The e-commerce sector has seen significant growth in recent years, making WooCommerce SMS an essential communication channel for a variety of reasons that we list below.

The customer base is growing every day, as is the number of competitors in the e-commerce sector. Studies have shown that 9 out of 10 consumers prefer to communicate with businesses via SMS.

This is why, with a significant increase in the number of promotional messages a user receives each day, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make your product or service stand out.

This is where WooCommerce SMS notifications become an ideal opportunity for your store.

Differentiating Yourself in an SMS-Dominated Industry

There is no doubt that the mobile phone represents the future of marketing. The gradual shift of internet users toward mobile devices stems from the fact that approximately 73% of global internet traffic comes from smartphones.

For online shoppers, this shift is even more visible: 48% of French people make e-commerce purchases from their mobile phones.

Since SMS is an exclusively mobile service for the user, it allows your marketing efforts to overcome constantly shifting trends.

Reach your audience instantly

To receive an SMS in real time, users do not need to be connected to the internet: they can be reached at any time.

And if instant receipt of SMS isn't enough, 90% of all messages are read in under 3 minutes.

This efficiency and speed of sending marketing messages make SMS the perfect way to send WooCommerce order notifications via SMS, as well as important product updates to your customers.

Boost engagement with your brand

Beyond its exceptional open rate, the SMS response rate also beats email by a wide margin. SMS has an open rate of 36%, compared to 3.4% for email.

These rates are particularly useful if you need to send WooCommerce SMS messages to remind your customers about incomplete purchases.

Timely reminders will help you minimize your cart abandonment rate, boost your sales, and increase traffic to your website.

More personalized marketing communication

Personalizing your WooCommerce SMS communication is simple and rewarding.

You can customize a message to address your customers by their first name. For example:

Welcome to the team Thomas, you have agreed to receive SMS messages from Body Shop.

In addition to names, you can add the customer's order number, address, and more. You can also customize your sender name: the customer sees your brand name instead of a random number.

Octopush offers a service called Premium SMS that allows you to customize the SMS sender name so you are immediately identifiable to your customers.

Send scheduled advertisements

Planning promotional content can be complicated, and sticking to that schedule can be even harder. But thanks to scheduling features, you no longer need to wait for the perfect moment to send your WooCommerce promotional SMS in real time.

You can schedule one or more messages to be sent at different times according to your marketing plan.

Reaching your customers at a time when they are likely to read your messages will almost certainly boost their engagement.

Scheduling messages is particularly useful if you want to use WooCommerce SMS to send promotional messages during peak hours.

You can also schedule messages to send periodic reminders about abandoned carts or an offer that is about to expire.

Put your advertising on autopilot

While personalization and planning are essential to an effective marketing strategy, the lack of automation can be extremely resource-intensive. Furthermore, it is virtually impossible to send personalized messages individually to hundreds or even thousands of users without automation.

By integrating an SMS gateway into your online store, you can automate tasks such as purchase confirmations and abandoned cart alerts, ensuring a more seamless user experience for your customers.

Making the most of data analytics

Marketing is no longer a qualitative practice involving untargeted communication based on abstract data. Its evolution now allows for a data-driven approach to reach the ideal audience for your marketing plan.

Customer activity statistics from your past campaigns and user activity on your website will help you identify consumer intent, which is the key differentiator between good and excellent marketing campaigns.

Octopush helps you gather relevant data and measure the impact of your campaigns with its powerful analytics tool, allowing you to get the most out of your WooCommerce SMS marketing campaigns.

Several proven tactics to leverage WooCommerce SMS

Automating message delivery requires a WooCommerce SMS plugin like the one provided by Octopush, which can be integrated into your WooCommerce store to optimize your SMS marketing plan.

You can send SMS to over 196 countries at the best prices.

Recover abandoned carts

One of the biggest headaches for e-commerce businesses is cart abandonment. In France, the average cart abandonment rate is 75%. This means that three out of four people do not complete their purchases after adding products to their cart.

This represents many missed opportunities and more loss than gain.

While cart abandonment cannot be entirely stopped, as some customers who abandon their carts never intended to buy, it can be partially recovered. You can use automated SMS to send a reminder after a cart is abandoned on your WooCommerce store.

