Tag: SMS Marketing

These days, modern marketing involves looking into a range of communication channels, such as social media, search ads, email, websites, and more. However, many brands and businesses miss out on one of the most important channels they can consider for growth—SMS marketing.   

Think about it. Communicating through text messages is far easier, feels more personalized, and is more accessible to mobile consumers—both smartphone and non-smartphone users—since it’s a passively active channel. In comparison with social media ads, search ads, email, and website, your audience would need to be actively using these channels to get your message. 

Mobile marketing is an excellent way to break through the noise and draws in your target audience’s attention quickly. Thought email brought it good ROI? Think again. Statistics show that SMS marketing campaigns perform up to 7x better than email marketing campaigns. 

Still on the fence about it? Don’t fret.

We’ve gathered a few SMS marketing success stories that will inspire you to reconsider the benefits this channel can bring for your business. 

The Proof is in the Pudding with SMS Marketing 

Seattle Sun Tan 

Seattle Sun Tan used SMS marketing to notify customers of offers and discounts. The amazing thing about their success is the fact that they didn’t have a database of customers’ mobile numbers before trying out a text marketing service. This means they built their database from scratch.

The team promoted their text campaign in-store, to their pre-existing email database, on their website, and other channels. Not long after, they were able to grow their SMS subscribers to exactly 4,774 in 30 days. Their initial SMS campaign offered new text subscribers $20 off their next purchase, and it saw a redemption rate of 57% and generated about $196,100 in sales. What’s more impressive is customers who claimed the SMS offer also spent $500 more than those who didn’t receive the text offers. 

Offers, discounts, coupons, and other gift campaigns that attract impressive redemption rates are some of the best uses of text marketing. Thanks to the direct and immediate nature of text messaging, these time-sensitive messages are almost guaranteed to reach your customers and get read right away. By leveraging the power of SMS to offer irresistible deals and promotions, you can build stronger relationships with your customers, boost your sales, and grow your business.

Eu Natural 

Eu Natural, a herbal supplement brand, used text messaging to draw in additional sales, retain customers after their initial purchase, and offer exclusive promos. Their initial campaign involved encouraging customers to text in an exclusive customer keyword to redeem a free bottle with their purchase. This free bottle promotion that ran for months permanently increased their customer base, as a large portion of them came back for more. 

They also used SMS marketing for time-sensitive alerts, such as their Black Friday campaign, which registered a 563% ROI. SMS marketing has also helped Eu Natural to create their exclusive inner circle community, where VIP and loyal customers get to access special messages, be the first to find out about new products, and get exclusive discounts and freebies. 

With text marketing, you can be sure that your customers will receive and read your messages right away, making it ideal for time-sensitive announcements like product launches, limited-time promos, sales offers, and coupons. By leveraging the power of text marketing, you can get your message out quickly and effectively, driving engagement and conversions with ease.

4theCultr

 

4theCultr is a relatively new superstore that helps bridge the gap between consumers and black-owned businesses. They used text marketing to connect with customers and provide the best experience possible, as it’s one of the brand’s primary missions. 

They aim to make a positive impression from the first point of contact, which is when someone opt-ins to their SMS marketing. One of the ways to generate subscribers is through checkout, and it proves effective since 86% of their customers that have subscribed to their text marketing did so at checkout. 

They also started to send abandoned cart notifications within 30 minutes of leaving their cart along with an acknowledgement of their current situation (i.e., difficult times brought by the pandemic). This first automation step pulled in an 18% CTR with a conversion rate of 100%. With the psychological touch-point and abandonment reminders through SMS, customers ended up pushing through with their order. 

SMS marketing helps you realize the importance of communication from the moment they opt-in to post-purchase care. Being understanding of their situation and keeping them in the loop at every stage of their customer journey builds trust and loyalty that lasts for years to come, which can be better achieved with a personal channel like SMS at your disposal. 

Dreamland Baby 

Dreamland Baby was founded by a mother of four, who aimed to help other parents (and babies) out there get a more restful sleep with a weighted blanket. They used social media to drive traffic, but not a lot of visitors made it to checkout, so they enlisted the help of text marketing to encourage customers to check out their cart. 

