Double down your SMS marketing ROI to get more sales from your text marketing campaigns.
If you started your Shopify store SMS marketing campaigns last year, congratulations! The smartphone being a channel where your customers are always active, you’re on the right track.
But here’s the thing – like you, other stores also have SMS in their marketing plans. 96% of marketers agree SMS marketing drives revenue.
However, not everyone has been able to reap its real benefits or drive as much ROI from their SMS marketing strategies.
So, this year, here’s what you should do to improve your SMS marketing ROI.
7 ways to improve your Shopify SMS marketing ROI
Driving ROI from a marketing channel can be tough. But let’s look at how you can get the most out of SMS marketing campaigns set up for Shopify stores:
1. Personalize your campaigns as per the customer’s lifecycle
Your customers are going to be at different stages in their customer journeys on your site. While some might be new shoppers who could convert to customers, others might be first time buyers, and others, loyal customers of years.
So, how should you send your marketing SMSes to all these different types of customers? If you send them the same SMS, it might not be relevant to them. For example, if you send an offer of a 10% discount on the first purchase, it won’t be relevant to customers who’ve been buying from your site for a long time or even those who’ve just made their first purchase.
This is where you’ll need segmentation.
Segmentation is a strategy used by eCommerce stores in which customers are identified and grouped into different segments. For example, potential customers, first time customers, customers who are part of your loyalty program, those that are on the verge of becoming a part, etc.
Seth Godin, author and dot com executive, is right when he says, “Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” 80% of customers expect brands to give them a personalized experience, relevant specifically to them.
So, this year, bring personalization into all your Shopify SMS marketing campaigns based on where your customers are in their journey with your brand. Here are a few examples to make it easy for you.
Text message for new SMS subscribers: Hey (first name), we’re so glad to have you join this SMS list. Let’s begin your journey with us with a 15% discount on your first purchase.
SMS for customers who have made one purchase: Hi (first name), we hope you liked the first product you bought from our site. Here are 50 store credits you can redeem on your next purchase.
Text message for customers who’ve made multiple purchases: Hi (first name), we’re offering our select clients a chance to join our loyalty program for free, and you’re one of them. To join, click here.
To perform tasks such as schedule, send, segment, etc, you need one more thing: the right tool. Tools and technology assist eCommerce store marketer in doing tasks more efficiently. One of the best Shopify SMS marketing apps is TxtCart. Apart from the regular tasks, the app can help you with the segmentation required for personalization.
2. Two-way communication
Communication is a two-way street. And this is true for eCommerce marketing as well. Gone are the days when brands spoke and customers listened. Today, customers want to be able to speak back to brands.
Take for example this scenario: You send out an SMS about a new collection you’ve launched. Your SMS subscribers might have many questions. They might want to know if they can avail any discounts, or if they can use a gift card to make a purchase from the new collection, etc.
But unless they are able to text back to you and ask you, they won’t be able to get their doubts cleared. If you don’t allow two-way communication, it might leave a bad impression of your brand on your subscribers.
And this is where TxtCart comes into the picture. Most SMS apps allow only one-way communication. But with TxtCart, you can enable two-way conversations for customers.
TxtCart does it with the help of a team of live agents. This means, your subscribers get to chat with an actual human, not an automated bot.
The more questions you reply to through TxtCart, the higher your chances of conversions and the higher is your SMS marketing ROI.
Here’s what you can do with a two-way campaign with TxtCart:
- Have live TxtCart agents answer subscribers’ questions
- Your subscribers can reply back and have a conversation with an actually human
- Customers can ask questions, clear their doubts, and gather more information
- More conversations mean more conversions and sales
An example:
3. Set up automations
Studies show that brands using marketing automation to nurture prospects have driven a 451% increase in quality leads.
Automation works for eCommerce stores and has many benefits – it can help generate better leads, enable personalization of customers’ journey, help collect data to make informed decisions, measure and monitor SMS marketing metrics and create a 360 degree view of your marketing and sales workflow.
Automation brings us to another important aspect – the need to set it up across marketing tasks and campaigns.
For example, instead of using SMS automation for one-off promotions, you can automate all other tasks such as: cart recovery, follow-up text messages, customer engagement campaigns, pre-orders, sales and discounts campaigns, etc.
