Connecting with consumers is an ongoing struggle for retailers. With so many shopping options to choose from, consumers are becoming more discerning and less loyal.
Especially in an environment fraught with economic uncertainty, customers are becoming choosier about when, where, how, and why they spend their money. In a recent McKinsey survey on spending, for example, nearly half of consumers still cite inflation as a major concern in 2024. As a result, “trading down” (choosing to buy less-expensive alternatives) is a strategy that 77% are actively using to save money. In other words: If a brand that consumers relied on in the past no longer serves their needs, then they have no qualms about switching to one that will.
What does this mean for retailers? Whether you’re selling online, in-store, or both, it’s never been more critical to reach shoppers with the right messages at the right times — and to connect with them using the channels they prefer.
From calls and emails to social posts and digital ads, there are many marketing strategies that retailers rely on to reach their target audiences. Among this surplus of options, SMS text message marketing is proving to be the most personal and effective way to boost engagement and make shoppers feel as if you are offering products and support just for them. As reported by Statista, with a 98% open rate SMS bypasses cluttered inboxes and lands directly in shoppers’ pockets, attracting attention in a way few other channels can.
What Is SMS Marketing for Retail?
Retail SMS marketing is a communications strategy that uses text messages to help retailers connect with new and existing customers. SMS marketing for retail can be implemented at every stage of the sales funnel, from presenting curated product selections during awareness and interest stages to sending shipping updates during delivery.
By sending SMS messages straight to shoppers’ mobile phones within seconds, it’s a channel that helps you quickly establish and maintain relationships with your shoppers. You can choose to send mass messages to your entire audience about things like discount codes and product drops, as well as targeted messages to smaller groups or even 1:1, like a unique promotion based on that shopper’s purchase history or real-time updates about their order shipment.
The Many Benefits of Retail SMS Marketing
Using text messages to reach shoppers can help increase sales, brand awareness, and customer satisfaction. Here are just a few examples of how integrating retail SMS marketing into your overall strategy can improve performance.
Proven to Boost Customer Engagement
When compared to other communication platforms, such as email, text message marketing is confirmed to have higher open rates and response rates.
- Open rates: The open rate for SMS marketing messages is 98%, while email only sees 20% open rates.
- Click-thru rates (CTRs): The click-thru rate for SMS marketing messages is 13 times higher than that of email.
- Retention rates: Unsubscribe rates for SMS is less than 5% compared to email almost 4x the rate at 20% for average annual unsubscribe rates.
Why does SMS marketing perform so well for retail? For starters, it’s because people almost always have their mobile phones on them. Consumers are also more likely to read and act on a text message because the content is quick and easy to digest.
Additionally, because consumers must clearly opt-in to begin receiving SMS messages from a brand, you can be confident that you’re always reaching shoppers who want to — and expect to — hear from you regularly.
Because your marketing text messages will sit alongside informal and personal conversations about work and social activities from consumers’ contacts, this can make you seem friendlier and less like a brand, which can improve engagement.
Easy to Build and Send Messages Fast
A lot of time, effort, and resources go into creating certain types of marketing campaigns, including direct-mail pieces or email. Entire teams, from designers and writers to developers, are often involved in the process.
In a direct-mail campaign, for example, eye-catching design concepts and content must be created, with multiple layers of approval required before messages can move forward. There are also costs associated with printing, mailing, and handling returns.
Email campaigns require help from a writer for subject lines and content, along with a designer to create imagery and build out the message in an email marketing software platform.
In comparison, SMS marketing campaigns can be developed faster, with fewer creative assets needed. You can prepare your text message campaigns to launch in minutes instead of hours. No fancy design skills or images are needed (unless you choose to include them, which is an option in the form of multimedia, or MMS, messaging). And with a standard text message’s requirement of no more than 160 characters, you aren’t coming up with paragraphs of text and catchy subject lines — simple and compelling is what will get your point across with SMS.
Simple to Track Return on Investment
Open rates, CTRs, and response rates for text message marketing can easily be tracked so you know exactly when messages are being delivered, read, and responded to. You’ll be able to improve performance with each message you send, as you analyze which campaigns are most effective in terms of sales generation.
For example, you’ll be able to answer questions like:
- Do response rates improve when emojis are included?
- Does including an image generate a higher CTR?
- Is engagement higher when the shopper’s first name is part of the message?
Having this valuable performance information at your fingertips can help you prove the value of your investment when it comes to retail SMS marketing initiatives.
How to Use Retail Text Message Marketing
SMS marketing for retailers enables versatility and flexibility, which means it can be used for many purposes and to achieve many different business goals. Here are a few examples.
Promote More Sales
Retailers can use SMS as part of a larger, more comprehensive marketing strategy to generate excitement, encourage new sales, and spur repeat business.
SMS marketing for retail can help promote or create a sense of urgency around:
- Peak shopping seasons
- A new product line that just dropped
- Pre-order opportunities for in-demand products
- Low-inventory notices
- Back-in-stock alerts for products that were unavailable in the past
- New lookbooks or catalogs that are available to view
- Abandoned items in online shopping carts
Communications strategies like these can prevent out-of-stock frustration and improve customer satisfaction levels, as well as help you clear overstocked inventory or sell seasonal items as the season concludes.
Build Loyalty and Engagement
Once shoppers agree to be part of your retail SMS marketing program, you can use SMS marketing to improve engagement in a variety of ways.
Newly subscribed customers
- Automate a series of welcome text messages to introduce them to your mobile program, showing them what to expect in terms of SMS communication from you.
- Let them where they can find you (whether online or in person).
