Using SMS to give your business a competitive advantage

Did you know that generally speaking most people have 192x more unread emails than text messages?

Over the past year, our mobile habits have changed fairly dramatically, in fact, 70% of smartphone users reported increased usage during the pandemic. So it seems that now more than ever is a great time to take advantage of SMS.  

While email still has its place to play in any effective marketing campaign, it is relied on by every business with 54% of companies saying they’d send more emails than usual last year.

Following the implementation of the UK’s third national lockdown, and what was a difficult year for many companies, customer engagement has never been more essential to business recovery. Because SMS is a great way to stand out from the crowd and break through the noise of cluttered inboxes, we’ve listed a number of tried and tested ways you can use SMS to gain an advantage over your competitors.

Superior engagement rates

It’s possible for emails to sit unread for days or worse yet…instantly deleted, but SMS is regularly understood to have a much higher chance of being read. 

With high open rates comes high conversion rates with one report suggesting that 32% of recipients respond to SMS offers, with texted coupons redeemed 10 times more often than traditional coupons.

Not only are those figures impressive on their own but considering that the recorded conversion rate of email is only 3%, it’s clear the opportunities that SMS marketing presents.

Channel preferences

With 75% of people wanting to have offers sent to them via SMS, the perfect way to communicate with customers is through SMS. But offers aren’t the only thing that customers want to receive via SMS.

Ecommerce is thriving and whether you’re offering delivery or a click and collect service, SMS is a great way to keep customers updated about their order and for brands to engage with their target audience. Afterall, retail trends emerging from the pandemic have shown that consumers want to shop and support local, independent businesses. 

In addition, given the frequent disruptions businesses are facing, a quick SMS detailing opening hours, changes to how customers can shop with your business, as well as stock or delivery delays, provides transparency for customers which in return builds loyalty.

Getting personal

It’s likely that you have data on your customers from personal information such as name, gender, d.o.b. etc to their shopping habits all of which can be used to make more relevant campaigns. By using this data to tailor recommendations and messaging on customers past behaviour and interactions with your business, you can create a more bespoke shopping experience for them.

Something that always goes down well is a birthday offer but brands should also consider sending this before their big day so the customer can treat themselves accordingly. By building a more personal relationship with customers, brands can make their audiences feel special and thus, promote customer loyalty.

There are many opportunities for retailers to use SMS beyond marketing and sales purposes, which involve keeping customers more engaged with your brand and improving the customer’s overall service and experience, all of which your competitors might not be tapping into.

If you do have any further queries, you can easily get in touch with our team.