Retail businesses like yours face fierce competition in the industry, courtesy of the several market aggregators accessible these days. What can set you apart from your peers is your marketing strategy. But if you’re still limited to social media and email marketing, you’re missing big opportunities. Opportunities that can drop your message right into the hands of your audience.
Yes, you heard that right. Not being ignored, getting read 98% of the instances is possible. All you need is to deploy MMS and SMS marketing. This post discusses how you can boost sales in retail business and win your users’ loyalty.
How to Drive Sales with SMS Marketing in Retail
- Build (And Grow) a Subscriber List
Whether you’re beginning or foraying with SMS marketing for some time, a subscriber list is indispensable.
Seek permission from your customers on your website, mobile app, social media posts, and in-store to add their contact in your database. For retail businesses, asking users during checkout is a great way to get their consent.
Remember, sending them shipment updates is a part of order completion but doesn’t give you special permission for SMS marketing.
- Segment Your Target Audience
To increase profits in the retail business, you must know your customers well. That means your customer segments should be super refined. Know your users based on their preferences, buying history, and mindsets, not just demographics, and send relevant and personalized messages for more sales.
Make your database relevant such that you can mark all these fields and filter your list based on various parameters.
Say, you might find a very small number of users who only buy expensive fashion accessories from specific areas. But such users might bring in a lot of sales with one swipe.
- Run a Pilot
If you’re testing text marketing for the first time, try running a pilot program to understand what you can and shouldn’t do.
Define your goals—short-term to start with—and plan your first run. Choose a reliable partner like Textmunication for a free trial.
To maximize your trial period, create a simple campaign and launch it for your target audience without apprehensions. Measure your results and repeat with changes.
- Design Crisp Messages that Compel to Buy
SMS doesn’t provide you enough space to write longer messages like emails. But this is the power of text marketing. It brings more rewards with just 160 characters.
Only if you do it well.
There’s no space for preambles. You come right on point with an attention-grabbing, clear, and concise message with benefits users get and the CTA to act immediately.
- Update Order Status and Automate Messages
Update your subscribers’ delivery status from the transactional data to dispatch and delivery to the last mile. You can even share your delivery person’s contact information so users can talk to them.
Textmunication helps you automate SMS deliveries on triggers such as welcome messages, abandoned carts, stock replenishment, or customer support queries. Such small gestures with an SMS update help your customers develop more trust in your brand.
- Offer Exclusive Promotions
You might have hundreds of thousands of subscribers for your emails. But SMS is a sensitive game as phone numbers are personal. So, sharing customized deals with this small group makes them feel more pampered.
Release updates on your festive sale to your SMS users before other marketing avenues. Open doors for exclusive offers 24 hours before the actual sale period. Or send your SMS subscribers singular coupons for repeat business.
- Bank on MMS Marketing
MMS marketing can improve user experience with images, GIFs, videos, and infographics. To hook users, you can embed video reviews for abandoned cart items in an SMS. Maybe add images of the latest apparel designs to hook your customers.
Make your brand engagement more enriching with MMS features. Here is how you can add a visual touch using MMS marketing to attract more users.
- Monitor and Analyze Data
Nothing works better than fact-based actions. Monitor the results of your SMS campaigns and use them to communicate with executives and the marketing teams. Track each campaign religiously and analyze what was spot-on and what could be improved.
Here are the primary SMS marketing KPIs you should monitor.
Driving Loyalty with SMS Marketing in Retail
While most of the points above work well to win customers’ loyalty, here’re more tips to win users’ loyalty.
- Personalize Messages
Your loyal customers need something extra and exclusive, much more than an occasional or one-time user, to generate repeat business. And we aren’t only talking about a payback by monetizing.
Personalize your messages to make them feel special. Make sure what you’re sending them suits their preferences and demands. There’s hardly any profit in sharing offers on ACs when your users live in cold climates.
Know your users and learn about them through feedback and surveys, personality tests, and purchase history. Personalization creates new bonds and forges older bonds with new energy.
- Integrate with Other Channels
Have you considered reaching out to your loyal customers via other channels?
Fans of your brands wouldn’t mind connecting with you on social media and emails. So, give them an omnichannel experience and express the same thoughts on all the channels. This tactic also helps you remain in their minds so they don’t switch brands.
Combine social media with SMS marketing to enhance customer experience.
- Jam with Premium Members in Exclusive Clubs
Make exclusive clubs with your old and loyal customers. Create rewards focused on their shopping patterns and likings. Give them some reason to stick around. For instance, offer them an extra discount over the already running ones.
Prove them access to exclusive content before anyone else, like newly-launched products. A customized approach to delivery, bespoke messages on special days, and additional referral benefits.
- Gamify SMS and MMS Rewards
Once you know who your loyal buyers are, let them participate in raffles and contests. Seek feedback from them to tailor-make your products according to their likings. Incentivize their loyalty and render personalized experience to strengthen the bond between them and your brand.
Ready to Spike the Sales in Your Retail Business?
Now that you know how to set up SMS marketing and refine the existing strategy with proven tips, we hope you’d love to share your thoughts and experiences. Should you need a marketing partner, the Textmunication team is a form away.