When Dreamland Baby started using text marketing and sent out its first SMS marketing campaign, their ROI was an astonishing 2000%, with their first month’s sales climbing up to 300%. Tara Williams, their founder, said the boost in numbers was possible due to customers being exposed to promotions from different channels, with text messaging as the final call-to-action personal approach that helps seal the deal. 

Since 94% of Dreamland Baby’s audience were on mobile, SMS marketing made it easier and convenient to reach them instantly compared to email campaigns. With text messaging, customers get to see a personalized message along with a discount code immediately. 

With the power of targeted, personalized SMS campaigns, you can re-engage even the most disengaged customers and bring them back into the fold. Whether it’s reminding them about an exclusive offer they might have missed or simply offering a friendly nudge to visit your website again, SMS campaigns are a powerful tool for rekindling customer relationships and driving long-term engagement.

Yesterday’s Books 

Yesterday’s Books is the largest independent bookshop in California and has been around for decades. Instead of setting up an e-commerce store, they opted to have their landline number text-enabled to manage customer orders. 

The bookstore started using SMS marketing to continue its operations during the pandemic in 2020. Initially, the store owner set up an online form where customers could place their book request. However, problems like customers missing the response and lags between the follow-up and customer’s response with the approach kept happening. Since their customers had known their landline for 40 years, they had it text-enabled. 

This allowed the owner to follow up with book requests by SMS. The primary upside to shifting to text was the speed of response. Around 90% of their customers appreciated their text messaging. The convenience and speed of text make it easy to manage orders and minimize the unnecessary back-and-forth with customers. 

The fast and direct nature of text messaging makes it a fantastic channel for delivering excellent customer service. You can even use SMS bots to address basic questions while directing complex and sensitive inquiries to your trained support team. 

Ready to Reconsider SMS Marketing? 

SMS marketing success stories, especially during recent times, prove that this channel is here to stay and it remains just as effective and efficient for boosting sales, improving the customer experience, and driving growth in support with other marketing channels. This indispensable medium’s targeted communication lets you have a 1-on-1 conversation with your customers like no other.

If you’re considering incorporating SMS into your marketing strategy, Semaphore can help you extend your reach without the complicated setup.

Ready to discover your success story with SMS marketing? Contact the SMS experts at Semaphore.

Messaging apps have become so popular that it’s not uncommon for people to have more than one of them on their phone. Given the ubiquity of these apps, you may think that SMS (short message service), more commonly known as text messages, is a thing of the past. But don’t jump to conclusions too soon.

The truth is, SMS is still very much alive. Unlike online messaging apps, there is no need to download anything to be able to send or receive text messages on the phone. Even without an internet connection, it’s possible to use regular text messaging service to reach out to people.

It’s no wonder that SMS has been gaining traction in the marketing world, with more and more companies using it to generate sales and grow their business. Just take a look at how the adoption rates of SMS marketing are growing:

• In 2018, the market size of SMS marketing in the United States was valued at $3.5 billion (the compound annual growth rate of SMS marketing is estimated at 20.3% from 2019 to 2025).
• Forecasts for 2023 estimate that there will be 3.5 trillion SMS business messages sent during this period, compared with 2.5 trillion business SMSs sent in 2019.

From these figures alone, it’s quite easy to see that people are recognizing the power of SMS marketing to rise alongside, or even outperform, other marketing channels. In line with this trend, here’s an infographic to help you realize the value of SMS marketing and learn how to effectively incorporate it into your growth strategies.

Getting to Know SMS Marketing 

How long ago did you last check your phone? Probably just a few minutes earlier, and chances are, as soon as you’re done reading this, the next thing you’ll do is to reach out for your phone and see if a new message has come in.

Similarly, your prospects and customers are in the habit of checking their phone often. In fact, a study that surveyed Americans found that, on average, 10% check their phones more than 20 times an hour.

