The Rise ofSMS Marketing5 Tactics to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Table of Contents 02

Table of Contents

03 Introduction

04 Favorable Circumstances for the Rise of SMS Marketing

06 Statistics on SMS Marketing Performance • SMS Performance in General

• Text Messaging Performance on Black Friday

08 The Benefits of SMS Marketing • Top 5 Benefits of Using SMS in Combination with Other Marketing

Channels

10 5 Ways to Add Text Messaging to Your Existing Marketing Strategy • Reengaging Subscribers That Don’t Open the Initial Email Campaign

• Tweak Your Automated Welcome Workflow

• Launch an Automated Happy Birthday Workflow

• Up-sell at Shipping Comfirmation

• Start Re-activating Your Dormant Customers

15 Key Takeaways

16 Resources

Introduction 03

Introduction

SMS text messages are experiencing a renaissance. Although thismarketing channel has beenavailable for several decades now and some retailers have beensending promotional campaigns for a while, SMS text messages have never been as versatile as they are now.

Favorable Circumstances for the Rise of SMS Marketing 04

Out of 7.5 billion people in the world,5 billion (or 2/3) use SMS daily

1. Favorable Circumstances for the Rise of SMS MarketingIn the early 2010s, marketers were forecasting expen-diture on mobile advertising for the upcoming decade. Funds allocated to SMS campaigns were so minor that they were almost invisible compared to display, search, and other mobile marketing channels.

Once, Stephen King said: “Sooner or later, everything old is new again.” Ten years ago, no one could even imagine that this would happen to SMS text messages, and that they would bring such stunning results.

Bear in mind that text messaging has some of the highest reach as a marketing channel around the world with more than 5 billion daily users. SMS marketing has been underestimated for a long time without a reason.

The spread of SMS technology

*Source: Techjury

So what has changed over the last decade? Several favorable circumstances helped text messaging to rise.

1. Instant messaging and chatbots have fostered the texting culture. Years ago, the main channel for companies to com-municate with their customers was email. That has now changed, and customers are eager to receive marketing messages and interact with brands instantly via more personal channels like chatbots, messengers, and SMS.

2. The rise of the omnichannel experience. Customers navigate among different media while searching for informa-tion, buying products, reach out to customer service and finally use brick-and-mortar self-service to pick up what they’ve acquired online. They expect a highly personalized, seamless customer experience while interacting with a brand. That’s the reason they’are so ready to share personal data, like their phone number, to engage with brands.

3. Customers no longer respond to generic bulk messages. Unlike a decade ago, they now expect personalized offers, and brands are looking for ways to provide them.In this context, SMS becomes a perfect fit to address custom-ers’ needs and valuable addition to your overall marketing toolkit.

Favorable Circumstances for the Rise of SMS Marketing 05

Statistics on SMS Marketing Performance 06

2. Statistics on SMS Marketing PerformanceMost statistics in the industry come from SMS service providers that share their studies and survey results. However, the amount of sent messages allows us to glean valuable insights and compari-sons with other marketing channels.

2.1. SMS performance in general

DTC brands and ecommerce retailers invest heavily in SMS for a reason. According to VoiceSage, over 90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of receipt.

What’s more, text messages have a whopping 98% open rate. In comparison to the email channel with an 18% open rate for ecommerce on average, your SMS has a significantly better chance to be read.

About one-third of SMS recipients react to CTAs in the messages and 47% of those end up with a purchase. So you can expect about a 13% conversion rate from your SMS campaign.

Quick SMS Statistics

0%

25%

50%

75%

100% 98% SMS open rate

90% read in first 3 minutes

29% engagement rate

47%purchased fromengaged users

*Source: Techjury

Statistics on SMS Marketing Performance 07

2.2. Text Messaging Performance on Black Friday

While SMS was on the rise in 2018, the channel absolutely exploded in 2019. At Omnisend, ecommerce marketers sent more SMS campaigns on Black Friday 2019 than ever before, sending over 1 million campaigns over the week of Thanksgiving.

Retailers were right to follow their instincts, as SMS campaigns earned immense value in 2019.

On Black Friday alone, ecommerce brands earned a 14.03% click-through rate and received a 592% higher order rate than email. In average orders, SMS earned businesses 21% more orders per campaign than email on Black Friday.

However, customers were already looking for deals by the middle of the week – often purchasing during pre-Black Friday promotions. Surprising-ly, omnichannel campaigns using SMS sent the Wednesday before Thanksgiving were also successful, earning 150% higher order rates than email-only campaigns that same day.

Wednesday was even more successful than Cyber Monday in order rates, earning a 75% higher order rate via SMS.

