For brands looking to engage modern, mobile consumers, SMS is a must-have channel — but it’s also a fairly new one. And that unfamiliarity has led to some misconceptions, such as SMS marketing is spammy or intrusive, or that texting should be reserved for personal communications.
SMS is a highly personal channel, but that doesn’t mean your brand should avoid it. Modern consumers actually crave a personal connection with brands, and they want it where they are the most: their phones. In fact, over 80% of shoppers in the US, the UK, and Australia are already signed up for at least one text marketing program.
So if you’re curious about SMS but haven’t yet adopted the channel, here are five important things you should know. They might inspire you to get started.
1. It enables two-way communication
Unlike some other marketing channels, SMS is not limited to one-way, promotional messaging. You can actually communicate with your customers in real time to forge connections and deepen your relationships. And when texting is how modern consumers prefer to communicate, you are much more likely to capture their attention.
Once a customer opts-in to your SMS program, you can send them an engaging welcome flow that empowers them to respond. Use this opportunity to ask them questions about their needs or interests to initiate a conversation and learn more about them. What products are they curious about? What scents or styles do they prefer? You can then trigger personalized responses according to their replies to simulate real dialogue and inspire your subscribers to make a purchase.
If customer support is your focus, you can have live conversations too. Encourage your customers to reach out to you via text when they have a question, then provide instant assistance through Yotpo SMS & Email’s SMS Chat. You can even integrate with your preferred help desk solution to easily manage SMS replies in one place, so you can give your customers the information they need as soon as they need it.
2. It powers personalization
The more your SMS subscribers interact with your brand, the more actionable customer data and insights you will gain. And the more data you have, the more you can personalize their customer experience to drive sales and increase loyalty.
SMS is built on zero-party and first-party data, both of which have become essential for brands as shifting consumer privacy policies hinder effective targeting on other channels like email. Not only can you easily collect information about each customer’s demographics, behavior, and purchase history via SMS, but you can also collect valuable data that they share with you willingly and proactively during your SMS conversations.
Take that data and use it to create unique segments, recommend the right products, send exclusive offers, and more, so that every message you send is relevant to your subscriber (and therefore more likely to convert). In a recent Yotpo survey, 56% of shoppers said they find texts from brands most engaging when they are relevant to their interests and past purchases, and 26% said they would sign up just to receive tips and personalized product recommendations.
3. It enhances your entire marketing strategy
Despite being a powerful channel all on its own, SMS is not meant to replace your other marketing programs. Rather, SMS is most effective when used as a supplement to those programs and as an extension of your overall marketing strategy.
Beyond help desk integrations, SMS is also the perfect companion to loyalty programs, reviews, and email. These are just a few of the ways you can connect them to drive the most ROI:
- Give your loyalty members an exclusive, VIP experience by celebrating their loyalty milestones via SMS, notifying them about the points they earned, sharing special rewards, and more. Exactly 43% of shoppers say they would be more likely to complete a purchase if they receive a text about the points or rewards they will earn.
- Send review requests in the form of ratings, polls, or open-ended reviews to solicit valuable feedback from your subscribers, and collect customer photos via text that you can then showcase online in shoppable galleries. Review requests sent via SMS have a 66% higher conversion rate than those sent via email, and 98% of shoppers say authentic reviews are the most important factor influencing their purchase decisions.
- By pairing SMS with email, you can extend your reach and increase your chances of engaging customers. Send non-urgent newsletters and branded announcements via email, and use SMS for brief, actionable, and timely messages. You can even use one channel to direct attention to the other — send a text to tell subscribers to check their inbox for a new deal or important announcement, or send an email offering a coupon to anyone who signs up for SMS.
4. It reaches customers internationally
With SMS, you can reach your customers wherever they are. And we don’t just mean offline, online, and across channels — we mean across the globe. So if you are a global brand, or you simply have customers in other countries, your marketing communication strategies can be global too.
SMS message delivery is practically instant, taking seconds (or even milliseconds) to reach your subscriber. To guarantee that your SMS messages are received with the ultimate reach and speed, however, you’ll want to look for an SMS provider who offers expansive international coverage and unmatched deliverability. Yotpo SMS & Email has both, so you can truly text without limits.
Yotpo has built partnerships with top global carriers so you can reach customers worldwide, including in the UK, Canada, Australia, and beyond. That, coupled with our best-in-class SMS Deliverability Engine, ensures your messages reach every customer in the right place, at the right time.
5. It’s backed by the support of expert strategists
One of the reasons SMS is such a success is that it’s truly a marketer-friendly channel. On the one hand, you have all the resources you need to make agile and informed decisions about your program. On the other, you have experts who can guide you every step of the way, from initial setup to maximizing the ROI of your SMS campaigns.
At Yotpo SMS & Email, our dedicated SMS strategists will work with you to build a tailored SMS program based on your brand’s unique needs and goals. With their expert knowledge of SMS marketing best practices (and the ins and outs of our product), they can help you develop your SMS strategy, grow a healthy subscriber list, craft the most engaging messaging for your audience, and more.
Don’t need the support? No problem. Our advanced solutions and templates allow you to create, customize, and launch new tools and messages on your own, on the fly. Plus, we give you full transparency into your program’s performance so you are always in the know, and can optimize for better results in real time. It’s a flexible solution, designed for you.
Chat with an SMS expert
Modern consumers are mobile, and there is no channel better suited to deliver the immediate, personalized, and exclusive experiences they expect than SMS.
Brands who leverage the strength of this mobile-first channel are the ones who will successfully capture consumers’ attention and turn them into loyal customers. And the competition for consumer attention these days is fierce — so it’s time to get started with the best SMS marketing platform.
Book a demo to chat with one of our experts and learn more about the benefits of SMS marketing.