Retailers are placing an increasing amount of emphasis on their online presence. It’s become essential that retailers optimize their customer communications to be as engaging as possible – especially when we remove a traditional interaction point, like a brick and mortar store, from the equation. With the majority of US households owning a cell phone, mobile seems like an easy place to catch your customer’s attention.
Here are our top tips to help you get a better ROI from your next text message promotion:
Discount codes
US research revealed that the use of one-off coupons when delivered through email was 2.7%, but for SMS, it was 30-50%. Clearly, including an incentive like a discount code, which can be redeemed online or in store, is a massive driver for customers to reach into their pockets.
Don’t over communicate
Finding the right balance for communication frequency is key for retailers. Sending too many messages will make your audience tune out, and not sending enough will mean your sales get hurt.
The timing has to be right
Would you expect to get a message from your favorite pizza place on a Monday morning? Probably not. Let’s look at the example of a car mechanic letting her audience know about a special price for MOTs. If she were to send her customers a message once a month to let them know about the price, they’d probably delete it. But if she sent it once a year when she knew her customers’ MOTs were due, she’d have much better results.
Wording is key!
Retailers should pay close attention to how they word their messages. Some customers respond well to humor and subtlety; others to bold “BUY NOW” messages. Be true to your brand voice, but also try splitting your database and trialing different messages to find what works best for your audience. It’s also a good idea to put your most important details at the start of the message, so they can be seen within the preview text on your customer’s phone.
Personalization
Personalized marketing in retail is nothing new, but its effectiveness can’t be denied. Remember when a certain cola brand started printing people’s names on bottles a few years ago? It caught your interest, right? Personalized marketing is proven to work – in fact, a study showed that 86% of customers say that personalization plays a role in their purchase decisions. The same principle can be applied to SMS promotions. Platforms like Esendex make it easy to import data which make each message sent unique to the recipient. This leads to more engagement and ultimately more sales.
Want to know more?
If you’re interested in finding out how SMS can be used for retailers and how Esendex can make it work more effectively for you, please get in contact with our team today.
Julia Applegate
Based in Charleston, SC Julia is a Demand Generation Marketing Manager with 6 years of experience in B2B technology businesses and an emphasis on growth and demand generation marketing. Julia is passionate about balancing data-driven marketing with creative campaigns and bringing agile methodology to new companies.