With phones becoming more and more indispensable for a lot of people, text messaging can open a line of communication with customers. And when it comes to sending business messages to consumers, SMS marketing has the potential to be one of the most effective communication channels. 

What Makes SMS Marketing Good for Your Business?

1. SMS marketing yields positive results for your campaigns.

We cannot overemphasize how people are becoming more and more attached to their phone, which makes SMS marketing ideal not only for driving engagement, but also for increasing sales.

Text messages get opened and read almost immediately after they’re sent, which is incredible compared to their email counterparts. People read 98% of all SMS messages, but only 20% of emails. Likewise, people may choose not to answer your sales calls, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

On the contrary, mobile messaging lets you get instant feedback from customers as they reply to your message with a given keyword or click the link to a landing page on your website.

And if your offers are attractive enough for customers, they’re also highly likely to drive purchases. Altogether, these things make SMS marketing a profitable investment for your business.

2. SMS marketing answers consumers’ desire for personalization.

At some point, consumers may feel overwhelmed with all the information, content, or marketing messages that they receive, especially those that aren’t relevant to them.

Since SMS marketing enables you to reach customers directly on their mobile device, it feels like there’s a more personal touch to it. Of course, it’s also a must to customize your message based on what you know about them, including the links they’ve clicked, where they’re located, their past purchases, and any other preferences they’ve made clear.

3. SMS marketing ensures fast delivery of messages.

SMS marketing campaigns are pretty straightforward. After creating your message and choosing your contacts, your message gets pushed through an SMS gateway and delivered to customers straight on their mobile device. What this means is that in a matter of minutes, you’ll have spread the word about your brand, product, or service to your target audience.

You can send any of the following messages to people in your contact list:

• Campaign messages—These are text messages that you send in bulk to as many people as possible. They are promotional in nature, so anything under sales, events, or marketing news will fall under this category.
• Transactional messages—These are one-to-one messages that you send to subscribers when they complete a specific action. For example, when users place an order through your app, you can send them an order confirmation or status on their phone.
  

Tips for Effective SMS Marketing

Grow your database of contacts

There are multiple ways to do this: have your recipients text-in to a dedicated virtual number, sign up on your website or online store, or provide their contact number when they visit you in-store. Whichever strategy you use, make sure to always give customers a way to opt-in to or opt-out of your SMS campaigns.

Always include your company’s name in text messages

The messages you send out will typically show a number code or short code assigned to your business. Unless you specify your company name within your text, there could be no way for your recipients to know who the sender is. This may prevent your campaigns from getting the mileage you want.

Track your campaigns

The platform that SMS marketing service providers use allows you to track how many of your messages have been received, who’s clicking your links, what links they clicked, response rates, and so on. You can use these insights to determine if your messages are effective or if your campaigns are performing up to par, so you can plan for further improvements.

Take Advantage of SMS Marketing Today!

SMS marketing may be an underrated strategy, but it works great for many businesses that want to communicate with customers in a fast, easy, convenient, and personal manner. If you haven’t done so, don’t you think it’s time that you take advantage of SMS marketing?

 

Learn more about SMS marketing from Semaphore. We offer the most effective solutions in SMS marketing to help your overall business goals!

Performance measurement and analysis are important in any business strategy. The same goes with SMS marketing campaigns. Metrics allow you to determine whether your campaign reached its goals and targets.

By analyzing the key metrics relevant to your SMS gateway and knowing the industry standards for every metric, you can determine which areas of your campaign need improvement. Furthermore, you can adjust your targets to be more realistic and attainable for your campaign.

Check out our infographic to learn the 5 key metrics you need to measure when launching an SMS blast. Included are tips and fast facts that can help you boost your SMS performance.

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1. Delivery Rate

Your delivery rate pertains to the total number of messages successfully delivered out of the total number of recipients included in your SMS blast. It tells you how reliable your SMS marketing provider is. Cheaper SMS marketing platforms sometimes fail to send SMS messages successfully due to weaker infrastructure.