SMS vs. Email Performance During Black Friday Week

SMS Campaigns Sent Before Black Friday Earn 75% Higher Order Rates than Cyber Monday

SMS Click rateEmail Click rate

Monday Tuesday Wednesday(Thanksgiving Day)

Thursday Black Friday Saturday Sunday Cyber Monday

13.9%

21.3%

13.8%

31.12%

14.0%

9.9%12.5%

8.5%

2.5% 2.3% 2.5% 2.4% 2.1% 1.4% 1.5% 1.5%

*Source: Omnisend Data

Top 5 Benefits of Using SMS in Combination with Other Marketing Channels

1. SMS marketing is cheaper than customer retargeting or social media marketing

Although sending text messages is more expensive than emails, overall SMS marketing expenses are lower than boosting posts on social media or launching retargeting campaigns.

If your customer base is extended, you can save some money and combine email and SMS, first approaching customers via email and then sending SMS only to those customers who have ignored your email.

2. SMS is fast

SMS campaigns are received instantly, and most importantly, they’re read almost immediately as well. This makes SMS marketing campaigns great for hyper time-sensitive offers.

Benefits of SMS Marketing 08

3. The Benefits of SMS Marketing

As a standalone channel, SMS marketing has robust benefits. Wide dispersion and great usability are only a few of them. What are some other advantages and how can businesses benefit from integrating SMS with other marketing channels?

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

8.96%

2.56%

Three or morechannels

Single-channelmarketers

0%

5%

10%

15%

20% 18.96%

5.4%

Three or morechannels

Single-channelmarketers

Purchase rate

Engagement rate

3. SMS earns higher open rates than email

Where customers have to consult their inbox

for email messages, an SMS gives you an instant push notification on your phone. If customers don’t have push set up for their

inboxes, your email campaign will have to wait. Moreover, with text messages, you don’t need to handle deliverability issues.

4. SMS gets a higher engagement rate

SMS marketing campaigns are eye-catchers: 70% of customers say that SMS is an atten-tion-grabber.

An SMS is typically read even before it’s opened

with the notification that appears on the screen. What’s more, SMS aren’t just opened more frequently, they also earn more clicks over email on average.

5. You don’t need a graphic designer for an SMS campaign

At this point again, SMS goes hand in hand with emails. It’s quick and easy to send the SMS campaign because it doesn’t require any

concept or design. But it’s only text. We know how powerful images are while shopping online, so by combining both channels for one campaign you can get the promised synergy

and boost your campaign results.

Benefits of SMS Marketing 09

Marketers using three or more

channels in campaigns enjoy a purchase and engagement rate

which is 250% higher than those

using single-channel campaigns

*Source: Omnisend Data

5 Ways to Add Text Messaging to our Existing Marketing Strategy 10

4. 5 Ways to Add Text Messaging to Your Existing Marketing Strategy

1. Reengaging subscribers that don’t open the initial email campaign

Usually, the email open rate for ecom-merce is around 18%. During the holiday rush, it might be even lower. So every time merchants send email campaigns, they have a lot of subscrib-ers that somehow miss their emails in their inboxes.

One of the ways to save the campaign and improve its performance is to resend it to non-openers and then launch the SMS campaign to those customers who ignored the email channel.

This workflow is cost-effective because a part of the audience is being reached via email, which is the most affordable of all channels. And merchants spend on text messages only to those subscribers that haven’t been reached via newsletter.

There are multiple ways for a businesses to use SMS in their strategies. Many of them send standalone SMS campaigns to boost sales. That’s not the worst scenario, but there are more possibilities to employ text messages. Bearing in mind that only 13% of merchants use this channel, the following 5 ideas can help you take advantage of this gap.

Example of combiningCampaign Booster and SMS

2. Tweak your automated Welcome workflow

There is no doubt about the necessity of onboard-ing messages for new community members. 74% of all new subscribers expect to receive a welcome message.

Nevertheless, welcome emails are good at converting subscribers into customers. Especially if businesses incentivize it somehow. Merchants can become even better at this by enriching a traditional welcome email workflow with a text message.

5 Ways to Add Text Messaging to our Existing Marketing Strategy 11

Example of automatedWelcome workflow

5 days

Delay

End of workflow

Immediately

Delay

Subject line:

Welcome!

Email

Sender’s name:

Basic Piece

SMS

Hey! Thanks again for joining our crew! Your discount of 10% off for the 1st purchase expires tomorrow. Code: BASIC10OFF

Link: omni.com/hfeuei

New signup

Trigger

Subject line:

Happy Birthday!

Email

Immediately

Delay

SPECIFIC TIME OF THE DAY

09:00 AM

DelayTrigger

Special occasion (Birthday)

TRIGGER RULE(S):

Greeting time is on exact day

Sender’s name:

Basic Piece

SMS

Happy Birthday! We at Basic Piece are so excited for you and hope you have a great day. P.S. There’s a little surprise waiting

for you in your email ;)

End of workflow

3. Launch an automated Birthday workflow

Personal attention to customers helps extend their buying life cycle.

