This is the first in a new series on text message marketing from Wunderkind. If you’d like to learn more, download our definitive guide here.
Omni-channel marketing means meeting your customers where they are and delivering a seamless experience across the board. Yet mobile is turning into a browse-first, buy-first platform and text messaging is still an underutilized channel by retailers.
Marketers using text messaging can send personalized text messages to customers and prospects to incentivize an online conversion. With mobile comprising nearly half of the total U.S. eCommerce market, it makes sense to communicate with shoppers on the device they use most.
When combined with the notion that SMS offers the high performance of owned-channel marketing and the potential to drive significant incremental revenue, texts are a win for marketers. Not convinced? Let’s take a look at why the channel is important, and why the time to implement is now.
Mobile-First Retail Sales
Text messaging arrived before smartphones and modern eCommerce, and some marketers launched texting programs years ago, before it was easy—or sometimes possible—to convert online. That’s changed. Mobile is turning into a browse-first, buy-first platform. Now, you can easily send a message directly to a shopper’s texting app that includes a link to your site (and 10%+ CTRs). And with mobile-optimized checkouts, potential buyers are able to tap and buy in minutes.
Simple Sends
With testing, the sends are easy. Much of it can be automated with one-to-one triggers. When you want to send a mass message, it only takes a few minutes to create and schedule a simple text.
You can also get more granular. From basic welcome messages to more personalized product and cart abandonment triggers, you can even use texting triggers to communicate with shoppers based on their previous site behaviors. While this personalization is important, it can be difficult to execute without the help of a vendor who can provide you with the features and functionality to launch and manage your text messaging program. It’s important to choose a vendor that can help you send the right message, to the right person, at the right time.
Less Saturation
Channel competition has made it harder than ever to acquire and retain customers. More and more advertisers are flocking to buy the same ad space and reach the same amount of users online. Because of this, third-party platforms are becoming more expensive, more saturated, and overall less effective at driving the sales they once did.
Easily, one of the best things about adding text message marketing is that it’s underutilized by many retailers. Companies that use it as a marketing channel right now have a much higher chance of getting in front of their target customers because they won’t be exclusively competing in bid-based environments.
Text message marketing isn’t as crowded, or competitive, as channels like display and retailers should move quickly to take advantage of that.
Owned-Channel Success
Marketing through your owned channels lets you reach customers without being reliant on the increasing cost associated with players like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. Not to mention, owned channels often perform better than display or CPC. So, when thinking about your text messaging strategy, it’s important to think about it as a complement to what you’re already doing through email. If you do, the performance will prove itself out.
In fact, email revenue actually increased after the onset of COVID-19, as more and more consumers turned to their inboxes as a method of virtual shopping and discount hunting. Text has also performed incredibly well—seeing click-through rates in the double digits and onsite conversion rates ranging from 3-7%.
Lastly, to get the most ROI on your texting investment, it’s important to work with a partner that can ensure your program is generating new revenue, not just shifting revenue from an existing channel to this one. So it will be pivotal for marketers to maintain an eye on incrementality when bringing on new text messaging vendors so you can guarantee all of that high performance without any of the costly drawbacks.
For more on how to scale the performance of your SMS campaigns and why pricing models matter, tune in for next week’s blog on How Identification Scales SMS Performance.
If you can’t wait to dive deeper, download our Definitive Guide to SMS.