This can help you recover carts from people who intended to buy but were unable to do so for some reason. You can send a message like this:

Hi Greg. We’ve saved your cart so you can complete your order whenever you’re ready. Click the link to head to checkout.

It’s unlikely you’ll be able to recover 60-70% of lost revenue. However, recovering 10-15% is still a very strong rate.

Track WooCommerce wishlists

WooCommerce SMS can also be used to send wishlist-related alerts. This allows guests and customers to create and add products they want to buy later.

Since the goal of a wishlist is to bring customers back to your site, why not give them a little nudge to remind them they have pending purchases?

You can periodically send WooCommerce SMS messages about products they’ve added to their wishlist, or alerts when discounts or offers become available for any of those items. Your messages could look like this:

Hi Anne. Great news! Get 30% off the items on your Valentine’s Day wishlist until February 13th. Click here before the sale ends!

Tracking online wishlists will help you increase sales by converting potential customers into actual ones, simply by encouraging them to follow through on their purchase intent.

Back-in-stock alerts

Sometimes, customers who intend to buy can’t place an order because a product is out of stock. If you aren’t careful, this can lead to lost revenue.

You can track this activity on your site and notify the customer via WooCommerce SMS when the product is back in stock. Restocks based on product size, color, or style are also important details to include if necessary.

You can automate the process of sending SMS alerts immediately after a product is restocked, with a message like:

Hi Louis, we’re happy to let you know that the 511 series in size M is back in stock. Click here to order it before it sells out again!

Notifying your customers about the availability of a product they intended to buy will help boost your conversion and customer retention rates.

Track orders

The most stressful phase of the shopping process for a customer is delivery.

Unlike a physical store, they don’t walk away with the product immediately after purchase. It’s only natural for customers to be anxious about the delivery status of their items.

You can use personalized user experience via your WooCommerce SMS to provide purchase and delivery updates via text.

You can send this type of message:

Estimated arrival date for your SmileStore order #2594341: Wednesday, January 6. To make changes, visit https://smilestore.com/i-Tj8vVWL64.

Octopush provides a reliable service for sending automated messages regarding purchase confirmations and delivery tracking, creating a seamless user experience.

Provide high-quality customer service

With phone-based customer service, most customers struggle to express their concerns. Calls often involve long wait times and multiple transfers to get a request resolved. This frequently leads to customer dissatisfaction.

With WooCommerce SMS customer service, you don't need an employee available 24/7 to respond to customers in real time.

Customers can send their inquiries by message at their convenience, without encountering busy lines or endless call transfers. This is why over 50% of customers prefer SMS over phone calls when contacting customer support.

SMS customer service is also resource-efficient. It saves a significant amount of time and money, making SMS a more effective communication channel than calling. SMS is a highly engaging platform for users.

You can automate your SMS customer service to answer frequently asked questions. This reduces the time and effort required to obtain information, as automated responses are generated in seconds.

If the automated message cannot answer the query, it can send a message like this:

Dear customer, your question is not in our database. Would you like to speak to an agent during business hours? Reply YES to accept.

Customers will appreciate the fast service, which will lead to a better retention rate.

Gather feedback easily

Customer reviews of your product or service can serve as a word-of-mouth tool. Customers often check reviews before purchasing a service to ensure its quality. While you should increase your SMS response rate to gather feedback from your customers, it is also important to encourage them to leave a review on your online store.

If a customer mentions an issue that requires your attention, make sure to respond and reassure them that you are making improvements. After resolving the issue, send them a message:

Hi Rémi, the issue regarding your account validation has been resolved. Thank you for contacting us. Please reply to this message by rating our customer service from 1 to 10.

Reaching out to customers helps build a strong relationship, which aids in customer retention. You can also display the reviews received via WooCommerce SMS as a guarantee of your service quality. You can use an SMS marketing service like Octopush. Send surveys to your customers after a purchase so they can share the positive and negative aspects of their experience.

For example, after delivery, you can send this message:

Lucie, your order has been delivered. Would you like to share your experience with us? Click here to leave a review: https://8pu.sh/feedback.

With the rapid growth of online retail, SMS marketing trends will likely continue to evolve. Integrating an SMS service into WooCommerce is essential for any online store. The growth potential offered by SMS marketing is virtually limitless.

So take advantage of this opportunity to create a free account on Octopush and get a free trial today!