending sale alerts, a CRM is not strictly necessary. You can download your contacts from your database and simply upload them to your texting tool. But a CRM can refine your SMS communication.

Once you have the tools in place, you can send out targeted SMS campaigns to your contacts and keep them engaged.

How can you use SMS to communicate with customers?

It is possible to use text messaging as both an avenue to generate more sales as well as a customer management tool for your business. That’s because text messaging is built for two way communication in addition to normal broadcasts.

You can use SMS to:

Have two-way conversations with customers.
Send out broadcast messages to your customer base.
Send personalized updates to customers.

Here are some use cases where you might use SMS for eCommerce communication:

To remind customers of abandoned carts

Cart abandonment is an issue all eCommerce businesses have to deal with. Sending a text message is one way to remind customers to finish a purchase.

To provide customer support

Your agents can have conversations with customers through text messages and provide instant support.

To send out sale/event alerts

This is the easiest way you can use SMS for eCommerce. You can send out a broadcast message to all the customers who have subscribed to your SMS alerts and let them know about a new sale.

To attract customers with images

If your text messaging software lets you send MMS, utilize it to grab your customer’s attention through images and video snippets.

To send order updates

If customers opt-in to updates, send them an SMS, letting them know about the expected delivery date, along with a link to track their package.

To gather feedback

You can set up and SMS survey to get feedback from customers on their experience with the product or the delivery.

To send product recommendations

Send customers product updates and recommendations through text based on items in their wishlist.

Text message templates for eCommerce

Your e-commerce business can use text messaging to manage everything from sale alerts to sending out discount codes and shipping notifications.

Here are some templates you can use for your messages:

Summer sale alert! All back to school items off, this week only! Order now and shipping is absolutely free. bit.ly/hp75fl

Hi Mark, thank you for your order! Your package is out for delivery. Here’s your tracking number: 23523562

There are some items in your shopping cart which are on sale. Click here and finalize your order before time runs out!: bit.ly/gp45fg

Take 50% off your next purchase using coupon code GD454L2. Expires on 21/12.

Happy birthday! Here’s a 10% discount code for all items in our shop: 3242352GQ42. Best wishes from the AmazeKart team

Looking for an SMS service for eCommerce? Try CallHub

Setting up and using an SMS system for your business is simple. The first thing you need to do is getting customers to subscribe to your SMS updates. One way to do that is through an opt-in campaign.

1. Set up an Opt-in keyword and shortcode.

Choose the SMS Opt-in campaign on the CallHub dashboard.

To set up an opt-in campaign, you need to have just two elements:

A keyword
A shortcode or long code (to act as Caller Id)

For example, ‘Text “JOIN” to 562498 for updates and reminders.’

Here, the keyword is “JOIN,” and the number is “562498”.

You can set a keyword of your choice while setting up your eCommerce SMS system and rent a shortcode or long code from your text messaging service. If not, you can use a cell phone number as the caller ID.

Once you finish setting it up, go ahead and promote your keyword and shortcode. When people text in your keyword to the number, they will automatically be added to your database.

Let customers know about the SMS system advertising it wherever you can:

Have a pop-up or form on your website, preferably with an incentive.

Ask them if they want updates on the delivery after making an order.
Advertise your opt-in campaign through social media channels.

Now you’re all set to start sending updates straight to your customer’s mobile phones

3. Send your first message.

You can send messages through the SMS broadcast campaign on the dashboard.

Type out the message you want to send, for example, alerting customers about a sale:

“Summer sale! Get 20% off on select products, just for this weekend. Don’t miss out! bit.ly/rfe34f.”

Choose the list with the numbers of the customers you want to send the message to.

Now schedule a time you want the message to go out and hit DONE.

Sending out a group text to your eCommerce customers is as simple as that.

Want to try out CallHub for your business? It’s easy to get started. You can try it out for free by signing up.