(Number of Successful Delivers / Total Number of Recipients)*100

It’s important to note that several factors are involved in the delivery of your SMS including the size and health of your contacts list, message frequency, and prepaid phone number composition. Cellular signal in specific areas of the country can also affect your delivery rate.

It’s easy for users to discard prepaid phone numbers and switch to a new one. This is especially common in the Philippines, where prepaid SIM cards are either given for free or sold for ₱10 to ₱50. Check your list health regularly to determine the active numbers from the inactive ones. Delete the inactive numbers from your contacts list to improve your delivery rate.

2. Opt-Out Rate

The opt-out rate shows the percentage of users who unsubscribed to your SMS marketing list after reading your text message. The average industry opt-out rate is usually below 5%. You don’t want to lose subscribers! A high opt-out rate tells you that you might need to take a second look at your campaign offering to improve retention rates.

(Number of Unsubscribes / Total Number of Recipients)*100

Some users don’t want to be bombarded with frequent messages, especially if they receive these messages during inopportune times. A high opt-out rate could also mean that you’re targeting the wrong audience, or your messages don’t provide value to your subscribers. Find a way to engage your users with compelling text messages.

Split testing your SMS campaign can help you isolate the areas for improvement, and decrease opt-out rate.

3. Response Rate

SMS has a 45% response rate while email only has a 6% response rate. This means that users respond to almost half of all text messages they receive on their mobile phones. Placing clear calls-to-action in your SMS message encourages subscribers to take the next step.

(Number of Users Who Responded / Number of Successful Deliveries)*100

If you’re reaping low response rates, the simplicity of your call-to-action may have something to do with it. Make sure to refrain from complicated requests. Provide clear instructions to avoid confusing your audience. Keep things easy and simple. You can even ask your subscribers to text back with a single word or code.

4. Click-Through Rate

The use of smartphones and mobile internet increases every year, enabling marketers to adopt multichannel marketing campaigns. If you include a website link in your SMS blast, you need to measure your click-through rate. According to recent surveys, the average click-through rate of URLs included in an SMS blast is at 36%.

(Number of Users Who Clicked / Number of Successful Deliveries)*100

If your campaign generates a low click-through rate, then take a second look at your target demographic. Do they use a cell phone or a smartphone? You may want to include this in your next SMS blast. Ask your subscribers if they own a cell phone or a smartphone. You can also try to determine whether your smartphone users have access to mobile internet, as this can greatly affect your click-through rate when using CTA links.

5. Conversion Rate

Conversion rate refers to the percentage of users who completed your goal by taking your desired action. This can pertain to when users sign up for a service, purchased a product, visited your store, clicked through to your website, or called your company.

(Number of Users Who Took Action / Number of Successful Deliveries)*100

Overall, the conversion rate tells you whether your SMS campaign is on the right track to generating leads and increasing your revenue. Industry standards show a 328% conversion rate for leads who are sent three or more text messages after their initial contact.

6. Unsubscribe Rate

SMS unsubscribe rate is the percentage of subscribers who opt-out of receiving SMS messages from your business. This is important because it indicates the level of engagement and satisfaction of your SMS subscribers. A high unsubscribe rate may indicate that your messaging is not resonating with your audience or that you are sending too many messages.

(Number of Subscribers who Opted-out / Total Subscribers)*100

To reduce SMS unsubscribe rates, businesses can take several steps such as ensuring that their messages are personalized, relevant, and valuable to the recipient, limiting the frequency of messages, and providing an easy opt-out option for subscribers.

Measuring the Right SMS Metrics

SMS is the fastest way to reach your target consumers or audience, as it is still the most popular messaging tool used by cellphone and smartphone users. Make sure that you’re tracking your progress by measuring the relevant SMS metrics.

Reach your bottom line faster with an SMS platform that delivers results. At Semaphore, we help businesses grow by providing an SMS service at low costs. Make sure that you partner up with a reliable SMS blasting service so that your SMS messages are sent to the right recipients instantly.

Contact the SMS experts at Semaphore to learn more about our Smart SMS Solutions for Businesses!