4 SMS Engagements That Increase CLTV
Focusing on customer retention is one of the best ways to boost your customer lifetime value. This lesson covers proven strategies for creating customer experiences that boost loyalty.
SMS Marketing Guide
The cost of acquiring new customers has risen 50% over the last five years. Why? Increased competition, which has ramped up even further for eCommerce brands since 2020.
Focusing on customer retention isn’t just a cost-cutting strategy, though — it’s a way to boost your customer lifetime value (CLTV). Plus, happy customers tell their friends and family, which makes acquisition that much easier (not to mention cheaper).
SMS marketing is a low-cost and effective way to increase CLTV, and there are a few strategies for doing so. These four tactics will help you create excellent customer experiences, build deeper customer relationships, and grow your CLTV.
1. SMS welcome flows
When you make a first-time sale or acquire a new SMS subscriber, an SMS welcome series is an effective way to get to know your customer. You can use a welcome flow to ask about their preferences, which will give you some extra data points for personalizing future communication, which helps boost loyalty, retention, and CLTV. It’s also a good time to extend an offer to incentivize a purchase.
2. Customer win-back
You can use win-back strategies to re-engage lapsed customers, either with a one-off offer to come back or with conversational flows to make targeted product recommendations.
3. SMS for loyalty
Loyalty programs are a great tool for boosting CLTV, and SMS can be an effective tool for keeping loyalty members engaged. You can use SMS to remind inactive members of the rewards waiting for them, and congratulate existing members when they reach a new tier in the program.
4. Product cross-sell
Shoppers are most engaged post-purchase, which makes it an ideal time to make personalized product recommendations. Based on how much you know about your customer’s buying habits, you can recommend products you think they’ll like, products that complement what they’ve just bought, or begin a two-way conversation to help narrow your recommendations.
With SMS, timing is everything
Because SMS is a more immediate marketing channel than email or social media, it’s important to get the timing right when sending messages designed to boost CLTV. This will likely take some trial and error at first, but once you have your timing, segments, and messaging down, you’ll be able to deliver the right messages, to the right consumer, at the right time.
