SMS marketing: Definition, tips, & steps to create an effective SMS campaign

Knowing that approximately 86% of the global population has a cell phone and knowing the reading and opening rate of an SMS (more than 95%) and the reading frequency of text messages (90% are read within 10 minutes), it seems almost incongruous not to opt to use this means of communication for direct marketing!

In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at SMS marketing, an ultra powerful lever for your ecommerce communication campaigns.

SMS marketing: Definition and advantages

What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing is a marketing strategy that allows you to send promotional and commercial messages by SMS directly on a mobile.

This service makes it possible for you to share different offers, price drops, new product releases, flash sales, event invitations, and important company news with your customer base through notifications and alerts sent as text messages.

More direct than an ecommerce email, this type of marketing campaign allows you to reach the recipient while creating an SMS notification to be sure that they don’t miss any commercial appointment, with the added immediacy of SMS.

Why use SMS marketing?

Compared to other marketing levers, the return on investment of sending text messages is high. This strategy doesn’t suffer from any problem of deliverability to the recipient, unlike email marketing in ecommerce, which greatly increases the success of operations for the issuing company. The rates of these services are often advantageous and therefore allow all companies to use these powerful marketing tools.

Thus, the features of such a marketing process are declinable at will, and the engagement of SMS by customers is largely higher than average compared to other web processes.

In addition to the advantages mentioned above, SMS marketing is not only a digital tool for promotion in automation. An SMS campaign is also the best way for businesses to obtain quick and accurate feedback from customers on an operation or a product. This communication channel is very appreciated by companies because of the great personalization potential of text messaging and the link created with the recipient with a limited number of comments.

Surveys or opinion polls, which can help businesses learn more about the needs and wants of the people in their target audience, are easier to manage with text marketing, allowing for greater reactivity. 

How do you send a mass SMS?

In order for businesses to be able to send numerous SMS messages in a campaign to a mailing list with a large number of contacts, there are management platforms and SMS marketing solutions specialized in sending large volumes of SMS messages. These SMS automation services offer hundreds of features and allow for campaign personalization.

To be able to build this base, companies use landing pages and other registration forms to collect as many contacts as possible and thus enrich their campaigns. Through a blog, an ecommerce site, social network accounts, or sending emails, the future potential customer fills in the form and adds their phone number.

Once the list is set up, the management software is in charge of delivering the message to registered contacts, loyal customers to maintain the relationship of trust or qualified prospects who will appreciate the attention sent on one of the most direct communication channels. This process is similar to the approach of emailing tools in particular.

3 steps to efficiently send messages on mobile

First step: Build a customer database

Several possibilities are available to you to help obtain mobile numbers, expand your reach, and thus enrich your SMS marketing service:

• Your current database: it’s important to examine your current customer base because it likely already contains mobile numbers of already conquered customers in addition to their email addresses.
• An opt-in form on your point of sale: feel free to use this place of contact and reception of the public to solicit your customers. Simply ask these people if they’d like to receive promotions and other information from you and collect their phone number through an information form.
• Marketing operations: acquisition marketing operations, such as contests, which consist of encouraging your prospects to give their mobile number in order to receive discount coupons for example, directly by SMS.
• Virality: invite your recipients to "take advantage of your offer" by forwarding your SMS to their relatives, friends, and other people they know.
• All points of contact: take advantage of every moment of contact, such as telephone or physical meetings, trade shows, documentation downloads, orders, contact, loyalty cards, etc.
• Renting contacts: keep in mind that nothing is better than a collection done by you to obtain quality contacts for your business. Nevertheless, within the framework of a prospecting campaign, the rental of a mobile number base is possible.

Second step: Design your SMS campaign

Unlike an emailing campaign, you’ll only have text to transfer to your customers.

So make sure that you choose your words well: compose a short, clear, and precise message free of errors to send a professional text.

It’s been proven that the shorter the message, the easier it is to remember.

In the same way, pay attention to the time and day of when sending your texts. You may want to opt to schedule messaging during breaks in your prospects' schedules, such as weekends and holidays.

Try, as much as possible, to personalize your message. Prioritize action verbs; incite subscribers to take action; and be brief, precise, and concise.

SMS marketing is a great communication channel that allows you to approach marketing campaigns in all their forms: promotions, special events, surveys—strictly reserved use for a campaign or more regular use. Everything is possible.

Third step: Schedule your SMS sendings

All that remains is to choose a service provider or an SMS platform specialized in this type of operation.

Here again, don’t take this step lightly. Beware of websites that sell low-cost SMS at very low prices.

Some providers go through foreign countries for the routing of their text messages. This leads to a lack of reliability regarding the deliverability of the message and its reception time.

SMS requires the intervention of specialists, especially when used for commercial purposes.

FAQs: Creating an SMS marketing campaign

How do you send an advertising message? The complete solution

Mailify and its intuitive and functional interface caught our attention. An online application will help you to create your text campaigns, to choose when and to whom you send your messages, to analyze the result of your actions... in short, the time of conception and sending is considerably shortened.

How do you know when to send an SMS? Trust the software

The most important thing in an SMS marketing campaign is to learn as much as you can about your target audience and their presence times on the different connected channels.

By knowing their break times, by following their activities on social networks or by basing yourself on the numbers of your mailings, your SMS will be able to go out at the right moments.

Finally, applications and platforms will be able to analyze the click-through and open rates of your campaigns: make sure that you track these metrics to help adapt your future text marketing campaigns.

Which platform should you choose for your ecommerce SMS marketing campaigns?

In ecommerce, the WiziShop solution includes an SMS marketing solution directly in its administration area!

Starting from $40/month, you'll have access to a professional ecommerce solution, more than 400 great features for your website, a great AI tool for generating various types of text content for your site, 50+ SEO optimizations, personalized follow-up with business coaches, complete ecommerce training free of charge to help you learn more about all kinds of topics related to selling online, and your future SMS marketing campaigns!

Take advantage of a 7-day free trial (and then get your first month for just $1) to see for yourself why Wizishop is such an amazing option for your ecommerce business.