SMS MARKETING FOR E-COMMERCE

The Definitive Guide

This is a complete guide to start doing SMS Marketing for your e-commerce store.

You will learn:

• Why SMS Marketing is an important strategy for your e-commerce store
• How to design an SMS Marketing plan for your store
• How to execute that plan with Octopush
• How to measure results to optimize or iterate your campaigns
• Best practices, templates and practical exercises

By the end of this guide, you will have a complete and actionable SMS Marketing plan to implement in your e-commerce store, all you’ll have to do is click Send and launch!

Let’s get started!

Chapter 1: What is SMS Marketing?

SMS Marketing is a mobile marketing strategy that uses Short Message Services (SMS) or text-messages to convert leads and improve customer relationships.

There are two types of messages we can send in our SMS campaigns:

• Marketing SMS. These are the messages we send for commercial and promotional purposes. Their main goal is to increase our sales. Some examples of Marketing SMS are: promotions, special deals, product launches, cart recovery, and more.
• Alert SMS. Also known as SMS notifications, Alert SMS are the messages we send to our prospects to keep them informed. With these texts we’re not selling or promoting, just keeping the person up to date about important events that matter to them. Some examples of Alert SMS are shipping information, account verification with codes, order updates, and more.

Why SMS?

For a long time, people believed that SMS was dead because it’s been overruled by more modern messaging systems, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger and what not.

If we refer to commercial messaging, it appears that email marketing has been taking over for a long time since it’s creation: it’s free, it’s not personal, and it allows plenty of rich media (videos, photos) that can be linked within a single email.

On top of that, it allows a lot of very useful features for delivering tailored messages and measuring results to optimize campaigns. In a few words, they give a lot of valuable information that you can use to perfect your marketing and improve your conversion.

A lot has been going on through the years, and while messaging tools were evolving and giving birth to new and innovative ways to communicate, the SMS has also been improving, silent and steady.

10 Things you didn’t know you could do with SMS

As we said, SMS has been evolving. If you thought that text-messages were just that old fashioned telegram-like text with rudimentary functions… think twice.

Here you have 10 things you can do with SMS that you probably didn’t know you could:

Send bulk SMS to a large amount of contacts: reach your entire database with a single click.

Trigger SMS notifications automatically when a given event happens: keep your customers updated and informed.

Receive SMS and chat with your audience: have conversations with your audience and learn from their needs.

Include multimedia content like photos and video: expand to more than just text and send more compelling messages.

Include URL to redirect your reader to dedicated landing pages: guide your audience to a specific page of your website for more information.

Transform a text message into voice message: explore beyond text into automated virtual calls.

Create segments with your audience: to send your message to the right people.

Include merge-tags for personalization: nurture the bond with your audience.

Measure open rate, click-through rate, churn rate, and more analytics: learn from your campaigns’ results to improve.

Create automatic workflows according to reader’s response: let your customers self-help themselves and lower the need for human intervention from your side.

23 billion text messages are sent each day worldwide. (Source: SMSeagle)

There are 7,5 billion people in the world, so the amount of text-messaging that is happening nowadays would be like if every person of the planet would send 3 SMS daily. Far from being dead, we can say that text-messaging is very much alive and present in the life of most of the people on this planet, which leads us to the next statistic.

Chapter 2: Why SMS for E-commerce?

After reviewing the advantages of using SMS, there’s no question why it is becoming the preferred channel for e-commerce marketers.

But apart from response and open rates, SMS is an ideal partner for e-commerce because it is:

• Mobile first: it meets prospects where they already are, in their phones
• Cost-competitive: less than 0.04 € per SMS in UK
• Native to all devices: they don’t need to download an app to receive or reply

How to use SMS in e-commerce?

This type of businesses are ideal for an SMS strategy because you can practically do everything with this single channel.