Benefits of Customer Segmentation for Higher Profitability

Research conducted by Econsultancy in association with IBM Watson Marketing surveyed over 1,000 professionals in marketing, eCommerce, and digital. They found that customer segmentation was the topmost priority among these professionals. 72% of them said that they use customer data for segmentation. In fact, even the most laggard businesses consider segmentation as a standard strategy.

This really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Every buyer has individual preferences, needs, and behavioral patterns. And 59% of people who have had a personal experience with brands think that personalization has a significant influence on purchases. However, it’s impossible to cater to each and every person based on their individual traits. And that’s why you need customer segmentation. In this post, we will discuss four benefits of customer segmentation for higher profitability.

1. Personalization

HubSpot analyzed over 330,000 calls-to-action and their performance over a 12-month period. They found that personalized calls-to-action performed 202% better compared to generic calls-to-action. Providing a great customer experience is the need of the hour for every business today. In fact, 80% of people perceive customer experience to be as important as a brand’s services or products. And personalization can go a long way to ensure that you provide exceptional customer experience.

Rocksbox is a jewelry discovery and shopping service, provider. Customers can rent unlimited fashion jewelry from top brands and designers by paying a monthly fee. As part of their growth strategy, they require each of their customers to participate in a survey. This survey helps Rocksbox get a better sense of the personal style preferences of their subscribers.

Image via Rocksbox

Using such data, they create various customer segments so that they can send their customers jewelry choices that are customized. Such segmentation helps to group your customers so that the communication with each group is suited to their taste.

Bottom line: Segmentation can help you provide your customers with more personalized communication and experiences, which can lead to higher profitability.

2. Effective Acquisition and Retention

Customer segmentation allows you to learn a great deal about your customers so you can cater to their needs more efficiently. You can also tailor your communication depending on the customer’s lifecycle. 44% of marketers in a CMO survey said that they use customer segmentation to decide their acquisition strategy. And 38% of them said that they use it to decide their retention strategy.

For example, when you’re trying to convert a prospect, your communication needs to be more informative. At this stage, they would prefer to learn about the solutions to their problems. In later stages, you may need to talk about other related products in your communication.

Denamico created hyper-personalized newsletters by using the Smart Content feature from HubSpot. They customized the opening and the CTA of their newsletter emails according to a customer’s life cycle stage. This increased their open rates by 43%, while their CTR increased by 89%.

Image via Denamico

Customer segmentation also helps to create an effective retention strategy. You may need to apply a recovery strategy for some of your older and more valuable customers who have not made any purchases recently. You may also need to terminate potentially less valuable customers so that you can focus more on valuable ones.

LiftPoint Consulting took the time to identify their top 5% of customers who drove the highest revenue for them. They also identified a segment of high potential customers and optimized their marketing strategy to focus on these two segments. In addition to better customer retention and revenue stability, they managed to increase their customer value by 28%. There was a 40% increase in revenue during their key selling period.

Image via LiftPoint Consulting

3. Better ROI from Marketing

Braze (previously Appboy) analyzed their marketing data from over 30,000 campaigns they ran over two years. They found that campaigns that had been sent to well-thought-out customer segments saw 200% greater conversions than those sent to broad audiences.

Better Targeting

Successful marketing not only requires knowledge about who your customers are but also where exactly they are in the buying process. And customer segmentation based on such information can ensure that your marketing campaigns are truly effective. Zillow offers a comprehensive range of residential real estate services that include renting, selling, buying, remodeling, and even financing. They have a database of over 110 million homes for rent and sale.

Zillow uses customer segmentation to ensure that the right marketing messages are sent to the right people based on their life cycle stage. For example, to consumers who are looking to buy a home, they send emails about homes in their preferred locations. They also send notifications about price changes to homes they’ve saved. Using this strategy, they were able to achieve a 161% lift in their open rate and an 18% lift in their click-to-open rate.

