Proof SMS Messaging Gets Results: Increase Traffic

Does SMS messaging get results? Yes, it does. And in the second of The Results Series we’ll look at how it increases traffic to your website online and into physical stores too. In the first blog of the series, I covered opt-ins and how quickly SMS helps build marketing lists. If you want to start from the beginning, you can find it here.

But today’s post is all about traffic. I’ve researched and found case studies, statistics and testimonials specifically focused on how SMS is used to generate traffic. The data comes from all over the web, though I’ve only included the ones I know are trustworthy.

Without visitors to your website, you might as well not have one. And getting traffic is a challenge that plagues any online business. Thankfully, there are many examples of how using SMS messaging increases traffic.

The first one is from a single online clothing retailer who sent out SMS messages for sales on Boxing Day. Here are their results for year over year website traffic:

• 27% increase from all sources
• 45% increase from direct links
• 93% increase in mobile traffic

That last number is impressive, right? Not everyone they sent the message to visited the website right away (as evidenced by the increase in overall traffic). But the SMS campaign resulted in an amazing 93% more mobile visitors than the previous year. That’s more anecdotal evidence that more people are researching and buying from mobile platforms. This evidence is backed up by a study done by Adobe, that found in the UK, £4.10 out of every £10 spent over the 2016 holidays originated from a smartphone.

This retailer had spectacular results using SMS messaging. But they aren’t the only example.

One e-commerce fashion store used SMS messaging to announce major sales. They said they had the best response they’ve ever seen when using SMS. In case that wasn’t clear, that means it was the best out of every channel they’d ever used.

It was so good in fact, that they crashed their server after one promotion. The response was so good, it actually broke their systems. They dreamed of getting great response, but they didn’t plan to crash the site! But that’s still an indication of how well, and fast, SMS messaging can work. On a side note, fastsms offers a feature called “throttling” which can help spread out messages so this doesn’t happen to you! Check our support centre for more information or click live chat and ask us about it.

Remember that successful Boxing Day promotion I mentioned above? Well, beyond getting traffic and immediate sales from that, they also managed to pull in even more customers.

It turns out that the company uses something called remarketing. It’s when you see ads for a website you visited recently. Anyway, they used remarketing on all those visitors that came based on the SMS promotion, but didn’t buy at the time. According to the company, this turned many of those visitors into buying customers over the course of time.

Physical, or brick and mortar, stores face their own challenges. Changing economic times, including the growth of online shopping, means it can be hard to get people to visit physical stores. If there’s a downturn, the usual sales and adverts don’t work as well. But SMS messaging can cut through those issues, and get your most loyal customers back into the store.

Here are some results retailers saw after starting SMS campaigns:

• Foot traffic up 21% after sending mobile coupons
• 10% more traffic in 2 months (also added 1,000 new subscribers!)

To see more about increasing foot traffic with SMS messaging, check out our aptly named blog How to Increase Retail Foot Traffic.

So far, the examples I’ve shared are all retail sales. But SMS messaging is great for any business or organisation that needs to get people’s attention – and their time.

For example, there was a nightclub that needed a boost in attendance for certain shows and nights. So, they sent out an SMS alert with a special code. After sending just one message to their list (for one night), they received a bump of 11% attendance. They went on to use it at other times too.

A second example is about a non-profit whose mission was to raise awareness about sexually transmitted infections and the available treatments. Not something nice to talk about obviously, but they wanted to help as many people as they could. So, to grab attention, they created a contest. The result was 10,000 came to their website over the four-week campaign.

It’s hard to deny SMS can drive online and foot traffic after seeing all this data. It really is one of the best ways you can reach your audience or customers in our mobile age. Be sure to come back for the next blog that offers proof of how good conversions are when you use SMS messaging.