Beginner’s Guide to SMS Marketing: What Online Retailers Need to Know

The ease of access and affordability of modern email marketing platforms means most eCommerce brands are already sending some form of email content to their customers.

However, SMS is often overlooked as a marketing tactic, leading to missed opportunities for retailers to secure sales from their shoppers.

SMS marketing enables retailers to reach consumers on the platform they use for most daily communication. With fewer retailers currently leveraging SMS than email, sending SMS from your brand can help you cut through the noise of your competitors and capture your shoppers’ attention.

But your SMS marketing should do more than just get shoppers to open your messages. To drive clicks and conversions that give your overall sales a boost, you will need to craft a strong SMS strategy and implement effective campaigns.

We can help you achieve this. In this article, we’ll cover the basics of SMS and how it fits into eCommerce, the advantages of SMS marketing for your brand, and how to build and send effective SMS campaigns that drive sales.

SMS marketing vs. email marketing

As an online retailer, it’s likely you’ll already be sending marketing emails to your shoppers. You’re probably wondering what you can get from sending SMS that you can’t already achieve with email.

While it’s true that SMS and email marketing have many similarities, there are also many features that set them apart.

Both email and SMS marketing:

• Require consent: To send messages through both email and SMS channels, your recipients need to have opted in to receive marketing messages.
• Are owned channels: Unlike social media, where the platform is controlled by an algorithm, you have full control of who receives your SMS and email content, what that content is, and when it is delivered.

However, the functionality of email and SMS platforms and the way that consumers use these differ in ways such as:

• Ease of access: To receive emails, users must be logged in to their account and have an internet connection, but to receive SMS, they only need an active SIM card.
• Level of competition: There are fewer retailers sending SMS marketing than email marketing, so there’s less noise to cut through to get your SMS noticed by the recipient.
• Content type: Unlike email, SMS content is limited to 160 characters and cannot contain images, so SMS marketing requires more creativity to convey your message and drive action using this small space.
• Usage behaviour: Used for communicating with friends and family, SMS can be viewed by users as more urgent than email and, therefore, notifications are less likely to be muted and your message has more chance of being seen immediately.

Both SMS marketing and email marketing each offer unique advantages to eCommerce retailers, but they are most effective when used together as part of a multi-channel marketing approach. This way, your message will be reinforced and has an increased chance of capturing your shopper’s attention.

How to get started with SMS marketing

If you’ve never used SMS to market your eCommerce business before, the prospect can seem daunting. That’s why we’ve put together a step-by-step guide to walk you through the process of setting it up.

To begin using SMS marketing, here’s what to do.

1. Define your goals

Before you start collating any data or utilising any SMS-sending tools, you need to develop clear goals for what you want to achieve with the channel.?

Consider whether you’d like to acquire more new customers, improve customer retention, or even just boost engagement.

These goals can help you to stay focused, as with a new channel, it can be easy to get disheartened if you don’t see results immediately. With a specific target in mind, you can see the real difference the channel is making.

Consider setting goals using the SMART format to ensure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Using this format ensures your goals follow a structure and you have clarity about exactly what they are.

2. Build a subscriber list

Without a list of mobile numbers to send to, you won’t be able to carry out any SMS marketing. Therefore, you need to collect this data.

You must do this ethically, complying with data protection regulations such as PECR and GDPR and ensuring that recipients have explicitly opted into receiving your marketing messages via SMS.

Using incentivised data collection methods can help you capture more mobile addresses from shoppers on your site. For example, try offering a monetary discount when a visitor inputs their mobile number.

Data capture technologies like Salesfire can implement these tactics on your site to capture mobile numbers from even more of your visitors, helping you to grow your SMS lists at scale.?

Additional reading: See how Salesfire captured SMS data from 62% of Cater 4 You’s email subscribers in the Salesfire & Cater 4 You Success Story.

3. Segment your audience

To ensure your shoppers receive messaging tailored to their individual needs and interests, you will need to segment them.?

This involves dividing your shoppers up based on additional data such as demographic information, purchase history, on-site behaviour, or interests.?

You could group shoppers who haven’t purchased in over 6 months and send them an SMS with a discount code to encourage them to return to the buying funnel.

SMS retargeting tools like Salesfire can help make segmentation easier using automation. For example, if a shopper abandons their basket, an SMS will automatically be triggered for that specific user to remind them of the item they left behind.

4. Create engaging content

With the small character limit of SMS marketing, you need to be strategic with the message you send to your shoppers.

Your message should be concise and get to the point immediately, without using overly descriptive or excessive words. Incorporate emotive language alongside a clear call to action that tells users exactly what they need to do next.

Keeping your message simplistic and emotive ensures it is engaging to your shoppers and drives the action you want them to take, such as visiting your site to browse a sale.

By following these steps, you are sure to be on your way to crafting an effective SMS marketing strategy that drives real results.

Best practices for SMS success

Although there is no dedicated spam folder for SMS, recipients can still report you as spam or block you from sending messages to them completely. This means you need to take care the SMS you send are relevant and appropriate so that your content will continue to reach your shoppers.

Therefore, to reduce annoyance and maximise engagement with your SMS, it’s essential you follow the best practices for sending SMS marketing.

Delivery time

It’s considered inappropriate to send SMS marketing during quiet hours, which is classed as after 8pm on an evening and before 9am on a morning.?

Using an SMS marketing tool like Salesfire helps you to comply with these quiet times by allowing you to set restrictions on delivery times. Even if an SMS is triggered outside of these hours, it will not be sent to the recipient until the chosen time.

Frequency of messages

Similar to email, if a shopper receives an influx of SMS from your brand, it’s likely they will unsubscribe from receiving marketing content from you.

You must take care with the number of SMS you send. While you want to send regularly enough to maintain a relationship with the shopper and remind them your brand exists, you don’t want to be overwhelming.

Sending SMS marketing once or twice a week can help you achieve this balance.

Personalised content

Customers are more likely to engage with content that is relevant to them, so personalising your SMS sends can help to drive more opens, clicks, and conversions.

To grab the recipient’s attention, you could include their first name in the introductory line of the SMS. This can be done automatically with a bulk SMS sending service, even if you’re delivering SMS to hundreds of contacts.

Make sure the message holds the recipient’s attention by including content appropriate to the type of products they are interested in or their purchase history. For example, you could send texts promoting a flash sale to shoppers who tend to purchase items that are reduced in price.

Opt-out

Finally, always provide a way for users to opt out at the end of the SMS. This helps to ensure you only ever send to contacts who want to receive your messages.?

By letting shoppers know they can unsubscribe at any time, they could also be more likely to stay subscribed as they know they can change their preferences whenever they want to.

You want to give shoppers a positive experience with your brand to drive purchases and by sticking to these guidelines, you’ll do just that.

The key message

As an eCommerce brand, you’ll already understand the importance of optimising your marketing strategy for mobile users. SMS marketing can help you to do this by delivering effective marketing messages that are optimised for the devices your shoppers use daily.

It’s clear from the figures that SMS marketing can provide an advantage to online retailers, especially when used alongside other marketing channels such as email. SMS marketing helps place your brand’s message right in front of shoppers, driving increased opens and improved engagement.

SMS marketing can be built into your existing marketing funnel, driving shoppers at every stage towards making a purchase with retargeting messages and content that nurtures both new and existing customers.

Explore how SMS marketing can give your eCommerce business a boost, book a demo to try Salesfire today.