Take a look at all the possibilities you have to cover every aspect of your business:

Marketing

• Use SMS as a selling point. Bohemian Guitars did it and experienced +98% sales!
• Send bulk SMS to distribute special offers
• Offer customer support via SMS and improve your customer relationships

Transactional (automated)

• Push notifications to update your customers on their orders
• Remind them of their abandoned carts
• Send notifications to yourself when you’re running out of stock

How to implement SMS to you e-commerce store

As this is a space that is becoming more and more profitable and popular, there are plenty of providers and SMS gateways that offer alternatives for e-commerce, with different levels of complexity.

Here we’ll mention 3 ways to link your e-commerce store with a SMS provider.

Option 1: check your SMS gateway marketplace

Some SMS Marketing companies have developed special solutions for the e-commerce space, so it’d be wise to check in their own marketplaces if they have one that is suitable for your business.

This is by far the best option because they normally provide it for FREE on their websites, and also, their support and on-boarding is normally more personalized and effective.

At Octopush, for example, we offer free plugins and extensions for Prestashop, WooCommerce and Magento.

Option 2: check your e-commerce shop’s marketplace

If you have your e-commerce in Shopify, Prestashop or Woocommerce, for example, you can go to their marketplaces and download the plugin, module or extension that you want. It works like an add-on that you install to your store and there can be an additional fee to adding it.

Option 3: integrate with Zapier

If there’s no plugin, module or extension suitable, you can build the connection with Zapier, an app that enables you to connect other apps in a if/then logic. Like this, you can emulate the basic functions that a plugin would resolve and automate lots of processes.

For example: send a new SMS from Octopush when there’s an abandoned cart in Shopify

At Octopush we’ve created some examples and step-by-step guides and videos on how to do automations with SMS using Zapier.

Chapter 3: What you need to get started

If there should be a checklist of the resources you will need for displaying your SMS Marketing strategy, this is it:

1) SMS gateway or SMS broadcast

With an SMS gateway or SMS broadcast you can send, receive and track text messages in bulk from a computer. This will enable you to send marketing messages or SMS notifications to your customers in bulk, like special deals or announcements.

There are plenty of providers depending of the region you’re based in, just make sure that:

• they offer a tracking tool, you’ll need it to track the performance of your campaigns
• they have an API or extension that you can connect easily to your store (Shopify plugin, WooCommerce extension, etc).

At Octopush, we built dedicated tools specially for e-commerce stores, so our no-brainer suggestion would be to start with us (for free, because we offer free SMS to new accounts) and decide whether we’re the right fit for you at a later stage. You can open your account here.

2) Connect your store with the plugins, extensions or API

This is a must, as half of your strategy will be to push automated SMS notifications to keep your customers updated on their purchases and interests.

For this, it’s extremely important that you connect your store with the SMS gateway so it can timely and automatically send the SMS for you, which will save you time and effort. It’s a win-win and very easily to connect.

Preferably, a plugin or extension specially built for your store will be the best choice, but you can also get it done with an API (you might need a bit of help from a developer for this) or with the app Zapier, that lets you connect apps between each other, whichever they are.

Here you have our options at Octopush:

• WooCommerce extension
• Magento extension
• Prestashop module
• API documentation
• Shopify with Zapier

3) Dedicated mobile number

This is preferably but optional. A dedicated mobile number is the best way to communicate with your audience because it will enable a fluid communication both ways. They will always know at which number to reach you and will recognize you when you reach out to them.

It won’t cost much and the experience will be way better than with short random numbers. And you get to brand it to match your company’s identity! Learn more about our Virtual Numbers.

Chapter 4: Best practices

We’ve got together with our lawyers, Sophie Soubelet-Caroit and Perrine Salagnac from the SSC Avocats to understand the implications of GDPR and Data Protection.

To be concise, in this chapter we’ll only focus on the GDPR foundations, data collection and consent for specifically for SMS Marketing campaigns. However, we encourage you to also read our guide on Cybersecurity & SMS Marketing: keep your data safe in which we explore in-depth how to keep our data secure, prevent attacks and breaches, and what to do in case we experience one.

