SMS Marketing for eCommerce – Tool You Can’t Forget in 2023

Updated on November 14, 2022 in Ecommerce by Nishant Shrimali

You get up in the morning. Rollover your bed. And finally, reach your phone to check for any “important notifications”.

This is the story of more than 80% of all smartphone users around the world. This means the majority of your target audience is waiting for notifications from your eCommerce.

– Not exactly, but you get it. Right?

How can you use this habit of your customers? – Simple answer. Using SMS Marketing for eCommerce to grow your engagement.

Not an old-school trick, but among the best methods of increasing your customer retention.

Here in this article, we are going to learn everything about SMS marketing for eCommerce and how you can get started with it.

Moreover, here is an overview of everything that we are going to discuss in this article.

• What is SMS marketing?
• Benefits Of Using SMS marketing for eCommerce
• Best Practices to follow in SMS marketing
• 5 Best Shopify SMS marketing for eCommerce

What is SMS Marketing?

SMS marketing is a method of using SMS, i.e. text messages to send promotional messages to your customers.

It is a simple, direct, and effective way of communicating with your customer and aware them of events such as sales, discounts, and other promotional activities of your eCommerce.

Benefits Of Using SMS Marketing For eCommerce

In the modern era of the internet, why would we suggest you SMS marketing or sending text messages to your customer? Well here are some insights that will help you know why SMS marketing for eCommerce is a great tool to grow your customer retention rate.

First Choice Of Millenials

Millennials are among the most preferred groups of audience in the world of eCommerce. They have higher spending power and usually have a high risk-taking capacity when trying a new eCommerce.

The above charts show what are the most preferred way of interaction with online sellers. And as you can see, from the age of 18-44 texting is a way of communication for them.

Other alternatives which are fairly become popular, like live chat, are still not so preferred when compared with SMS marketing for eCommerce.

Build’s Trust

SMS or texts are the most common way of communication in today’s world. Not only does it allow you to express your customer quickly and easily, but also helps your eCommerce build trust among them.

SMS marketing for eCommerce makes it easier for your customer to reach out to you. Moreover, this also resolves any issue they might be facing. This builds a strong trust within your customer and helps your brand increase your customer retention rate.

Faster Response Rate

According to a survey, 80% of the people in the age group of 18-44 had their cell phones for 22 hours a day. This means they are always around their phones and mostly available for new updates or news they might get.

This survey also supports the 98% open rate of SMS, which is way higher than email which has up to 20-30% of open rate.

Overall saying, SMS marketing for eCommerce allows you to convey your message faster and in a much more effective way.

Best Practices to follow in SMS Marketing

Let us be very clear that, SMS marketing at its worst can ruin your customer experience if not done right. And if you are a responsible brand, (like you should be) disrupting your customer experience would be the last thing you would want.

Here is the right way to use SMS marketing for eCommerce:

Keep It Short, Simple & Direct

SMS marketing for eCommerce is a simple form of communication which are meant to be short, direct, and convincing. Aim to write your SMS in less than 160 characters, where you create urgency, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), and give them a Call-To-Action.

Ensure Personalisation

Personalization in SMS marketing for eCommerce is one of the key factors in growing your customer retention rate. Further in this article, we have shared some of the best Shopify SMS marketing apps which allow you to personalize your SMS hence helping you a lot in growing your returning customer.

Know Your Audience

No marketing practice is worth investing time and resources if you are unaware of what your audiences want and what are the pain points that can make them convert. More importantly, it is strictly data-based rather than guesswork.

For example, if you look at your analytics and find that most of your customers are bouncing off after seeing additional shipping charges, the best trick would be to send an SMS of free shipping rather than sharing a gift card or a discount code.

Aim on solving the problems of your customer and your SMS marketing for eCommerce would pay off more than you would expect.

Less Is More

This SMS marketing guide for eCommerce will surely help you in increasing your customer rate. But the effectiveness would majorly depend on the frequency of you sending SMS to your customer.

