Over the years, text or SMS marketing has remained as an effective channel for ensuring your customers receive and read your communications directly. As a matter of fact, research shows that customers who receive text marketing campaigns are 40% more likely to convert than those who don’t.
When you deliver the right marketing campaign and trigger the right actions, SMS can be an excellent strategy to boost your conversions and win more customers through your SMS-specific conversion tactics. Roughly 96% of marketers using this channel say it increased their revenue, with nearly 60% saying it also drove revenue generation. With this, it’s a no-brainer to include SMS in your marketing efforts.
It can be challenging to nurture and generate returns from your SMS marketing efforts if your conversion rates aren’t looking good. This article details some of the most effective ways to increase your conversion rates and get better returns from your campaigns. Read on to learn more about how you can make the most out of marketing with SMS.
Conversion Rate Benchmarks
It’s always a good idea to look at data and see where your SMS campaign efforts stand—are they performing better than expected or below the industry average? Below are a few key statistics from Postscript to help you understand and build SMS marketing strategies to drive better conversions.
- Shops that offer inexpensive goods, consumables, and other regularly purchased necessities earn a 1%-3% conversion rate for SMS campaigns and 12%-23% for abandoned cart messages focused on repeat buyers, with $0.45-$1.62 and $6.89 – $15.27 earnings per message, respectively. In addition, data shows customers repurchase over 25% of the time.
- For occasional orders of affordable items such as clothing and beauty or skincare products, the conversion rate for abandoned cart messages and welcome series messages is 12%-20% and 3%-8%, respectively.
- For frequent splurges, such as luxury footwear and clothes, expensive cosmetics products, and other goods, abandoned cart messages get a 9%-21% conversion rate while post-purchase promotions receive 2%-6%. The average order value for these products is $100.
As you can see, in a mobile-driven society, text messaging is convenient for both businesses and consumers.
How to Improve Your SMS Conversion Rate
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Make it easy to interact with your SMS messages
The chances of conversion per message rise or fall depending on the content and delivery of the message. If it requires a lot of complex steps for the receiver to take action, the inconvenience can drive them away instead of encouraging them to convert. That’s why making it easy to interact is crucial to your strategy.
Use simple codes, shorten links, keep details short and straightforward, and use mobile-optimized landing pages to provide your customers with easy, seamless navigation when they act on your campaign.
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Add urgency to your message
Text messaging is direct, personal, and immediate, so ensure that your SMS marketing tactics provide that sense of urgency and real value to your customers.
For instance, if you have limited-time offers, you can send out a message a few days leading up to the event, a day before the event, and another one on the last day of the promotion. You can also send event marketing messages with a text code they can send if they want to be reminded on the day of the event.
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Include a clear CTA
Call-to-actions (CTAs) are crucial to any marketing campaign, including SMS marketing. Without a clear and effective CTA, your recipients wouldn’t know what action to take next. With a compelling CTA, you can successfully increase your SMS conversions. In fact, around 33% of SMS subscribers respond to CTAs in text campaigns, with 47% of them purchasing as a result.
From abandoned cart reminders, promotions, exclusive event sign-ups, and appointment reminders, your desired call-to-action should be clear. Some examples of good CTAs in text marketing include “click to learn more,” “text-to-win,” or “present this message for a discount.”
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Speak your audience’s language
Be careful and choose words that reach your target audience. In addition, make sure to craft an engaging intro for your message, as the first few words of your message will appear on the notification box and chat screen. This means your audience gets a glimpse of your marketing message right away, and if it’s not something that interests them, it won’t motivate them to click.
With SMS marketing, you have a character limit. Make drafting campaigns easier by using the language they use that fits the nature of texting. Avoid using evident branded messages. Instead, create clear and cohesive campaigns that are also fun. Much like email subject lines, the first ten words of your SMS conversion campaigns should bait and drive your audience to click through the text message.
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Keep your SMS database clean and up to date
Sending SMS marketing messages to invalid and inactive numbers mean the messages will never be read and reach your intended recipients. Therefore, it’s a waste of resources. This is where home location register (HLR) lookups come in handy for cleaning up your database.
Using HLR lookups enables you to gain data about your opt-in numbers, allowing you to check if the numbers in your database are reachable. This means you get to enhance your database quality and ensure that your time, efforts, and resources aren’t wasted. It can also help you measure your metrics and conversion rates more accurately.
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Send SMS messages more often
If you aim to increase your conversions, consider raising the number of your text marketing campaigns from your usual one or two to three or more. Be careful not to send too much—sending 20 messages per month can boost unsubscribe rates to 60%. Start with 4-5 campaigns per month or 1-2 messages weekly to see your customers’ response and campaign performance.
You might want to increase your campaigns during the holiday seasons, especially when you offer coupon codes and other exciting promos. Data shows that SMS databases experience the most growth during the holiday season at about 41% on average.
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Consider the time of day
The best time to send SMS campaigns differ for industries and businesses. Based on your campaign insights, success rates, and probability of conversion, schedule your text marketing campaigns at the ideal time.
It wouldn’t be optimal to send campaigns at midnight. There’s no default time for this, so make sure to check the performance of your previous campaigns. A smart tactic you can consider is sending messages at atypical times, e.g., 11:23 am instead of 12:00 noon on the dot, to avoid the flood of text campaigns from your competitors.
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Use triggered messages to trigger conversions
Triggered messages are a response to an action by your message recipient. These can help you nurture a better relationship with your customers and drive them to convert. For example, if a customer opts into your subscriber list, you can send them a welcome message that can trigger an action.
An example of this would be win-back messages like “It’s been a while since we last saw you. Here’s a special promo code [code] for a [percentage] discount. Click here: [URL]”
Welcome messages are also great opportunities to trigger action. For example, “Thanks for joining us! As a token of our appreciation, here’s a promo code [code] to get [percentage] off your first/next order! To unsubscribe, text STOP.”
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Utilize branded links
URL shorteners are lifesavers for marketers. However, look into replacing your generic URL shorteners with branded link shorteners to increase trust. Using branded links in SMS marketing campaigns can boost conversions by up to 34%.
Think about it. Recipients would trust links that contain businessname.com/holiday-promo instead of bit.ly/12345678. Apart from the fact that it looks nicer and more trustworthy, it also gives recipients an idea of what to expect when they click through.
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Deliver personalized messages
Your customers feel more valued when they receive messages tailored to them—their last interaction with your brand or when you last visited their store. You can do this by segmenting your subscribers based on, as mentioned, their previous interaction with your brand, such as their last purchase. This way, you can trigger the right response. Of course, make sure to create relevant message content per segment.
Convert Prospects into Customers with SMS
SMS marketing is an instant marketing channel for a fast-paced digital world. While it may sound restrictive, the 160 character limit for one text message with links and alerts gives you enough opportunity to market your latest offerings, increase brand awareness, build customer relationships, and drive SMS conversions. With the right approach, you can prompt the desired actions that help grow and streamline your brand.
Make sure to A/B test as well as track and monitor your campaigns and conversions to further improve your strategies. If you need a hand maximizing ROI from your SMS marketing campaigns in the, our SMS experts at Semaphore can help you out!
Head over to Semaphore to start refining your strategy and create customizable messages using reliable SMS marketing solutions!
