SMS Marketing 101
Written by Sarah Dyer
What is SMS Marketing?
In a world where we’re using our smartphones more than ever, SMS marketing, or Short Message Service marketing, is a key component of any brand’s marketing strategy. SMS marketing is a form of mobile marketing that allows businesses to send promotional or brand messages to customers via text. It’s direct, easy to configure, quick to plan and for some brands, vital to their marketing success (especially within fashion & footwear). And by the looks of it, the success and use of SMS marketing is not going away.
“Using SMS marketing, businesses can send timely and personalized messages to engage customers and boost sales. In fact, businesses sent 55 million more SMS campaigns in 2023 compared to 2022, and automated SMS sends doubled, leading to over $33 million in sales. SMS is easier to use and more cost-effective than ever.”
www.omnisend.com/blog/sms-marketing/
The Customer’s Journey + SMS Marketing
Much like email marketing, we need to secure the all important ‘opt-in’ so that subscribers can receive text messages from your brand. We often see this as a complimentary step on pop ups when brands ask for opt-in for email marketing as a step 1 - ie, would you also like to provide your number for exclusive deals?
Once opt-in has been secured, it’s important we know the next messages that the subscriber will receive. If your brand is utilizing email and sms together, it’s important we consider the subscriber journey and make sure they don’t get messages twice, or mixed messages.
I’m going to use the lifestyle brand TALA as an example for this (pop up below). Their website pop up appears almost instantly, getting the subscriber to provide both email and number to snag their welcome offer (10% off). Once signed up, the subscriber receives an email with their welcome offer, and a text to secure the SMS opt-in (acting as double opt-in, much like email). To opt out the subscriber can do so at any time by texting a word (normally something like STOP) and they’ll be unsubscribed from SMS marketing.
For customers, SMS marketing is a great tool to use for delivery updates - this is called transactional SMS (rather than promotional). It could be used in tandem with your eCommerce platform to send tracking information or updates on when a parcel is out for delivery. These tend to have great open rates because customers always want to know when their parcel will arrive! And if they’re on the go, sending a text with this information is quick and effective.
How to use SMS Marketing for your brand
Using SMS marketing effectively for your brand involves several steps. One of the key parts to this is to grow your SMS list to a point where sending messages is effective (and worth the cost - as for smaller brands with small lists, it can get pricey).
To grow, offer incentives like discounts, exclusive offers, or entry into a contest to encourage customers to opt-in (as we’ve seen with TALA’s welcome offer example). You can also promote your SMS list through various channels such as your website, social media, in-store signage, and email campaigns.
You also need to clearly communicate the benefits of subscribing to your SMS list - my tip is to use SMS as an over-and-above, best deal possible channel. That means signing up to receive texts gets you something unique ie.
A bigger welcome discount
A free gift on sign up
Access to SMS-only deals
Early access to sale
Applying this tactic means you’re offering something different to email, and not sending the same content across both channels (at least not all the time). This lends itself to better open rates and click rates - letting each channel have its own job rather than doing the exact same thing.
When sending SMS campaigns, we should approach this a different way to email marketing - the sending cadence for text should be a lot less, and messages should be prioritized for things like sale announcements, new product launches, back in stock alerts, complimentary to flows like abandon cart and any promotions that are exclusive to SMS subscribers.
Pros & Cons of SMS Marketing
Like any marketing channel, there are pros and cons to using SMS marketing.
Pros
Immediate delivery - messages can reach your subscriber’s attention instantly
Easy to set up - no need for any fancy email designs or html, simply come up with short and snappy messages to text your subscribers
Compliments your email marketing strategy - when used appropriately, emails and texts can be used in automated flows together with powerful results
Increased engagement - Your top customers and most engaged email openers will most likely also perform well with SMS marketing, so keep this in mind when doing any segmentation
Cost effective - SMS marketing messages can often make the same, if not more, than email campaigns, and can be set up and sent in less than half the time. So from this perspective, for brands with bigger lists, this can be hugely effective.
Cons
Takes time to grow - if you have started off by focussing on email marketing, it can take some time to grow your SMS marketing lists, so that it can indeed be just as effective as email
Limited characters - sending short messages for sale announcements makes total sense, and is quick and effective, but maybe isn’t the best way to tell a bigger story
Limited media/image use - again, email marketing is preferred for anything visual being sent to subscribers. This can be important to some brands, so they might not utilise SMS marketing just as much as email.
Price - most platforms will charge you by message sent, which can get pricey depending on the country you’re sending to. Meaning it might not be worth sending any SMS messages until your list is a certain size
Can be considered intrusive - by making sure you get an official opt-in, and send highly relevant, targeted messages, this will ensure low unsubscribe rates, so although this is a con, this can be controlled by your approach and management of the channel.
Another thing to consider for SMS marketing is your audience’s demographic. A yonder audience would definitely utilize text more than an older generation, who might find SMS marketing spammy and a bit of an annoyance. All is always worth testing! But it’s just something to keep in mind, that it might not be suitable for all brands to use.
Segmentation
Knowing what segments to use for SMS marketing can be tricky, but as your list grows and you’re able to segment, here’s some general ideas for your weekly campaigns:
Make sure the subscriber is opt-ed in
That they are highly engaged (last 30 days)
OR That they are new subscribers (last 7-14 days)
OR That they are VIPs (bought 3-4 times, or spend a certain amount)
You could also split the messages by the below segments, depending on the message:
By gender, if they have provided this information
By product, for back in stock alerts
By customer status - i.e only purchased once and not in 6 months, send a discount code for their next order (much like you would with email)
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