What is the GDPR?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a “privacy and security law that enforces obligations to any type of institution collecting data from users that belong to the European Union”, even when the institution itself does not belong to the EU. For example, if you’re based in Brazil but you’re processing data from European customers or visitors, then you have to be GDPR compliant.

This regulation was instituted in 2016 to put an end to the lousy mambo-jumbo Terms & Conditions that neither users could understand, nor companies wanted to explain.

The goal here is to make companies inform properly and in a way that people can comprehend to freely decide whether they want to engage or not with them. It also implies taking data protection as a core element of all the processes of the business.

What is the GDPR’s goal? That users can understand what they’re being offered to freely choose when to opt-in or out at will having full authority over they data and its usage by third parties.

Who must obey the GDPR? All institutions processing data from EU citizens, even if the institution itself doesn’t belong to the EU.

Can you get fined for violating the GDPR? Yes, you can get fined and the fines are very high. They go to as much as €20 million or 4% of global revenue (whichever is higher), plus compensation for damages to the subjects involved.

Is it all about consent?

“When you read on the internet in marketing sites they only focus on consent. Is it all about consent? The answer is NO”, explains Perrine.

“Consent is not always necessary when you deal with GDPR. It’s a common misconception. In fact, in the article 6 of the GDPR you will see that there are other legal basis. Consent is just one of them”, she says. Each data controller has to choose the right and the feasible bases for him.

“But if you take into account the other regulations, for example, from the ARCEP in France, in some cases but not in all cases, you must request for consent. But it’s not the same consent: one is for collecting data, the other one is for sending SMS. They’re two different things”, indicates Sophie.

So what can we do to be 100% sure if we comply with the regulations? “It it dangerous to have a unilateral approach, the best would be to make a consultation with a lawyer”, says Sophie. Each case is different and the answer to this question will depend on the local laws that apply for your customers and for your business.

How to ask for consent?

The GDPR states that consent must be:

• Freely given: it must be voluntary
• Informed: tell the individual what information you will keep and how you intend to use it
• Unambiguous: stated in clear and plain language
• Specific: clearly distinguishable from other matters
• Expressed: you can’t imply it, individuals must give affirmative expressed consent, like “I understand and accept…”

Examples of GDPR-compliant forms

Regulations in France

At Octopush, 70% of our customer base is French, so it made sense to include a dedicated analysis about the different types of consent here. Here’s a quick summary of what we discussed with Sophie and Perrine that can serve as a guide.

Requirements to send commercial SMS

According to the CNIL, every text-message must include:

• The sender’s identity: make it clear for the recipients who is sending the SMS
• Offer an easy and clear opt-out option: like STOP au XXXX, or noPUB=STOP

Expedition times

Most of the SMS and MMS providers quote the same information:

In order to avoid any abuse and nuisance, shipping times are limited. For the majority of operators, mobile sms is forbidden between 8pm and 8am during the week. Shipments are also prohibited on Sundays and public holidays all day long. Any breach of the rule is punishable by a fine of €1,000 excl. tax per offense.

We include it here as a best practice example for doing SMS Marketing without exhausting our recipients, but the truth is we consulted with our lawyers to learn the legal basis of this statement but we couldn’t find its source. We will update this guide as soon as we are completely certain of its accuracy, but until then and even if we’re not legally compelled to do it, it’s a great practice that we fully support!

Chapter 5: SMS Marketing Plan

After all we’ve seen and learned so far about SMS Marketing and its advantages, the next logical step would be: how to put all of this into practice?

And though sending text messages might feel very simple, we shouldn’t forget that this is not some friend we’re texting to: this is a marketing strategy with a specific goal. Therefore, we should take it as such and drive smart campaigns that will bring us results.

Here you have a list of 8 basic steps to come up with a powerful SMS Marketing campaign for your business.

And before you start, just a little advice: take this structure and adapt it to your own business.

