Around 98% of all SMS messages are opened within 3 minutes. That fact helps retailers in connecting products and customers and converts leads into consumers.
Retail text messaging perfectly markets retailers’ brands. With SMS they can easily increase brand awareness and ultimately lead to increasing sales. SMS for retail is a truly important part of customer engagement strategy as it has 6-8x higher engagement than email. Retail SMS Marketing basically makes retailers engage consumers on every step of the customer’s way.
4 Most Popular Ways SMS Helps You with Your Business Growth - Let’s List Them All
SMS marketing is a powerful tool that can boost your business dramatically. There are multiple ways you can use SMS. One of them is sending promotional texts through SMS. Promotional texts include sales deals, loyalty program texts, and promotional offers.
However, 4 ways have proved to be the most effective ones:
- New Products Push
- Instant Feedback
- Loyalty Programs
- Promotional Texts
New Products Push
One of the Most Effective Tricks of SMS Marketing for Retail Stores
Launching a product can decide if the product is going to sell out or be left in the dust on your shelves. You need to think of tons of things to cross off your checklist in this process. However, there are a couple of essentials you need to think about in terms of discussing a new product push.
First thing first, for a successful product launch, you don’t want to send your entire list every message. Not everyone will find every single message you send relevant – target only people who’ll find that information useful.
What you should do is create awareness and anticipation during the pre-launch stage of the product. When the day comes, it’s time to get your SMS Messaging out as soon as possible.
Equally important is the post-launch stage when you need to focus on converting your audience into buyers.
Get Feedbacks from Your Customers
One of the basic rules in retail is that you need to always listen to your customers. That means that you need to know how your consumers feel about your brand, and what their subjective experience is.
Text messages are more likely to be read and responded to than emails. However, If you’re serious about finding out what your consumers think about your brand, you can include a quick feedback form via a short message service.
SMS for retail is very efficient for getting feedback from customers. Fun fact – most customers will click a link when they see it in SMS. Scheduling your text surveys can be one of the best ways for small businesses to improve customer retention.
Choose your preferred date to send out text surveys to customers who opted in to your text messaging service within a predefined amount of time. Don’t forget to make another automated text that confirms the entry of their feedback and sends a pleasant thank you message.
Loyalty Program Texts
According to the recent Loyalty Census Report, at the moment there are 3.8 billion enrollments in customer loyalty programs, and it is predicted to grow exponentially. There are multiple types of loyalty rewards, such as free merchandise, discounts, VIP access to certain promotions and products, etc.
This method has proven to be extremely efficient as a part of Marketing for Retail Stores since you’re not wasting any important resources – time, money, or effort messaging people who aren’t interested in your loyalty incentives.
After making final decisions on how you’d like to reward your most loyal customers, it’s time to set your autoresponders. The best part of Retail Text Messaging is that you can set up text messages that go out days, weeks, or even months after someone has signed up for your product. Each message should include a reason why they should buy from your business again.
Promotional Texts
Promotional texts usually refer to any message sent for promoting, up-selling, or advertising a business. The most common examples are flash sales and a launch of a new product. Sometimes it is about flash-sales of a new product. However, the most popular promotional texts are the ones containing incentives – such as trying out the new coffee flavors, for example. They are usually sent out only between 9AM and 9PM. Recipients do not solicit these messages.
It is crucial to mention that the brands who want to send out promotional messages to their consumers must first get a permit from the recipients. Permission can be acquired via SMS opt-in text message or a web-based signup page. Potential subscribers must be aware of recurring message programs through disclosure of “periodic messages per certain period of time”. In case you need a tip on how to segment your audience and improve your connection to them, reach out to Emitto. Of course, the most important thing is that recipients should also be made aware of how to unsubscribe.
All in all, SMS Marketing and Retail work perfectly together. SMS helps retailers spread brand awareness and improve customer engagement, which ultimately leads to boosting sales.
Studies show that consumers prefer two-way communication with brands. Predictions say that by 2025, 50% of all SMS will be sent by companies.
Don’t forget that the main advantage of SMS Marketing for Retail is that all mobile devices are capable of receiving an SMS and that it has super high open rates. According to the Mobile Marketing Association France study, 90% of SMS is opened within 90 seconds and, on average, it takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text and 90 minutes to respond to an email.
These 4 ways of using SMS are a safe bet when it comes to growing your Retail Business. If you’re still not convinced, you can test it by sending your first 10 SMS messages for free via Emitto. Register in minutes and start boosting your sales!
