With the advancement of technology and daily innovation in the mobile industry, SMS eCommerce marketing is slowly becoming a necessity for businesses. As more than 5 billion people use mobile phones daily, text messaging is the go-to means of communication. Research shows that the use of SMS marketing has grown 197% as a strategy for most businesses.
So, what to expect?
Consumer needs and wants are constantly changing the shape of business strategies, whether in marketing, sales, growth hacking, or even branding. And, since people prefer getting notified by their favorite brands via text message, the SMS eCommerce revolution is taking over.
This article will discuss how SMS affects the eCommerce industry and the expectations businesses should have.
How Did SMS eCommerce Marketing Gain Popularity?
With the rise of email marketing and social media channels, it seems like we have forgotten about SMS messages for some time. But, on the flip side, consumers are beginning to give more credit to text messages than any other form of marketing.
While B2B companies are leveraging strategies like LinkedIn lead generation and/or event marketing, there’s a certain magic tool for the B2C sector as well. Among all startup accelerators, SMS has gained much popularity for eCommerce businesses especially.
So, why is SMS marketing regaining its moment?
- It provides higher engagement compared to email. Customers are more responsive to a text message from their favorite stores rather than a long promotional email they will never respond to. According to research, the average open rate for an SMS eCommerce marketing campaign is around 98%. It is because it is more direct, practical, and has higher deliverability.
- It is more affordable than any other marketing technique. Once you set up all the automation, you will need to make it run and sit back. Unlike influencer marketing or digital advertising, you will not need to pay for the customer’s attention. If organized and managed according to public relations trends, your eCommerce business can make the most out of SMS marketing.
- It’s more convenient for a better customer experience. Setting up a simple SMS marketing campaign will help solve unpleasant issues like cart abandonment, disengagement, and lack of responsiveness. Instead, you can use text messages to notify your buyers about new products, keep them in the shipping loop, and send special offers. SMS eCommerce marketing comes in handy both for businesses and consumers.
What Will Change With the Rise of SMS eCommerce Marketing?
It turns out eCommerce businesses can benefit a lot from SMS marketing techniques. Now, let’s understand what turnover it will make.
- Customer-focused Experience
Text messages make communication more individual by allowing us to play with different formats and words. Nowadays, brands can send messages based on the consumer’s name, preferences, location, etc. Essentially, you can turn your regular messages into specific trigger SMS messages and engage more customers.
What’s next?
Multimedia messaging services, aka MMS, make messages more engaging, fun, and visually appealing. In addition, businesses will be able to use already existing design elements and add new ones from their brand’s perspective. So, whether you’ll need to attach a coupon file or a product image, all processes will get done more efficiently.
For business owners who like to think and plan ahead, there are certain tools and platforms to use for understanding user behavior, including UserZoom, Mouseflow, Hotjar, and more. If you need a wider variety of choices, consider using Hotjar alternatives to help better define the User Experience for your store.
On the other end, make sure your employees are well-prepared to take over the conversation. You can train them during the employee onboarding process to save time and effort for every new hire.
- SMS integration for all marketing channels
With so many marketing platforms and techniques available, marketers will slowly shift to implementing text messages into different mediums. Even though perfect social media management, a centralized PMO, email marketing, and paid ads will do the job, SMS messages are good backup support for more success.
For example, brands will receive reviews and feedback quickly, send updates on new arrivals, and constantly communicate with customers. Moreover, consumers are more responsive on mobile. A study shows that the CTR rate for offer messages is higher by 9.18% than any other digital channel. And, this number will grow over time.
Put shortly: SMS eCommerce marketing will become an essential component of marketing, business promotion, and branding due to its many advantages.
- Smart SMS eCommerce Marketing Powered by AI
Why? Simply because Artificial Intelligence can help build better 1:1 conversations with consumers and grow your audience automatically.
What more could businesses want, right?
With SMS marketing growth and demand, marketers will look for new ways to customize messages, engage more clients, and make them feel special. But, even though eCommerce businesses can build web apps to reach a wider audience, AI can do much more.
Combined with AI technology, here’s what eCommerce stores will be able to achieve:
- More personalization both for businesses and consumers.
- Time and money effectiveness due to process automation.
- Fewer data inaccuracies because machines are less likely to make errors.
- Better content delivery since AI helps create and send out messages properly.
By using AI-powered SMS marketing for eCommerce, businesses will complete more tasks, keep excellent communication, and carry out more brilliant text message campaigns.
- New Shopping Techniques
Last but not least: eCommerce stores in consumers’ pockets.
With a simple technique like text-to-buy, people will make product purchases by sending a simple text message. Since customers are always on the lookout for more simple ways of finding the right products and services, SMS marketing will come to the rescue for businesses, especially customer retention strategies.
eCommerce businesses can play around with shopping techniques as much as they want. Some will prefer to send out personalized offers so that customers can agree or not from the other end. Others will allow customers to send a text message of the item they want and the quantity. If the advancement goes further, businesses will go for more design tools to make campaigns more engaging. For example, a simple brochure maker will help combine the best summer deals and send them to customers.
The text-to-buy method will gain popularity due to its simplicity, speed, and customization advantages.
Final Thoughts
Looking ahead, we can see the vast impact text message marketing will bring to eCommerce businesses. To sum up, SMS eCommerce marketing is the next big thing because:
- It will help build an engagement-focused strategy and become a necessary piece of all marketing channels.
- AI will be combined with text messages to help work more intelligently.
- The text-to-buy method will grow its importance.
Considering all the innovative ideas and methods in text messaging and mobile marketing, eCommerce businesses won’t avoid SMS marketing anytime soon. So instead, it’s better to get prepared for the coming revolution.