Like us, businesses vary a lot from one another, so take these steps as the grounds of your campaigns and change it to your needs.

Experiment, take risks, document your processes and learn from your results to know what works best for you.

1) Create a Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a metaphor for the process in which your visitors turn into prospects and, finally, into paying customers.

Knowing exactly what’s happening in each step gives you insight to improve the tactics that are driving people towards the end of the funnel, where they make a purchase from you.

How to create a Sales Funnel?

1) Awareness: introduce yourself.

• At this stage, visitors are surfing the internet looking for something.
• This is not the time to sell, but to show visitors that they might have a problem that you can solve for them.
• Ask yourself: what are the pain-points that your visitors are suffering that your service or products can help them with? How is your product or service saving them money, effort, or time?
• Pro tip: talk to your best customers about this, ask them how you can enhance the experience for their next purchase. Maybe they would like a faster delivery service, or a more personalized experience, or more variety of certain item on your store.

2) Interest: create an offer to generate leads.

• At this stage, visitors have entered your store
• Offer something valuable in exchange for your leads’ contact information.
• Ask yourself: why would your leads give you your contact information? what would be valuable enough to exchange? what is it that they want? what are they wishing they had right now?
• Some examples: offer them a discount in exchange for their email address, a free gift if they complete a survey, or fidelity points if they register in your platform.

3) Purchase: help your leads with their orders.

• At this stage, visitors have decided to make a purchase from you.
• Help them to finish their purchase, clear their doubts, trigger cart abandonment reminders and offer discounts if they don’t finalize their purchase.

4) Delight: offer outstanding after-sale support

• At this stage, visitors turned into customers and they can be converted into promoters.
• Create a great follow-up system: send them notifications to track their parcels, offer money-back guarantee and top-notch after-sale support for their products.
• Ask them for a review when they receive their orders in their homes. The recommendations of other customers have more impact in the interest stage than any other marketing tactic you can offer.

The sales funnel is a representation that lets us understand and follow the customer’s journey that turn them from visitor to buying customer, BUT in reality:

• it’s much more complex
• it involves many other touch-points with your brand
• it’s a process that repeats itself

So remember that…

Your customers should be at the center of all your sales process:

2) Create buyer persona profiles

A buyer persona profile is a detailed description of your ideal customer.

Comprehending our target audience not as metrics on a screen but as real people allows us to address our customers in all their complexity, and it makes it easier for us to come up with accurate tactics and messages to reach out to them.

• Build as many buyer persona profiles as you need to ‒some businesses are very niche and will have less profiles than others.

• The goal here is to think about the specific needs and desires of our customers so that we can adapt our marketing efforts to them, and not the other way around.

🏆 Pro tip: if you’re already a working business, interview your best customers and create buyer personas based on them. The more accurate the information on your profile, the more accurate you’ll get with your marketing.

Example of a buyer persona profile

Tool: Make my persona

This free tool from Husbpot allows you to create buyer persona profiles in an interactive way. Add your own fields according to the information that matters the most to your business, and delete the ones that are not relevant.

👆 Remember: every business is unique, so don’t be afraid if your buyer persona profile ends up looking very different from the example above. Actually, it would be a good sign if it was!

3) Define your SMS Marketing goals

Your SMS Marketing Goals are the outcome you want to achieve at the end of a certain period of your campaigns.

Here are some questions that will help you to create your marketing goals:

• What part or parts of your sales funnel need improvement? Why do you think that is?
• How will you measure the initial state and the final outcome? What metrics will you use?
• How can you improve those steps of your sales funnel with SMS marketing?
• What does success for your SMS campaigns look like? → This will be your goal

Example:

🏆 Pro tip: use the SMART goals framework to set specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound goals. This way you will give yourself a doable goal, instead of aiming for an unrealistic one.

4) Segment your audience

We will segment our audience to address our leads with tailored messages, which will deliver the most value for each individual, boosting their chance to convert.

