How to Boost Ecommerce ROI With Texting
From abandoned cart reminders to flash sale alerts, SMS gives ecommerce brands a direct line to their customers at every stage of the buying journey. Industry-leading open rates mean your promotions get seen — and acted on.
What is SMS Marketing for E-Commerce?
E-commerce SMS marketing is the strategic use of text messages to engage your ecommerce customers directly on their mobile devices. Unlike generic SMS marketing, ecommerce SMS marketing is tailored to the unique needs of online retailers. It allows you to send targeted promotions, updates, and even personalized recommendations to customers who have opted in to receive such communications from you. The key element here is consent; customers must give you permission to send them text messages, ensuring that your outreach is both legal and welcomed.
SMS Marketing for E-Commerce Statistics
90%
90% of text messages are read within three minutes.
95%
95% of the 18-29 age-group uses text messaging.
66%
66% of all consumers prefer to be reached by brands with text messaging over any other means of communication.
Boost Your ROI with Ecommerce SMS
Unlock unparalleled ROI with ecommerce SMS marketing. Our e-commerce messaging platform allows you to reach customers on their preferred device: their mobile phones. With an exceptionally higher response rate than email, text message marketing gives e-commerce brands an incredible channel for driving sales.
Send Targeted Promotion Directly to Customers
Targeted promotions are one of the most powerful SMS marketing strategies for e-commerce brands. Textedly lets you send highly targeted promotional messages to specific customer segments. Whether you’re running a flash sale, exclusive discounts, or announcing a new product, our e-commerce SMS service lets you reach customers instantly.
Streamline Order Updates and Customer Service
E-commerce SMS goes beyond marketing. Text messaging also helps boost operational efficiency and customer service. Customers can receive real-time updates on their orders, from confirmation to shipping and delivery. Some platforms even allow for two-way communication, enabling customers to ask questions or resolve issues directly through text messages.
Uses for E-commerce Texts
- Welcome messages.
- Personalized text message campaigns.
- Mobile coupons.
- Product visuals.
- Text-to-win contests.
- Link to company website or social media pages.
- Promotional messages for special holiday products.
- Reminders of upcoming holidays for gift-giving.
- Teasers for new products soon to be released.
- Text-only deals.
Texting for E-Commerce: Key Terms
With Textedly, texting for e-commerce is simple; but familiarizing yourself with some of the commonly used text marketing terms is ideal before getting started with your first campaign.
SMS
The acronym SMS stands for short-message service. It's the most effective and efficient way to reach all or parts of your customer base.
MMS
With MMS, standing for multimedia messaging service, you can use multiple means of communication to include pictures, audio, and animation.
Keywords
You'll have to select a basic word that is a key association with your business or organization that users can text-in to your short code to opt-in for your text messages.
Campaigns
Similar to marketing campaigns whereby customers are reached via email, SMS campaigns are instantly accessed on their phones by those who have opted to join the program. They increase awareness of products, services, contests, and a myriad of other offerings and information which are limited only by imagination.
Subscribers
This is the contact list of people in your database who have given you permission to receive SMS texts. You can easily convert your email subscribers to SMS subscribers by sending them an email about this faster and more efficient service with an opt-in form where they can provide their cell phone number and an electronic signature to show they have approved of receiving messages this way.
Segments
Segmentation allows you to ensure that the most relevant information is getting to the group of people most likely to respond and have interest. It's used as a targeted marketing technique.
Templates
There's no need to rewrite all messages. You'll create templates that will allow you to store SMS messages for use in the future. For instance, a thank you for a subscription and a welcome to your SMS community of subscribers can be made into a template for time efficiency. Any updates or changes are made without having to rewrite the whole text.
Autoresponders
These are messages that go out automatically that you set to send messages to your subscribers or segments of them without having to do anything further.
