SMS Marketing And Why It Matters For Online Retailers

If you run an online retail store, you rely on the internet to run pretty much every aspect of your business and it naturally follows that the obvious way to communicate with your customers is also by online methods such as email or social media, particularly for marketing campaigns. Yet you also know that you and every other internet user out there are both pressured for time and swamped by emails, with the result that many emails go unread and are simply ignored or deleted by the recipient. This means that many of your marketing emails will fall by the wayside and merely represent lost effort. Meanwhile, it may not have even occurred to you to look into the benefits of SMS Marketing.
Email is still an effective and important method of communication in the right time and place but some marketing campaigns may be more effective when channelled through other media. Think about your target audience; if it’s business to business (B2B) then email is still the preferred option for most B2B marketing and communication, but when it comes to business to consumer (B2C) sales, SMS text message statistics show it consistently outperforms email marketing.
If you read MailChimp’s (an industry leading email marketing platform) statistics reports from earlier this year, they report that open rates for emails hover around 20% on average. That’s 1 in 5 emails actually opened in the first place. The click rate? Around 2% average. That’s 1 in 50.
The open rates for SMS messages? Around 98%. This is because people don’t tend to ignore text messages. After all, their phone is usually close to them 24/7 and it takes seconds to read. Although data on click through rates differ depending on what you read, it appears to be around 35% to 40%.
With Ofcom reporting in 2015 that 93% of UK adults owning a mobile phone and 66% of them being smartphones able to access the internet, mobile phones are now the number one device used in the UK above laptops and PCs. And mobile phones usually go wherever their owner goes.
As if these statistics weren’t promising enough, there are other benefits SMS text messaging has over email marketing:
Benefits of SMS Marketing
- Less Work: Emails tend to require more effort in putting them together, they need to be worded well, involve creative design to make them eye-catching and ensured that they are compatible across mail clients. SMS messages have to be kept short, don’t require additional design work and are compatible over all devices capable of receiving texts – whether they are smartphones or just a basic handset.
- Quality Over Quantity: Because SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, you need to get to the point quick. This makes you focus on what’s really important and discard the rest while emails can contain a lot of ‘filler’ content that many readers won’t read through.
- Less is More: The more emails you send, the more likely someone will read and respond. With SMS text messages, you do not want to send too many as this will risk irritating the customer. Most SMS campaigns can keep the client returning on less than 5 messages per month.
Of course, this is all very positive information but how could SMS text messaging be applied practically to boost your online retail business? Here are some tried and tested ideas you could use:
SMS Marketing to boost your business
- Discounts: Customers love feeling like they have special access to a bargain. Send customers a text with a simple discount code to use on their next online purchase through your website.
- Special Offers: Relay offers such as deal of the week, buy one get one free or free gift with purchase over a certain value. Again, all can be summed up in a short text providing a code to enter into your website’s shopping cart.
- Sales: Notify customers of sales, be it end-of-season, stock clearance or a flash sale. A simple text announcing the type and dates of sale can help to direct more customers to the sale website when they otherwise may have missed it from not checking their emails or online recently.
- Loyalty Programs: Keep customers informed of their points tally and send them rewards for being part of the club. Or just reward them for being a loyal SMS subscriber. Customers like to feel that their loyalty is being recognised and rewarded.
- New Lines/Products: Inform regular customers when you have new items due to come in or in stock and give them the website link to view. A simple example would be: ‘’Winter 2017 ladies footwear arriving 1st Sept. Click link for range preview’’ Tap into those who like to be first to have the latest items.
- Order & Delivery Status: As courier companies get ever more tech savvy, customers expect more than ever to be kept informed of their order status. SMS texts can relay the information quickly wherever the customer may be.
- News & Tips: Upsell and provide great customer service by sending links to relevant and interesting topics related to the products you sell. For example, if you sell cycling accessories then you could send something like ‘‘Winter’s coming. Top tips and products to make sure you and your bike are ready, click link (to your website)’’.
SMS Marketing vs Email – Which is Cheaper?