We want to reach out to our customers as we would to a friend, attending to their specific needs and desires in a timely manner.

How to segment your audience?

1. Take the database you’ve grown in the Interest stage of your sales funnel.
2. Divide your database using the features of each of your buyer persona profiles.
3. When finished, you should have as many segments as buyer persona profiles.

5) Create and launch your SMS Marketing campaigns

We will create a specific SMS campaign for each segment based on our buyer personas.

To better illustrate how to create and launch your SMS marketing campaigns, we’ll:

• choose to improve the Delight step from the sales funnel
• take the Rebecca buyer persona profile from the previous chapter
• set the SMS Marketing goals we used as an example in chapter 3, which was to increase the return customers by 50% over the next 6 months

To make this campaign for Rebecca’s buyer persona we will:

1. Create a workflow based on her needs
2. Write the copy for every message of that workflow
3. Prepare the campaigns ready for launch

2) Write the copy for every message of that workflow

For the first 2 tactics on our workflow, we will use SMS. Here’s how they would look:

3) Prepare the SMS campaigns

Fill the text in the settings of the plugin you’re using for your e-commerce platform.

Octopush plugins have several events that can trigger your messages, and you can modify their text however you want. For more information on how to configure our plugins and integrations, visit our HelpDocs.

When all is set, just hit Save and… voilà! Your registered customers will start receiving the SMS before they checkout.

6) Analyze results

By analyzing the results we’ll keep track of how our campaigns are performing.

The whole point of creating SMS Marketing campaigns is to improve aspects of our sales funnel, and that’s why we need to keep an eye on how good they’re doing to know what to do next. This is why we’ve pointed out a metric or indicator to track in the 3rd section of this guide, Define your SMS Marketing goals.

There’s no point in investing time and money in strategies that won’t give results ‒actually, that wouldn’t be investing, but spending!

How to analyze results

You can analyze your results by tracking the performance of the channel (in this case, SMS) and the campaign.

Channel performance

Most SMS platforms have a tracking dashboard that will let you know the number of delivered SMS, the response rate and the unsubscribed.

This will give you information regarding how well your channel (in this case, SMS) is performing.

🤔 Ask yourself: are your recipients responding favorably or should you try with a different approach (like Whatsapp Business, for example)?

Statistics & Tracking in Octopush

Campaign performance

Track your customers’ behavior directly from your e-commerce platform (WooCommerce, Prestashop, etc…).

Go back to section 3 of this guide and search for the metric you chose to track your performance in your e-commerce platform.

🤔 Ask yourself: is this metric going down or up? Did it stay the same? Give it time to make an impact, track results every week of the month, less than this won’t give substantial information.

Stats dashboard in WooCommerce

7) Optimize, iterate or suspend your campaigns

Once you’ve identified and compared your metrics, you’ll have reliable information to decide wether to optimize, iterate or suspend your campaigns.

🏆 Pro tip: it’s always a good idea to interview and send quick surveys to your customers to know what they think about your campaigns (and your service overall!). There’s no better and simpler way to know how they would respond to your efforts than to ask.

8) Run experiments

Experimentation is the way to discover new ways to improve the performance of our campaigns.

Human behavior can be unpredictable, which is why try and error is the best way to validate an idea, or even to discover new things we wouldn’t have think of.

Experiment often and apply the same steps of this guide to determine what to play with. Get creative and fearless!

3 tips for a better experimentation

Chapter 6: Ideas to begin with

Chapter 7: Final words

Congratulations for completing the guide! 🎉

You’re now ready to get back on track and try some SMS Marketing magic for your e-commerce store.

At Octopush we love Mobile Marketing 🐙 ❤

 so please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and let us know how it goes.

Leave a comment with your questions and feedback about this guide. Don’t forget to include what you would like to learn next, we’re excited to meet you!

Octopush | Mobile Marketing for the Pros
Article by Mila Di Bella
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