There are many benefits of doing this:
- The different departments and teams in your organization will not work in silos but as one
- You can get a birds-eye view of your marketing efforts
- You can gather incredible insight from all different campaigns and apply it to personalize and create targeted campaigns
- You get to achieve a much higher SMS marketing ROI
4. Monitor SMS marketing campaign results
You might be running many Shopify SMS marketing campaigns. And might be under the impression that they’re performing well. Until… you care to monitor and measure your SMS marketing metrics. We’re talking about analytics.
How does monitoring and analytics help improve SMS marketing ROI?
- It shows you the performance of your campaigns
- It shows you what’s working and what’s not
- Helps you optimize campaigns so you can target better leads
- Provides insights into customer behavior
- Helps you assess how different customer segments respond to different campaigns
All the above can help you improve your marketing campaigns and generate more sales. The result: improved ROI. But you’ll need a powerful eCommerce SMS marketing app for that.
TxtCart is designed to offer effective analytics – from total opens, clicks, opt-outs, to orders, and more – the Shopify SMS marketing app helps you get an overview of your marketing campaigns.
Here’s TxtCart’s innovative dashboard to track data, share insights and analytics for tracking SMS marketing ROI:
5. Integrate with other marketing channels
eCommerce SMS marketing has high potential for conversions. But it is crucial to implement the right strategies. An important aspect of running SMS campaigns is integration.
Rather than having different campaigns work in silos, make sure you bring all your channel campaigns together with the help of integration.
For example, your email marketing, social media marketing, paid ads, Messenger marketing and SMS should all complement each other. Every channel has its plus points and can add value to your SMS campaigns.
By integrating all your marketing channels with SMS, you’ll have an overview of your customers’ interactions on all of your channels. You’ll know exactly at what stage the customer is in their journey. This way, you’ll know what to do to take your customer deeper into the funnel.
Here are some ways to integrate SMS with other marketing channels to double your SMS marketing ROI:
- If a customer stops opening or engaging with your emails, follow up with them via SMS
- Cross promote campaigns of other channels through SMS and vice versa
- Treat each channel as exclusive. For example, don’t duplicate offers meant only for SMS subscribers for your email list as well
Whether you want to integrate SMS with all other channels or just one or two, you will need a powerful tool that allows seamless integration. That’s where TxtCart comes in!
The app offers a plug and play solution for your Shopify SMS marketing. It auto-syncs with your existing apps and systems, which means it captures customer information in a timely manner.
6. Get experts to help with your SMS marketing ROI
Many eCommerce businesses face the ‘in-house versus external help’ dilemma when it comes to marketing. Setting up marketing teams for different channels can get expensive if you can’t find the right all-rounder experts.
In comparison, investing in a software tool is easier, cost-effective, scalable, and can do much more than you might have imagined. If you’re new to SMS or don’t know how to improve campaigns, the best thing for you to do would be to reach out to experts.
The right SMS partner can help you ace eCommerce SMS marketing strategies. TxtCart is that expert!
- The app is designed to help recover abandoned carts, thus improves ROI
- Helps you create engaging SMS campaigns
- Generates unique one-time discount codes
- Offers in-depth SMS marketing ROI analytics to track revenue
- Enables two-way conversations via live agents
- Sends reminder messages
- Integrates seamlessly with other channels
- Enables segmentation of your subscribers
- Drive much higher SMS marketing ROI
7. Keep your SMS strategy compliant
When it comes to sending SMS, you have to be extra careful. If you send a text message to a number that didn’t sign up, it might have legal consequences. Not just that, your campaigns could get blocked, which will affect your business adversely.
The correct way to go about SMS marketing is to comply with privacy and security rules and regulations. If you’re looking for a Shopify SMS marketing app that has compliance factors in-built, you’re in luck with TxtCart.
- TxtCart follows the US TCPA (The Telephone Consumer Protection Act) and GDPR (The General Data Protection Regulation) regulations
- It automates compliance in the background so that you do not have to reach out to your customers especially for that
- TxtCart ensures your Shopify store SMS marketing is always compliant so that you can be carefree and focus on other strategies
Final thoughts on SMS marketing ROI
Including an SMS marketing app in your SMS strategy early in the process can help you ensure all your marketing tasks are aligned from the start. To drive results from the start, you need the best Shopify SMS marketing app – TxtCart.
Install TxtCart on your Shopify store today!
Recommended read: How to improve your SMS response rate for a higher SMS marketing ROI
