SMS open rate sits around 98% compared to Email open rate which is about 17-28%. 85% of customers in 2022 prefer receiving text messages over a phone call or email.
Interesting stats right?
Now, here are some ways to effectively use this to your advantage:
- To Enhance Customer Care Service
Whether for tracking orders or making complaints, SMS is a viable channel to deliver your message. 70% of customers want to utilize mobile messaging to troubleshoot problems. Imagine the impact it would have on your business if you could provide customer service by SMS rather than putting customer calls on hold.
Text messaging can be an ideal complement to the customer care processes you already offer.
When it comes to building healthy relationships with your audience, it is not only about what happens before the sale that matters. If you want to build loyal consumers and produce repeat sales and additional sales via referrals, more of the strengthening must happen after the sale. Companies that follow up with clients after the sale are few and far between. SMS is a great way to get your post-purchase communication through.
68% of customers want to contact a company via text message if they have billing questions or concerns. It means that for more than half of your consumers, allowing them to SMS your customer service team would be fantastic news.
You can utilize SMS for sales follow-up in a variety of ways. According to Responsys, you should include an SMS opt-in in your shopping cart at checkout, informing your customers that you will send them an alert when their order is shipped and delivered.
One method is to notify customers when their order gets sent and provide the shipper tracking number. With Sendmunk, an SMS/MMS chatbox can easily be set up to answer frequent post-purchase questions.
Customer satisfaction will promote loyalty and encourage customers and users to return for more.
2. Link other marketing strategies with SMS marketing
The most effective advertising plan combines various types and forms of media. On other marketing channels, you can encourage your audience to opt-in for SMS to communicate with your brand. You can, on the other hand, include links in your text messages that lead to recent videos, articles, or other stuff you’ve created depending on your marketing campaign. This will aid in the development of your credibility and customer loyalty.
Consider incorporating text messaging into your overall marketing strategy rather than using SMS alone. Using text messaging with your email marketing, event marketing, seminars, sales, and so on makes a tremendous impact.
SMS Marketing outperforms email, Facebook, and push notifications in terms of response and attention. According to Mobile Marketer, it can result in higher engagement rates and an enviable ROI when compared to other advertising categories. However, it is much more effective when combined with these other channels like email, push notifications, etc as part of a comprehensive digital and mobile marketing plan. With Sendmunk you can integrate these channels and produce better outcomes. Data shared can help you deliver highly targeted messages to your audience.
Long messages and newsletters are better sent via email. While you should keep the message short, an email can hold a lot more information than a single text message. As a result, you may send most of your messages via email and then follow up with a quick text message that links to an exciting part of your email.
3. Mouthwatering deals and exciting announcements
People like to feel unique, and there’s no better way to make them feel special than a reward. This can be achieved by promoting special offers exclusively via SMS and not in any other marketing channel or on your website. These special offers via SMS are typically identified as “positive disruption.” You see, your text is interfering with your audience’s activity, yet it provides exciting information that they will value. Using text messaging during a product launch can help you capitalize on coupons and flash sales.
SMS marketing is more effective than corporate websites (64%) and display/banner ads, according to 89% of marketers who use it (59% )
This is even more effective when the promotions have a time limit.
Send a text message to your consumers or audience to inform them of a limited-time offer. You can SMS a link to a landing page with more information.
Prospects who receive text messages convert at a 40% higher rate than those who do not receive text messages.
Example of announcements you can make via SMS is; an exclusive discount available for use in the new store you are opening in your audience’s neighbourhood, a repeat buyers award for loyalty etc.
4. Making reservations and appointment/event reminders
According to statistics, 64% of customers prefer to make or update reservations via text messaging. If you run a service-based business, text messaging is essential for confirming and reminding clients of appointments. It is not only convenient for your customers, but it also reduces the number of cancellations.
5. SMS Drip Campaigns
A common type of marketing automation is drip campaigns/flows but it is not exclusive to email marketing. Regular campaigns are different from flows. Regular campaigns are just one-time texts sent at a scheduled time to a particular segment of your contact list. While drip campaign/flow are automated, highly personalized trigger-based text messages. These messages are sent depending on a specific trigger or client data, such as the length of a customer’s relationship with the company. You can personalize your messaging based on where a customer is in the customer lifecycle.
You can use Sendmunk to manage and build SMS drip campaigns to incorporate in your SMS marketing strategy.
An example of a drip campaign you can send via SMS is:
Before sending any message to people, most countries demand an opt-in.
So before you start SMS marketing, double-check that your contacts have given you their permission.
Just like email marketing, SMS is entirely permission-based. It is ineffective to send messages to folks who don’t wish to receive them.
SMS marketing provides you with valuable client information such as preferences, purchase history, demographics, purchasing habits, and more. You can deliver appropriate offers tailored specifically for each consumer using this type of customer information. This is to say that SMS marketing is highly targeted and as such you have to get the frequency and timing right.
Your clients may permit you to send text messages, but if you spam their inboxes 2 to 3 times per day, you risk losing their trust. People are frequently busy and do not wish to be bombarded with messages. Text messages come in as disruptions and because they are highly targeted, there will be no need to send them too frequently. SMS personalization does the magic and is typically enough to trigger a response from your audience rather than sending as frequently as you would with an email.
