Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

In an era of information overload, the biggest challenge for e-commerce businesses is making their brand stand out to their target audience. SMS marketing software provides e-commerce businesses with the opportunity to effectively cut through the digital environment cluttered with promotional messages and reach the right audience.

The average user encounters a significant amount of promotional content on social media and in their inbox.

What is SMS Marketing?

SMS marketing is a marketing channel that allows you to send promotional content to your customers via messages sent through SMS software. Users consent to receiving messages sent by the company and can unsubscribe at any time.

E-commerce businesses can use SMS marketing to send their latest offers, updates on new products, surveys, and more. But SMS marketing is not limited to just sending promotional content. You can also send SMS instead of emails to confirm a payment, update a delivery status, respond to customer inquiries, and more.

Why You Should Start Using SMS Marketing for Your E-commerce Business

A Mobile-First Service

Mobile phones are a decisive intermediary for web traffic, especially for e-commerce. 52.2% of all internet traffic worldwide comes from mobile phones. The impact of a mobile-centric channel is even greater when considering the share of mobile phones in global online retail sales, which is expected to reach 72.9% in 2021.

SMS messaging is an inherently mobile-based service, allowing your marketing efforts to align with trends that favor mobile marketing channels.

Instant Communication

SMS has a 98% open rate, and only a 1% chance of being treated as spamFurthermore, unlike emails and social media, receiving an SMS in real time does not require the user to have an internet connection. SMS messages are delivered instantly, and 90% of them are read within 3 minutes of being received.

The speed and effectiveness of SMS marketing make it an ideal solution for sending time-sensitive offers or flash sale alerts to your customers.

High Engagement

The response rate for SMS is 45%, compared to just 8% for email. The click-through rate is also higher for SMS, at 36%, compared to 3.4% for email.

High response and click-through rates allow you to effectively engage your customers and drive traffic to your e-commerce site. SMS messages that remind your customers of their unfinished purchases can also reduce cart abandonment rates.

High Efficiency

When it comes to customer service, SMS has been proven to be the most effective communication channel. Unlike phone-based customer support, companies do not need 24/7 support staff to respond to customers. Customers can send their inquiries via SMS in a few sentences, without dealing with the hassle of busy lines or automated phone systems. Furthermore, more than 50% of customers prefer texting over calling customer service.

Switching to SMS-based customer service saves time and money, making it a more efficient medium than email or phone calls.

Building Trust

SMS marketing can be a major tool for boosting customer loyalty by establishing a closer connection with your customers. Having a solid SMS marketing plan allows brands to have personalized interactions with their customers, which is a particularly attractive feature for an online retail business.

You can also receive feedback and reviews on your products or services via SMS, and automate the process of posting those responses to your site. If a review highlights an issue that requires your attention, you can send an automated SMS once it has been resolved. This will reassure your customers and help you build a solid customer base. Additionally, SMS is the preferred communication channel for customers to receive loyalty messages from brands.

What to Look for in SMS Marketing Software

Bulk Messaging

Regardless of the size of your e-commerce business, your SMS marketing software must include a bulk messaging feature. Sending SMS in bulk allows you to efficiently broadcast your message to all your contacts at once. For example, if you are offering site-wide discounts that everyone is eligible for, you might need to send a text to hundreds or even thousands of people. Bulk messaging is extremely useful in these situations.

SMS Scheduling

SMS marketing software should allow you to schedule multiple messages in advance to be sent at different times. This helps ensure that all promotional messages in your SMS marketing plan reach their target audience during peak hours. You can also use it to send periodic reminders to your customers regarding abandoned carts or offer expiration dates.

Data Analytics

To ensure maximum effectiveness for your sales efforts, find SMS marketing software that provides detailed reports to track your e-commerce campaign performance. You should be able to access statistics such as the number of messages sent and opened, or the number of users who clicked on the links you sent. Some software also allows you to segment your customers based on demographic, geographic, or behavioral data.

Personalization

One of the most important aspects of SMS marketing is the ability to personalize promotional messages. Your SMS marketing software should allow you to automatically personalize texts by replacing a variable in your message template for each user.

For example, you can personalize a message by adding the customer's first name, like this: "Congratulations Eugene, your purchase is confirmed. You will receive your product within two business days."

If you are looking for different types of personalization, Octopush offers a service called SMS Pro, which allows the sender of your SMS to become instantly identifiable to your customers.

Integration

To have an effective and automated SMS marketing plan, you must choose software that can integrate with other applications such as CRMs, Customer Data Platforms, and other multi-channel marketing applications.

This will allow you to automate certain tasks, such as purchase confirmations, abandoned cart alerts, and more. Look for software that offers easy API integration and ensures a streamlined SMS marketing process.

