Full SMS Marketing guide
If you’re using Email Marketing but neglecting SMS you’re falling behind
Before I start the guide, if you’re an ecom brand owner and want us to handle your Email + SMS marketing then talk with me here: https://calendly.com/nestemailmarketing/ac?month=2023-04
Step 1: Building your SMS list
There are a few ways you can build your SMS list:
Popups on your website
Gamified signup boxes (spin the wheel, etc)
Promoting a landing page for your SMS sign ups on social media
Promoting your SMS list to your email subscribers
All of these are pretty simple and self-explanatory
As with email, I recommend using some sort of offer to convince people to join your list. For example, free shipping on their next order, early access to product drops or a certain % off
If you are promoting your SMS list in your email, make the whole email about just that - don’t just have a ‘join our sms list’ button at the end of your normal emails
Having 1 clear CTA in emails performs a lot better than having multiple CTAs, an SMS button, social media buttons, etc
In the email you can write about the perks of being in the SMS list, your offer (free shipping on next order, etc) and a CTA to join the SMS list in the first fold and at the end of your email
Step 2: Setting up your SMS flows
Just like email, you can also do flows with your SMS list
Note:
It’s important not to be sending as many SMS’s as you do emails. SMS is a more personal form of communication and your customers will be annoyed if you send them too many
The main flows we like to use are:
Welcome messages → a friendly ‘hello’ to your new SMS subscribers
Birthday messages → a personal greeting with some sort of valuable offer
Cart abandonment messages → a friendly reminder of the customer’s cart and product they were looking at buying
Order confirmation messages → A reminder your product is on the way
Testimonial messages → A suggestion to leave a review when their product has arrived
As you can see there isn’t a ton of flows that we use
Most of the revenue we generate from SMS marketing comes from campaigns, not flows
Example messages:
You want to keep your SMS’s short and sweet. There is a 150 character limit you must follow
Abandoned Cart SMS flow example:
“Hi {first name}, your order at {your store name} is about to expire! Come back and take a 2nd look? (link) Reply STOP to opt-out”
It’s important to add the ‘reply stop to opt-out’ to make sure you’re following the rules and regulations of SMS marketing. Besides, you would want to do this anyway. If you don’t give people an exit to your texts they’ll just become annoyed and report / block your number, email or social medias
Step 3: Omnichannel marketing for campaigns
If you’ve been following me on Twitter for a while then you know I love to use Email + SMS marketing combined for product drops
Product drops are limited quantity product launches we do. Because they are limited quantity it is very easy to build a lot of hype around them and push a lot of conversions
For example, here is our Email + SMS schedule on the lead up to a drop
When to send emails:
5 days before
72 hours before
48 hours before
24 hours before
1 hour before
On the drop
When to send SMS:
3 hours before
On the drop
By combining the 2 you get to capture people who may not be on all of your channels. We also promote drops on social media of course and we occasionally use influencer marketing too
Another way you can combine Email + SMS is have important flows / campaigns set up in a way that if a user doesn’t open your Email, they receive a text
DO NOT use this for all flows / campaigns. As I said before you don’t want to be sending texts too often. But for important flows (cart abandonment) and campaigns (product drops, holiday deals, etc) this can be a really good way to capture people who didn’t open your email
Step 4: Analyzing your SMS metrics
The same with email, you’ll have to analyze your SMS metrics if you want to improve and increase sales from this marketing channel
You should keep track of your:
Sent SMS → number of subscribers who received an SMS from you
Click rate → the percentage of subscribers who clicked on the link in your SMS
Sales → the amount of conversions came that came from these clicks
Unsubscribe rate → the percentage of people who unsubscribed from your SMS marketing after receiving a text
Bounce rate → the percentage of people who couldn’t receive your SMS for multiple reasons (e.g. invalid phone number)
Keep track of metrics and what they mean
Low click rate? Not gauging enough interest
High unsubscribe rate? Not providing enough value / not segmenting enough
Bonus: Amazon Treasure Truck
Out of all the brand’s doing SMS marketing, Amazon are probably doing it the best from what I’ve seen
They send a daily SMS telling recipients about new deals and where they can buy them on Amazon
Since 2015 they’ve gotten millions of people on their SMS list. And according to Omnisend, 75% of them click through and look at the deal within 15 minutes of receiving the text. INSANE!
You likely won’t be able to send SMS’s daily like Amazon can as they have a much broader product range while you would be promoting the same products over and over
But hopefully this can inspire you to think outside of the box with your SMS marketing
This guide should help you with the guidelines of SMS marketing, but that is not to say that you can find even more success by going against the grain and doing something different with your SMS marketing!