- Incent them with texting an offer or free gift in exchange for completing a survey about their preferences and interests. This can help you tailor messages and products accordingly.
Existing subscribers
- Send links to satisfaction surveys or online review platforms to help you understand what shoppers really think about purchasing from you — and help you pinpoint where to improve.
- Provide real-time order updates when shoppers place an order for pick-up, delivery, or shipping.
- Target your “inactive” subscribers with a re-engagement message, like simple reminders about product availability or enticing them with a limited-time offer, to inspire them to shop with you once again.
Personalize Your Outreach
Integrating SMS messaging into your marketing mix is a great way to fuel your company’s personalization efforts. The data that can be captured through SMS opens the door for so many ways to send personalized messages with information tailored to each subscriber, without the privacy risk. This can include:
- Exclusive offers, rewards, or points for loyalty program members
- Curated product collections to appeal to their interests
- Recommendations based on browsing or purchase history
- Content based on important milestones, such as birthdays or anniversaries
How to Get Started with SMS for Retail
Before you launch your first retail SMS marketing message, there are a few things to do first.
1. Understand the rules.
Before you put your SMS marketing for retail into action, it’s in your best interest to familiarize yourself with the rules and requirements that must be followed when using SMS to connect with shoppers.
Organizations like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and CTIA (formerly known as the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) establish mobile marketing laws and regulations that outline guidelines for text message marketing. This includes guidance on:
- Who you can contact via SMS marketing - and when
- What consumers need to know before they opt in to receive SMS messages
- How to manage opt-out requests
Wireless carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon may also impose their own rules for companies sending marketing messages to consumers via text.
As these rules and regulations change over time, working with a partner like Vibes can help you keep up with the latest requirements.
2. Create a subscriber list.
Just like an email database, you need to build a database for your SMS subscribers before you can begin to send marketing messages.
In order to do this in a successful, compliant fashion, display clear calls-to-action when promoting your SMS program to ensure shoppers are aware of what they are signing up for.
While there are many strategies to having shoppers sign up for your program, very common approaches include the completion of an online form, for example, or asking shoppers to send a text to a specific number to sign up. No matter the approach, getting proper consent is a must (more on this in a moment).
3. Develop your text messaging strategy.
Think about the messages you want to send to the shoppers who opt in. How will those messages integrate into your larger campaign initiatives? Over time, consider creating automated flows that trigger messages based on actions and activity. This can save your team time while also ensuring that your subscribers hear from you regularly.
Choosing the right platform also means you can integrate your SMS marketing tools with the other marketing and sales tools your team uses to reach shoppers and manage customer data, such as loyalty programs, CRM, and email marketing platforms.
Best SMS Practices for Retailers: What You Need to Know
Over the past few years, the industry has established trusted best practices to help your retail SMS marketing initiatives perform to their full potential.
1. Obtain consent.
Remember, shoppers must consent to receiving text messages from you before you can begin sending them. Otherwise, you may face steep penalties such as fines or legal action if you reach out unsolicited.
2. Keep your messages simple.
Unlike email, which has a nearly unlimited capability to accommodate your message, SMS requires you to keep it brief and to the point, with a limit of 160 characters. The shorter your messages are, the faster and easier they will be read.
3. Use clear calls to action.
Use clear calls to action (CTA) so customers know what you want them to do — and understand how and when to do it. Examples of clear CTAs might include:
1. Join now
2. Checkout now
3. Shop today
4. Visit our website
5. Start your free trial
6. Get your discount
7. Order now
8. See more
9. Upgrade now
4. Segment and personalize.
You can use SMS marketing to send targeted, tailored content and messages based on what you know about each shopper’s specific preferences, engagement level, and purchase history.
For example, you can create an audience segment made up of shoppers who are not part of your loyalty program. By sending them a personalized message that urges them to sign up to be a loyalty member — along with explaining the benefits of doing so — you can improve both loyalty enrollment and overall engagement while avoiding the risk of irritating existing loyalty members with a message not relevant to them.
5. Test and optimize.
You can easily track each of your SMS campaign’s performance to see what’s working best and what needs improvement. By conducting A/B tests, for instance, you’ll be able to hone in on the best language, imagery, days/times, and calls to action that resonate with specific individuals or groups.
Continue to use the messaging strategies that generate results and find ways to improve the ones that don’t so you can improve your strategy over time.
Vibes Can Show You How to Optimize Retail SMS Marketing
With proven success in working with top global retailers, including Kohl’s, Polo Ralph Lauren, Crocs, and The Children’s Place, Vibes has been helping our customers boost engagement and revenue for 25+ years.
By working and strategizing with our retail customers as partners, we help them finetune their SMS marketing efforts to accelerate online and in-store engagement and revenue. This is approach is why retailers that work with us see an average 97%+ mobile audience retention, along with 3+ years of average audience tenure.
We’re also the only mobile engagement platform with direct wireless carrier connections, which means that your text messages will arrive fast and on time — even sending to millions of SMS subscribers at once — with fewer “hops” and no middlemen to get in the way.
Finally, because we understand the ever-changing laws and requirements we even help our customers overcome SMS compliance hurdles by helping to educate their legal teams in order for them to make the most informed decisions about their SMS program.
Get in touch with us to learn more about how we’re helping our retail customers drive true engagement with their shoppers.
Take Your Retail SMS Marketing to the Next Level
Text message marketing is the most powerful way for retailers to get and stay connected to shoppers, reaching them when and where it works best for them.
If you’re ready to start your own retail SMS marketing journey or want to cultivate true engagement, then Vibes can help.
Learn more about all of the tools and expertise we offer that you need to effectively grow and retain an engaged and loyal customer base.