If you aggressively send messages every second day or each week, your customer may lose interest in them. The best way to track your success would be to keep an eye on your email rate.

If you observe that your open rate is gradually reducing, decrease your frequency. Moreover, use SMS marketing for eCommerce only when required to.

Have Loyalty List

A loyalty list is something that would help you in every aspect of marketing. Especially if you are running SMS marketing for eCommerce, you can add new loyal customers, and at the same time remove the ones with less interaction over time.

Keeping the list updated is a key factor in ensuring that your SMS marketing for eCommerce is going to be successful.

Moreover, this will also help you by reducing the cost of sending out SMS to an inactive audience.

Choose The Right Time

The ultimate harsh truth about eCommerce marketing is the fact that there is no fixed set of rules for any audience.

This is why you would have to depend on your analytics and your data to see, which is the most appropriate time to send out emails.

Believe in the trial and error method, have a test run, and when you have your data backing your campaign choose the right time accordingly.

Have A CTA

We can’t stress more how important choosing the right CTA is. Your call to action must simple to understand and say what your customers are will be getting or be doing after they click on it.

“Click here” might be good but “Buy now”, “Get The Code” etc are much better.

Learn more about choosing the right CTA in – How to Make Your eCommerce Call to Action Intimidating 2023

5 Best Shopify SMS Marketing Tools for your eCommerce

SMSbumps

SMSbumps is among the best Shopify SMS marketing tools which you can use to grow your customer retention for eCommerce. It allows you to create SMS campaigns as well as also allows you to send Image files (MMS) if you wish to.

Some of its features that you must know are:

• Allows you to automate campaigns
• Quiet hour ability, which means you can input time as per your time zone to get the most out of your campaigns.
• SMSbump gives you the ability to run the A/B test
• Comes with detailed analytical support to track your progress

Postscript SMS Marketing

Another best Shopify SMS marketing tool that you can use is the Postscript SMS Marketing app. The most attractive feature of this app is its ability to send a personalized SMS to each customer in just a few clicks.

Other features include:

• Help you segment customers and further run targeted SMS marketing campaigns.
• Handles all customer requests automatically
• Helps you review your performance and analyze your revenue
• This app easily integrates with your cart abandonment campaigns, shipping notifications, and more

Tone SMS Marketing

The tone is another best Shopify app for SMS marketing for eCommerce focused on increasing your revenue and presenting you as a brand. The quick setup and easy-to-understand interface give you get started as quickly as possible.

Here is some core feature that made Tone to this list:

• Help you create a live chat campaign with your customer
• Easy to schedule SMS and campaigns for better customer retention
• Comes with different options to create SMS as per your brand voice
• Create pop-ups for quick SMS options

SMS Notification Cart Recovery

If you are looking for an app that eases most of your after-sales work, SMS Notification Cart Recovery is the best Shopify SMS marketing app that you can go for. It works both ways where even you are notified when new orders are rolling in.

More feature of the app includes:

• Sends out abandoned cart email and Thank you for better brand building
• Cut down cost with undelivered shipment
• Send the order information to the customer

SMS & Messenger Marketing

Lastly, Tobi is the best Shopify SMS marketing app that you can use to grow your customer retention rate. Moreover, this app also allows you to send free Facebook messenger update to your customers.

Moreover, it is a fully automated design with SMS and FB messenger which reduces your inputs hence you focus more on growing your eCommerce sales.

Other beneficial features of the Tobi are:

• Cart Abandonment notifications to the customers on FB and SMS
• Provides a countdown bar
• Menu in the messenger is easy to customize
• Discounts through messages and SMS

Bouns Read

And with the above, we wrap up this amazing article shading light on the importance of SMS marketing for eCommerce to grow customer retention rate. Moreover, the apps mentioned above are some of the best Shopify SMS marketing apps that you can integrate for automation of work.

Other than this we also recommend you to read our blog eCommerce Copywriting – The Ultimate Guide to Improve your Sale, which will further help you to write better copy that you can use.

If you are using some other Shopify SMS marketing app, do comment down below and share with us to update this list further in the future.

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