SMS marketing has its reach and engagement advantages. However, when you try putting yourself in your customers’ shoes, you can only imagine how overwhelming it can get when your inbox fills up with a bunch of promotional messages from all the brands you’ve opted into.
At some point, you’re going to feel like opting out of your chosen brands’ SMS loop.
Now, let’s get you back into your eCommerce store owner’s shoes. The question now arises—how can you still make effective use of SMS marketing without blending into the ocean of marketing messages?
SMS Marketing Can Be More Than Just Pure Promotion
Just because your customers expect promotional messages from you during a sale doesn’t mean that’s all you should give them. You’ll need to make your brand’s messages stand out from the crowd.
In order to add more value to your SMS campaigns, avoid turning it into an SMS version of your email marketing campaigns. With that said, here are three creative ways you can use your SMS marketing to engage your customers.
1. Boost List Growth with Exclusivity
Exclusivity is a great incentive to encourage your customers to opt-in for important and relevant messages. Give your SMS channel more value by sending your promotions and special VIP deals (like early access offers) exclusively via SMS.
Also, create unique keywords to segment SMS subscribers into their own lists. This ensures you’re focusing your special content messages on customers who’ve opted for your SMS messages.
2. Use SMS to Find the Perfect Gift
Sale events—like Black Friday and Cyber Monday—are fun, but they can also stress out some of your customers. Plenty of choices can overwhelm your customers, so why not help them out?
Lead your SMS subscribers by sending your online store gift guides via SMS. This way, you’re giving them some great starting choices to guide their shopping.
You can also use keyword-triggered automation in your SMS marketing. Streamline the customer experience by making it easier for your customers to find the products that they’re looking for.
All of this helps maintain the relevance of your SMS messages.
3. Customize Your Automations
As we’ve hinted earlier, automation goes hand-in-hand with your SMS marketing. To make your SMS message even more special, why not customize your automations accordingly?
Set up your abandoned cart flow to be exclusive to BFCM deals, products, or sales. You can also customize your post-purchase flows based on the promotion that drove the sale.
This adds another level of personalization to your SMS messages, making them more engaging for your customers. The effect? Your customers won’t feel the need to ignore your SMS messages even when they’ve already received similar messages through email or other marketing channels.
SMS Marketing Adds More Flavor to Your Overall Marketing Framework
Just like our lifecycle marketing framework, there is more to a successful sale than just pushing purely sales campaigns. SMS marketing can be more than just promotional messages.
With these three creative ways to use SMS marketing, you can give your SMS efforts more value in the eyes of your customers—separating your brand from the rest of the generic promotional SMS flood.
SMS marketing is one of the marketing channels you need in your omnichannel marketing strategies. It also only covers part of the lifecycle marketing framework. As a premier eCommerce marketing agency, we at Chronos Agency believe that long-term and sustainable brand growth comes from having a strong and healthy customer base.
Are your team’s hands full with all the BFCM game plan brainstorming? Let us shoulder all your lifecycle marketing efforts! Just schedule a free strategy call with us and we’ll find what your online store needs to stand out and win big this BFCM.