Benefits of E-Commerce Texting
Once you get started, you will be able to add advantages from your own experience to this list. Until such time, below are some of the benefits you can expect from e-commerce texting:
- Engagement such as interaction with feedback.
- Broadest reach to any market.
- Reduction of need for time-consuming customer service calls.
- Reach millennial age group with unparalleled results.
- Increase customer loyalty.
- Personalized notifications.
- Fastest response times.
Textedly’s Ecommerce Messaging Features
With Textedly, texting for e-commerce is simple; but familiarizing yourself with some of the commonly used text marketing terms is ideal before getting started with your first campaign.
Send Abandoned Cart Reminders
Send SMS messages to customers who have abandoned their shopping carts, reminding them of their incomplete purchases and offering incentives to complete the transaction.
Create Loyalty Programs
Encourage repeat purchases with SMS loyalty programs that highlight the program benefits, rewards, and points earned.
Get Customer Reviews
SMS is a great way to get online reviews for your store. You can schedule text messages after a purchase asking for a review on whichever platform you’re selling on. Textedly has an integrated customer review software that streamlines the process.
Picture Messaging
Want to include images of products in your SMS marketing messages? With Textedly, you can send pictures within your text blast messages to showcase products or other offers with ease.
Instagram Texting
Ecommerce businesses thrive on Instagram, and our integration makes it easy for customers to text you directly from your Instagram profile.
Receive Payments
Are you selling wholesale to vendors? You can send an invoice using our text to pay service. Our platform is secure and easy to set up using your own merchant account.
How to Send E-Commerce Texts
Textedly provides an easy platform with software that basically does it all for you. The following steps will send you on your way to experiencing the lucrative marketing technique of sending e-commerce texts:
Sign Up For a Text Marketing Platform
Research text marketing platforms and sign up for one that seems best suited for your needs,
Upload Current List of Contacts
Once you have prospective or past customers that have opted-in, the next step is to upload or automate those names and phone numbers into the system. You can begin to segment these lists at this time as well.
Compile Text Templates
Start formulating messages that will be used again and again, including a thank you for opting to subscribe, product or service information, a calendar of events for which you can simply change dates and times as needed, and any other recurring information that you will want to send frequently.
Set Up a Campaign Keyword
Set up a keyword that's easily associated and remembered for your business and keywords for any marketing campaigns you are currently promoting for easy access to those who have expressed an interest in that information.
Promote Your Keyword
You can promote them in a variety of ways, depending on the avenue that works best for your e-commerce business. These are just few of many other ways to promote keywords:
- Post them on your website and social media pages.
- Include them in any direct mail advertising.
- Have them on customer invoices and receipts
- Pamphlets and flyers can note them.
- Send them in all your emails, including your email promotion for opting-in to SMS.
- Put them on business cards.
Send E-Commerce Texts
Now you're ready to send these texts to your subscribers. You'll probably agree this is the most fun part of the set-up because this is when you'll begin to see the amazing results.
Integrate Textedly With Ease
Textedly integrates with over 3,000 other apps that you’re already using. Streamline your real estate SMS campaigns by connecting popular tools like Mailchimp, Calendly and Zapier.
Examples of E-Commerce Messages
There could be a complete book written on e-commerce message examples alone, but we can include some ideas herein. Begin any of these with an appropriate salutation, including the person's name.
Why Users Love Textedly
User Friendly Service!
It is super easy to mass-import a contact list and use the keywords to identify different groups of contacts.
Top notch customer service!
I like how I can easily create messages and receive responses back when necessary. The customer service help has been top notch and so helpful. Pleased with ease of transition to group texts and integration into our company.
Earned My Trust and Future Business
My experience with Textedly's tech support was exceptional. They have certainly earned my trust and future business.
Sending SMS E-Commerce Messages With Textedly
If you are ready to start sending e-commerce SMS messages to boost sales on your site, Textedly is ready to help. Just sign up for our free 14-day trial to get set up with our easy-to-use text marketing dashboard.