Effective Channels and Content Formats

Customer segmentation can help you decide on the right kind of promotional content to send to your customers. For example, not all of them may like to receive notifications about discounts or offers but some of them might. B2C buyers are 1.3X more likely to favor newsletters or emails while B2B buyers are 22.X more likely to find them important. When it comes to retargeting, B2C buyers are 1.1X more likely to favor them while B2B buyers are 1.8X more likely to do so.

If you are aware of the preferences of your customer segments, you can send them information that they’ll appreciate. In fact, 76% of consumers expect that businesses are aware of their needs and preferences.

Segmentation also helps you select the right marketing channels for the right audience set. For example, if you’re planning to start a retargeting campaign on Facebook, which customer segments should you target?

Image via Facebook

The bottom line is that customer segmentation can help you ensure that you send the right marketing messages to the right people. It can help you leverage the most effective channels and content formats so that your chances of conversions are greater.

4. Unearth New Opportunities

With customer segmentation, you will never miss out on what’s trending. And you can even come up with new products or variations according to the changing preferences of your customers. If you are vigilant enough, you may also have the first mover’s advantage in a product segment.

EMM Group helped a bank identify a new and profitable segment, known as the “confident entrepreneur” segment. They helped develop a card offering and a new service package. They considered the segment’s emotional and functional needs to craft a new value proposition to resonate with them. Six months after they launched the new card, their portfolio share in premium cards increased from 8% to 51%. Their actives rate also saw a 7% incremental increase.

Final Thoughts

The standards of good customer experience are ever-increasing. In fact, 67% of customers don’t mind paying a premium if businesses can provide them with an amazing experience. Segmentation helps to grow your business by building long-term relationships with your customers and providing exceptional customer experiences. And above all, it helps you stay innovative or at least helps you to stay at par with your customer needs.

Having discussed all of the benefits, it’s important to emphasize that good data and analytics are the basis of segmentation. Data should be clean, updated regularly, and error-free. If the data is not correct or misinterpreted, then all segmentation efforts will be meaningless.

5 Ways To Boost eCommerce Rates (2020)

A lot goes into launching and building an eCommerce business.

First, you have to decide what you’re going to sell.

After you determine how you’re going to source your products, set up your store, and start sending visitors to your site with paid advertising, you may think that’s it – I’m off to the races.

Not so fast.

In an increasingly competitive digital buying world, there are some do’s and don’ts when it comes to encouraging customers to buy items from your business.

Ways to Boost Your Ecommerce Conversion Rates:

1. Use high-quality images and videos on your product pages.

Think about what you want to see when you are shopping.

When you are shopping online you can’t touch the product or put it on.

The best thing you can do is show a detailed image or video so that the customer knows exactly what they are getting.

I suggest using high-quality images and video on the product pages as that help the user visualize the product better and increases conversion rates.

2. Offer free shipping.

Online shoppers have come to expect a certain standard that they have grown accustomed to on Amazon.

If your store does not offer free shipping, customers are going to look elsewhere, period.

In today’s market, free shipping is an absolute must!

Think you can’t offer free shipping? Keep in mind that this is often a psychological game.

Increase your product prices to cover shipping costs if that’s what needs to be done.

3. Provide limited time coupon codes.

When your coupon code expires this will drive urgency and shoppers will more likely go through with the purchase and not get distracted.

4. Be competitively priced.

If you are selling brand name items that a lot of other stores offer, unfortunately, you need to price your products at or below the average price in order to compete.

Be sure to adjust your prices frequently to see what resonates.

Fitness brands like Lululemon and Outdoor Voices have done this extremely well.

5. Tweak and test your eCommerce checkout process.

If your store checkout process is too long, complicated or unconventional, you may lose a lot of customers right as they are ready to buy.

Of course, there are industry standards for most hosted eCommerce platforms such as BigCommerce, but you may still need to tweak the process based on your customers.

For example, BigCommerce offers an optimized checkout out-of-the-box that is technically a single page (with a few drop downs and a persistent view of the product(s) being bought).