Two-Way Communication

A survey shows that approximately 75% of consumers are frustrated when they cannot reply to a brand's SMS due to the no-reply messaging systems used by many companies. Find SMS marketing software that can receive and record your customers' responses for every SMS sent.

Security and Privacy

During the data generation process for campaigns, a range of customer data is collected by SMS marketing software. Much of this is private information, such as purchasing behavior, which means it must be protected. You must ensure that your SMS marketing provider is GDPR compliant and guarantees the security of collected data in accordance with applicable laws.

Pricing

Undoubtedly, pricing plays a significant role in choosing SMS marketing software. While some companies offer a free version of their software, these are often limited in functionality. Pricing for this software varies based on several factors, such as the features offered, the number of messages sent, the maximum database size, and more.

The 7 Best SMS Software

Octopush

Octopush can meet your bulk SMS needs for your e-commerce business, regardless of its size. Although Octopush does not have a free version, you can take advantage of a free trial. Its rates start at €0.04 per SMS, with bundled offers starting at €12 for 300 SMS.

Octopush also offers services such as SMS 2.0 (SMS with a dedicated landing page), voice SMS, and, of course, SMS Pro, which is the perfect tool for those who want to analyze the impact of their campaigns.

Octopush’s SMS Pro is an ideal service for e-commerce, featuring capabilities such as sending transactional SMS, follow-up messages, reminders, one-time passwords, alert messages, and more.

You can also integrate and manage all your text message sends directly from your software and applications using its API. Octopush also implements all technical and organizational measures to ensure the security and confidentiality of its users' and recipients' personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Simpletexting

Simpletexting allows you to send group messages, conduct surveys, provide customer service, create automated campaigns, and more. SimpleTexting does not have a free version but offers a free trial. Its paid version starts at $25 per month. Their annual plan can save you 25%.

Although it is a rather expensive option, Simpletexting offers useful features such as two-way messaging, message personalization and scheduling, data analytics, and more.

Txt180

TXT180 is an affordable and easy-to-use cloud-based bulk SMS marketing software. TXT180 allows you to use services such as an autoresponder, recurring and drip messages, a message scheduler, contest or survey SMS, and more.

Pricing starts at an affordable rate of $14.95 per month after a 15-day free trial. TXT180 lacks features like message personalization or MMS. Additionally, a strict 160-character limit may not be suitable for all types of campaigns.

Omnisend

Omnisend is a platform specializing in marketing automation for the e-commerce sector. It enables the sending of personalized messages to all your customers through its powerful, automated workflow. You can grow your subscriber list using a wide variety of sign-up forms.

Omnisend offers a free version and a free trial. The paid version starts at $16 per month and depends on your number of subscribers.

Although Omnisend includes features like message personalization and scheduling, as well as two-way messaging, you cannot send MMS, surveys, or use shortcodes.

EZ Texting

EZ Texting is a cloud-based platform that offers bulk SMS and MMS services, delivery reports, reminder campaigns, polls, keywords, and the ability to send text messages to landlines.

EZ Texting offers a free version and a free trial. The paid version, which includes all features, is quite expensive, starting at $49 per month (1,000 messages, 1 keyword, and MMS enabled), with no annual subscription options available.

SlickText

SlickText is a powerful, user-friendly platform with numerous features that works on all devices. You can schedule and send bulk messages, send automated responses, run SMS contests, and integrate it with Facebook.

SlickText offers a free version and a free trial. The basic paid version starts at $29 per month.

ProTexting

ProTexting is an SMS marketing platform that allows you to send mobile polls. This tool features a URL shortener and offers two-way communication, drip marketing, and more. Although ProTexting includes features like MMS and shortcodes, the software lacks useful functions such as two-way SMS, as well as message scheduling and personalization.

Pricing starts at $49 per month. ProTexting does not offer a free version or a free trial.

Conclusion

SMS marketing is a powerful way to reach your target audience. However, manually sending messages to hundreds or even thousands of customers at once is tedious and costly. Therefore, an effective SMS marketing tool is an essential component of a solid SMS marketing plan.

You can refer to the list of SMS marketing software above to find a tool that meets your needs. Integrating an SMS marketing plan will not only help your e-commerce business engage with and get closer to your customers, but also provide them with a seamless shopping experience.

Octopush offers SMS Pro, a service that allows you to send optimized SMS campaigns for effective communication, ensuring a better brand image. Furthermore, its instant delivery speed makes it a necessary tool for sending transactional messages.

Octopush offers premium features at a low price, making it a reliable tool for increasing your return on investment in a short amount of time.

Take advantage of your SMS marketing campaign today by creating a free account on Octopush!