Beginner’s Guide to Using SMS Marketing for Ecommerce

This step works much like the process of building an email list, and as such, it requires you to stay compliant with the many laws that govern each country. In the case of the US, your business must respect the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA). Among many provisions, this law stipulates that companies need to:

• Adhere to strict solicitation rules
• Honor the National Do Not Call Registry
• Provide information to recipients as to who’s messaging them and how they got their information

To stay compliant with TCPA, recipients must acknowledge and agree to your privacy policy, explaining in detail how your business will communicate with them, why you are doing so, and what your messages will be about. You must also make it easy for your subscribers to opt-out of your messages at any time.

With that point covered, you can start building your SMS list, and the first suggestion to consider is to use website popups by Getsitecontrol. Adding a popup to a website is easy, and it requires no coding knowledge. You can just click the example below (or the one above) and follow the prompts.

Once the popup is on your website, all you need is to integrate it with your SMS marketing app (more on that in a moment), so that new phone numbers go straight to the database.

Thanks to their versatility and pervasiveness, popups provide the same benefits as they do in your email list-building efforts: the setup is a complete no-brainer, and you have full control of when and how the popup will appear on your website.

Due to the popularity of SMS messages for product delivery updates, you should also collect your customers’ phone numbers on the checkout page.

Finally, you can create a shareable online form using a free tool like Getform and send it to your social media followers and email subscribers. To sweeten the deal for them, you can ask them to select what type of messages they want to sign up for — promotions, company news, etc.

Step 3. Choose your SMS marketing service provider

You need to sign up for an SMS marketing service provider to start sending SMS marketing campaigns. These services will allow you to create SMS messages, track the results of your SMS campaigns, and more. The most popular SMS marketing services you can use are:

• Twilio
• Campaigner
• TextMagic

Any of these services will let you deliver your SMS campaigns to the customers no matter where they are. You can also expand your SMS messages to MMS, WhatsApp, and more apps using their APIs and integrations.

According to Yotpo data, the costs these platforms charge you per message sit around one to five cents per text message (MMS message costs may be slightly higher). However, this data may vary depending on the provider you choose.

These platforms offer tiered pricing plans based on the number of messages you send per month or the size of your list.

Step 4. Write the text message (SMS)

Your text messages will depend on the campaign you chose in the first step. To give you an idea of how you should approach writing an SMS that performs well, we’ll go through some practical tips.

To start, you should make sure your SMS messages are personal. That means using the customer’s name when possible or any other attribute they have given you voluntarily. This is especially important if you send a highly personalized campaign, like a birthday or loyalty campaign.

As with any marketing message, your SMS messages must provide value to the customer. Since you have limited characters to use in your messages, you will have to focus on the value you want to provide, such as in the example below.

For most campaigns, you must allow the recipient to unsubscribe. As we mentioned earlier, compliance with the laws in which your business operates is crucial to keep your campaigns running for the long run.

Your SMS message must include a call to action (CTA) button that will direct customers back to your ecommerce store for more information, such as details about a product page or where they can go if they want to make a purchase.

Include a shortened link that leads your recipients to your store as part of your CTA. Make sure to add tracking to this link to measure your campaign’s performance in the next step.

Step 5. Measure the success of your SMS marketing campaigns

Once you’ve sent your SMS marketing campaign, you’ll want to measure the campaign’s success. Every SMS marketing software provider offers analytics capabilities, much like their email marketing counterparts. Some of the metrics you want to keep an eye on include:

• Delivery rate
• CTR
• Number of clicks
• Response rate
• Conversion rate
• Unsubscribe rate
• Number of conversions (e.g., sales)
• ROI
• Revenue

As you can see, an SMS marketing campaign shares most metrics with an email marketing one, except the open rate, which can’t be measured due to the lack of cookies.

To extract the most amount of data, integrate your SMS marketing provider with your web analytics software, such as Google Analytics. Google Analytics offers a custom conversion tracking feature that will allow you to track how many people purchased due to clicking on your SMS message.

Conclusion

SMS marketing is a great way to connect with customers and increase your sales. By following the steps in this guide, you can create SMS messages that will resonate with your audience and drive them back to your ecommerce store. Measure the success of your campaigns using the analytics provided by your SMS marketing software provider and use this data to improve your future campaigns.