Step 2: Send SMS Messages
Once your brand has generated a subscriber list, it’s time for the most important step of your brand’s SMS marketing strategy: creating the messages that will engage your customers.
SMS Marketing Guide
Once your brand has generated a subscriber list, it’s time for the most important step of your brand’s SMS marketing strategy: creating the messages that will engage your customers.
Automated, tailored SMS flows
Similar to what you might see in your email service provider (ESP), automated SMS flows seamlessly nurture a shopper through to purchase. They’re automatically triggered by customer events and engagements so they’re sent, in the background, at the right time in the buyer journey — giving every customer a perfectly tailored experience and giving your brand the ability to scale.
Yotpo SMS’s advanced Flow Builder provides brands with two types of automated SMS flows: they can create fully customized flows to match their unique needs, and they can choose from a robust library of out-of-the-box flows, including cart abandonment, customer win-backs, post-purchase up-sell or cross-sells, new subscriber welcomes, and more.
With both types of automated flows available, brands can build better SMS experiences that target customers at the right times in the buyer journey to drive conversion. With targeted experiences through automated SMS flows, brands see 4x higher ROI than any other SMS campaign.
Below are a few examples of automated SMS flows that we recommend.
Abandoned Cart Flow
If a shopper recently visited a site, added a product to their cart, and then left without making a purchase, your brand can send a cart abandonment message encouraging the customer to return and purchase. Include additional incentives tailored to that shoppers’ preferences and habits to drive more engagement. Multi-step messages generate 2x ROI than single messages, so we recommend sending follow ups when customers don’t engage at first.
Win-Back Campaign
Send a series of targeted messages to lapsed customers to re-engage them with your brand’s content and calls-to-action. Choose the timeframe that works best based on your customers’ average repeat purchase rate so you can send messages at the exact right moment a customer needs to be engaged.
It costs 5x more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing, loyal customer, so win-back campaigns are vital to your brand’s SMS strategy.
Welcome Flow
Convert new subscribers into customers with an engaging welcome flow. Incentivize purchases with discounts, and add a link so engagement is easy. If you can convert new SMS subscribers, you can leverage the data you learn from their purchasing behavior to create more targeted flows in the future.
Welcome Flow with 1:1 conversations
Build and send customers personalized conversational flows that account for their past purchases, preferences, and your brand’s recommendations for what they might like next. Learn about your customers simply by asking them about themselves, and then make suggestions accordingly.
Product Cross-Sell Flow
Recommend a product to the customer based on what they’ve bought in the past. A cross-sell can maximize lifetime value by maximizing every purchase shoppers make, and encouraging one-time buyers to develop into repeat, higher-value customers.
Product Cross-Sell Flow with 1:1 Conversation
A conversational cross-sell flow takes a potential cross-sell to the next level. With this automated flow, brands not only use purchase history data, but they can engage with customers at the right time to learn their product preferences, and then offer targeted recommendations in real-time to drive conversion.
Transactional Flows
Transactional messages allow your brand to update customers about their recent orders directly via SMS, delivering top-notch customer care and service experiences. Messages in a transactional flow might include order confirmations, shipping updates, subscription notifications, and more.
Send targeted campaigns to the right audience
Sometimes, your brand just needs to send out a blast of relevant, timely information. Maybe it’s a new product launch, a limited-time, site-wide sale, an update on a bestseller — the list goes on.
With the right audience segmentation and Yotpo SMS’s robust campaign builder, your brand can send that update to the shoppers that will be most engaged, so you aren’t wasting your budget on shoppers that aren’t likely to purchase again. Your brand can even A/B test your message copy, so you can quickly find the winning content that boosts conversion.
SMS-Only Offer
Engage shoppers with discounts and promotions they can only get via SMS message, and leverage purchasing history to create truly tailored experiences.
New Product Announcements
Engage shoppers with new product announcements they might be interested in based on purchases they’ve made in the past. Incentivize with discounts or offers to increase click-through rates!
Targeted Promotions
One of the most effective strategies when it comes to SMS marketing is leveraging the information you already know about your shoppers. From there, you can segment customers based on previous purchases, product interests, and overall purchasing trends so you can send your customers the optimal targeted promotions.
Experiential Promotions
Invite your SMS subscribers to live online events, launch pop-up or in-store experiences, and announce new store openings. Use customer behavior and location segments to send messages to shoppers most likely to attend.
Flash Sales
Run a promotion or a sale for a limited amount of time, from 2 to 48 hours, or even a special holiday promotion, to incentivize shoppers to purchase items before it ends. Segment based on past purchases, and average order value, and more to drive quick revenue.
Sending users the highest-converting messages requires a deep understanding of your customer audience. We’ve built the most advanced segmentation engine to help.