SMS text messaging marketing can seem slightly more expensive than emails, but because it returns higher read and response rates, then the return on investment rates will compare very favourably. As with any other direct marketing, the customer’s consent is required by law, but if you are already emailing customers, you should be familiar with the rules.
Ultimately, what approach will suit you best is for you to decide depending on your type of business and your customer base, but the ultimate goal for any online business is to increase your reach to potential customers and to maximise opportunities for response and conversion rates. Including SMS text messaging within a combined multi-method marketing approach could really help to significantly strengthen your sales and ROI.
At Fastsms, we are passionate about helping businesses of every shape and size succeed with our competitively priced business bulk SMS messaging solutions. To find out more about how we can help you to grow, call now on 0800 945 5305.
Related Articles
How SMS Can Help Your Local Business Optimise Your Local Campaign
One of the great advantages of SMS: it's completely trackable so you know exactly how your campaigns are engaging your opted in customers and clients. And if you’re a small business, operating in a specific geographical location, then that local knowledge can be invaluable in targeting your campaigns to a local audience.
Insights Into The Best SMS Marketing
It’s been said that to be successful at something, you need to find someone that’s already done what you want to do, then emulate them. You don’t need to create or rewrite the rulebook every time. This is true of marketing too. While it’s a creative field, there are tried and true examples of what works. This is why case studies are so important to helping you understand how something like SMS marketing can work for you.
The Biggest Lie in SMS Marketing
Have you seen articles telling you SMS marketing can’t be used to acquire new customers? Or that it isn’t a good way to so? Don’t believe them. You just have to know how to use SMS to get new people to sign up for your list. Read on to find out how.
3 Best Types of CTA for SMS Marketing
One mistake some marketers make is assuming people will know what to do when they read an SMS message. After all, they’re short and to the point right? How confusing could they be? On the other hand, when writing every other form of marketing they know that calls to action need to be clear. So, just because you don't have much room, it doesn’t mean you get to leave out your call to action! Saving space and being brief is important though, so take a look at three of the best SMS marketing CTAs you can use.
5 Rеаѕоnѕ Customers Lоvе SMS Mаrkеtіng
With a ratio оf fоur mоbіlе devices tо еvеrу computer, іt’ѕ сlеаr where your сuѕtоmеrѕ аrе to be found. Mоbіlе mаrkеtіng is nо longer ѕоmеthіng уоu саn аffоrd to put оn the tо-dо-lіѕt fоr thе futurе; you need tо make sure your message is reaching people on mоbіlе dеvісеs nоw. SMS Mаrkеtіng is the perfect solution - it hаѕ proven to іnсrеаѕе сuѕtоmеr engagement tо unрrесеdеntеd levels and is incredibly low priced. Read on to discover 5 rеаѕоnѕ whу сuѕtоmеrѕ love SMS Mаrkеtіng.
When the Internet Goes Down, SMS Messaging Can Save the Day
At the end of February, Amazon’s S3 servers went down. And so did much of the Internet. What can we learn from the experience about communicating with customers during an online disaster? According to experts, having a plan that includes SMS messaging is key.
3 Retail Predictions to Increase Footfalls This Holiday Season with SMS Messaging
Last year footfalls for some high street shops dropped during the Black Friday weekend. Even though the UK spent a record breaking £1.1B, some saw their in-store sales slump. Find out the three things retailers need to do to get customers to come back.
Advantages & Disadvantages of SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is very different to most other more traditional marketing tools, specifically because of its short-form, text only nature. This certainly shouldn't put you off though. We have put together our guide to both the best things about SMS marketing and some of the potential problems, and how to work around them.
How to Use SMS Messaging to Improve Customer Service
Global brands are increasingly taking advantage of a Short Message Service (SMS) to connect to customers and improve customer communication and engagement. This trend is taking root amongst small companies too, as they grasp the potential to not only communicate effectively in real-time but use SMS to save time and money in their customer relations procedures.
Why Your Startup Needs to be Using SMS Marketing
Are startups afraid of using SMS marketing? Is it because they’re afraid of annoying customers and breaking the regulations? I don’t think so. If your startup isn’t using SMS marketing already, it’s probably because you don’t know all the facts. Find out why SMS is actually perfect for startups.