Automated Birthday workflows are one of the most effective in making customers stay with the brand for longer. Salesforce research revealed that 75% of companies that send these kinds of emails assess them as very effective.

5 Ways to Add Text Messaging to our Existing Marketing Strategy 12

Example of automated

Birthday workflow

4. Up-sell at shipping comfirmation

Shipping notifications are critical for every ecommerce store. It’s an automatic message with standard text sent just after the product has been shipped to the buyer.

A shipping confirmation email has a very high open rate. So why not use it for upselling?

5 Ways to Add Text Messaging to our Existing Marketing Strategy 13

Sender’s name:

Basic Piece

SMS

Hi there! Great news: your order has just shipped. You can

expect to get it in 3-5 days. Bonus: get 20% off your next

purchase with code BP2020. See

Trigger

Shipping confirmation

TRIGGER RULE(S):

Order Fulfillment Status is fulfilled

End of workflow

Example of ShippingComfirmation workflow

5 Ways to Add Text Messaging to our Existing Marketing Strategy 14

5. Start reactivating your dormant customers

The value of existing customers is enormous, as they tend to buy and spend more.

The problem is that sometimes customers stop buying for any number of reasons. They become dormant. Every business has this happen, and while it’s hard to measure, there are guesses that dormant customers take about 30% of an online business data-base.

To address this issue, businesses are suggested to re-establish relationships with their customers by initiating customer reactivation campaigns.

30 days inactive

Trigger

Subject line:

We miss you…

Email

Sender’s name:

Basic Piece

SMS

Hey! We miss you! We have a surprise for you – check your

inbox.

Subject line:

Please, come back

Email

Subject line:

Haven’t heard from you lately

Delay

7 days

Delay

7 days

Delay

Example of CustomerReactivation workflow

Key Takeaways

Key Takeaways 15

SMS marketing has been reborn and created new possibilities for ecommerce businesses. While it’s not a good idea to opt for SMS over other marketing channels completely, ecommerce marketers would get the most out of incorporating SMS in their bigger cam-paigns.

1. There isn’t yet a lot of competition in SMS marketing, and customers offering a phone number in addition to their email

address are showing an even higher level of intent.

2. SMS marketing is more effective than the majority of other digital marketing channels so far. However, sending text messages is more expensive than email. Businesses can get the most out of SMS marketing by incorporating text messag-es in their automated workflows and mixing them with other channels.

3. Enrich your marketing strategy by sending SMS campaigns for your best promotions, which will earn you higher click through and order rates.

4. Using SMS on big shopping days like Black Friday is great, but using them on days where there’s less competition is even better. The Wednesday before Black Friday is an excellent day for SMS campaigns because customers are already getting

excited about the shopping holiday.

5. The SMS marketing trend is expanding very quickly. More and more ecommerce businesses are employing text messages in

their marketing. Take action not to fall behind. Talk to Omnisend and start making the shift to an omnichannel approach today.

Resources

Resources 16

https://go.eztexting.com/hubfs/2019%20Text%20Communica-tion%20Report-%20EZ%20Texting.pdf

https://techjury.net/stats-about/sms-marketing-statistics/

https://www.emarsys.com/app/uploads/2018/01/eBook-Mo-bile-First-AU-English.pdf

https://www.omnisend.com/blog/black-friday-emails/

https://www.omnisend.com/blog/customer-retention/

https://www.omnisend.com/features/campaigns/cam-paign-booster/

https://www.omnisend.com/resources/reports/omnichan-nel-marketing-automation-statistics-2019/

https://www.salesforce.com/form/marketingcloud/con-f/2015-state-of-marketing/?conf-redirect=true

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271980/mobile-advertis-ing-spending-in-the-us-by-format/

https://www.voicesage.com/blog/sms-compared-to-email-in-fograph/

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keep your customers on the hook.

36. Triggered Emails: A form of marketing automation. Triggered emails

are pre-scheduled by the marketer. They are sent whenever a specific event happens or a specific period of time has passed. Birthday

emails would be an example of triggered emails.37. Unique Clicks: This is how many individual subscribers have clicked

on the links in your emails. It is more specific than the overall

click-through rate, which just shows how many times your emails

were clicked.38. Unique Opens: Some subscribers will open an email more than once.

Unique opens shows how many individuals have opened your emails, not just how many times your emails were opened.

39. Unsubscribe Rate: A percentage that shows how often people are

opting out of your email campaigns. Unsubscribe rate is usually (but not always) calculated on a campaign by campaign basis.

40. Welcome emails / welcome series: An email message or a series of

email messages sent to new subscribers.

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