If you are going to be competitive in today’s ecommerce landscape, you have to use all the tools that are available to you so that you can increase the odds of your campaigns being successful. People are already aware of the most common aspects of digital marketing such as social media outreach, Google marketing, content marketing, and even email marketing.
One thing that new ecommerce vendors often overlook, however, is the power of a robust SMS marketing infrastructure. SMS marketing can be a great tool to maximize your chances for success because they feel much more personal than other forms of marketing. It is a direct and immediate sales channel that your potential customers cannot just turn away like they can with email marketing. Here are some of the best practices that you can use to make your text messaging marketing campaigns as effective as possible.
Use Incentives To Your Advantage
A great way for you to take advantage of text messaging is to text incentives and promo offers to your customers. This is a great way to compel them to visit your site using the link that you include in the message.
Do Not Overwhelm Your Customers With Your Message
When you send out your text messaging campaigns, make sure that you do not overwhelm your customers with a message that is too long and too overbearing. You have to remember that as effective as text messaging campaigns are, your customers will still only give you their minimal attention. If they open up the text message and they notice that you sent them incredibly long paragraphs, they will simply ignore your message. Keep things short, concise, and informative.
Make Sure Your Call To Action Is Easy To Follow
Text messaging campaigns, just like all forms of marketing campaigns, are completely useless without a clear call to action linked to them. A call to action is basically whatever you want your customer to do using the information that you sent. If your goal is for the customer to recover an abandoned cart, you should attach a call to action like “complete your purchase”, for example. If your text message is more informative you can end your text with a call to action like “discover more now. ”
Capitalize On FOMO
If you want to really be effective with your text messaging campaigns, you have to capitalize on human beings’ natural tendency to not want to miss out. This fear of missing out, or FOMO, is the reason why most people are compelled to buy certain products. Make sure to use facts and figures to your advantage and make sure your customer knows that other people are very happy with your products.
Give a Sense of Exclusivity
People want to feel like they are part of an exclusive club. This is something that you can capitalize on with your text messaging campaigns. For this to be authentic, make sure that you do not send the same promo or offer to all of your customers, but curate them to the customers that are more likely to act on this offer based on your analytics data. Pairing this with words like “congratulations, you have been invited to be part of this exclusive group” can really draw their attention.
Do Not Send Texts At Awkward Times
You do not want to turn your customers off by sending text messages at very awkward times of the day. Make sure you are aware of the timezones your customers are in and you don’t send your text messages too late at night or too early in the morning. It is all about being respectful and being courteous. Being too aggressive with your text messages can give your customers a sense that you are practicing a type of sticky salesmanship that people tend to avoid.
Use Texts For Abandoned Cart Recovery
A unique but powerful way you can use text messages to your advantage is by helping your customers recover their abandoned carts. A lot of customers actually do not complete their purchases when they add an item to their carts because they have some sort of objection or fear. Sending a text message to put their doubts at ease is very effective because they feel more personal than emails, they will have a greater sense that you are actually trying to help them out and they will find greater reason to follow your friendly advice and complete their purchase.
Text marketing is a new but effective tool to add to your ecommerce stack. Use them wisely and respectfully and you will see your sales absolutely soar!
