5 Reasons Why You Should Prioritize SMS Marketing
SMS text messaging is a low-cost and effective marketing tactic and could be the key to increasing engagement, conversions, and revenue for your e-commerce brand.
Brands need to be in the same places customers are these days: on their phones. While in the past, it was enough to have a mobile-optimized e-commerce experience, today you need to be mobile-centric. And that means communicating with shoppers the way they communicate with each other: via SMS.
Brands that avoid SMS marketing often do so because they fear their communications will be viewed as spam. But if you're not using SMS as a marketing channel, there's a good chance your direct competitors are.
Here are five ways SMS can help improve your marketing strategy:
1) Breathe new life into your email marketing
Email is still an effective channel for e-commerce marketing, but with inboxes and promotion filters overflowing, communicating time-sensitive information like limited-time offers and order status can be a challenge. That's where SMS comes in.
Generally speaking, email is best for monthly newsletters, account information, and customer engagement. SMS, on the other hand, works best for alerts, transactional notifications, limited-time offers, and even customer service.
2) Reduce cart abandonment
On average, over 67% of customers abandon their carts on e-commerce sites, and this results in lost revenue.
A shopper might just need that extra push to bring them back. More than 19% of carts can be recovered with abandoned cart SMS. You can boost this even further with visuals of the item and social proof like ratings and reviews.
3) Increase loyalty program engagement
If your brand has a loyalty program, SMS is one of the best ways to manage communications with your VIP customers. When your loyalty and SMS solutions are integrated, you can segment and send personalized messages about points balances and more to keep customers engaged between purchases and give them a reason to come back.
4) Maximize exposure for new products and sales
Alert your audience to an exciting new product your brand has just released so they can be the first to know and the first to buy. Use segmentation to target specific customers with relevant new products based on their past purchases.
Create a sense of urgency by sending a limited-time offer via SMS. Provide a time window ("Two hours left!") to redeem the offer, giving customers the fear of missing out.
5) Reduce the impact of future privacy changes and regulations
SMS marketing is designed for the privacy-focused, consumer-centric, and mobile landscape. As long as you use a GDPR-compliant SMS service provider, you won't have to worry about running afoul of ever-changing guidelines. It's easy for subscribers to opt out of SMS marketing, but they rarely do: the average opt-out rate is less than 5%.
Conclusion
It's time to embrace SMS before your competitors do. These are the five reasons why you should prioritize SMS marketing in your e-commerce strategy. Now you know how many benefits it can bring to your business, it's time to get started.
By working with Yastime, you'll have a carefully crafted SMS strategy that creates an excellent mobile experience for your shoppers and increases all the metrics that matter.
