Text message marketing is a vastly underutilised tactic for ecommerce businesses. Text messages reach people directly and are harder to ignore than emails. Usually text message marketing is associated more with businesses like restaurants or gyms, however a proper strategy can lead to a nice boost in online sales for ecommerce websites too. Here are 3 SMS messaging best practices for ecommerce businesses.
1: Entice Customers To Sign Up
Much like email marketing, SMS marketing requires you to get some information from your customer. In this case it’s their phone number rather than their email address. To do this you can add phone number as a section of your online forms with a checkbox next to it stating that they are happy to have you send them offers. Adding a discount for signing up with their mobile number or informing your customers that they will receive special offers via text message can significantly increase the amount of sign ups.
2: Use Trackable URLs
For ecommerce businesses it’s vital to include trackable URLs within the text messages you will be sending out. They should bring the customer to the most relevant page for the message. For example if I ran an online shoe store and I sent out an offer via text message for 50% off Asics running shoes, the link should bring the customer directly to the page where the shoes and offer are located. The less clicks the potential customer has to carry out, the more likely they are to convert. These links should also be trackable so that you know where the sales are coming from and your cost per conversion.
3: Call To Action
Each text message should have a single purpose and a single call to action. Simple, straightforward messages work best and avoid any possible confusion. For example in the above scenario the ad could be “3B1 Shoe Store: Save 50% on Asics running shoes with our August sale (trackable link to relevant page)”. If you space left over avoid trying to fill it just for the sake of it, it can dilute the message and lower your conversions.
Start boosting your ecommerce conversions with SMS messaging today by getting customers to sign up with offers or discounts, using trackable URLs to send the customer directly to the offer in the message and by using a clear, single purpose call to action within each message.