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Looking to grow your business? If your answer to this question is a solid “Yes!”, the one thing you should know is that customer contact is key. Now that mobile devices such as smartphones have made it easier than ever to connect people and things, you want to pay closer attention to how you communicate with your customers for success.
So then, how do you use SMS to create an effective ecommerce strategy? Find more about that and more by reading to the end.
Is SMS Still Powerful?
Most people trying to create an effective ecommerce strategy don’t focus enough on SMS as they should, simply because they don’t feel like SMS campaigns are effective anymore. But that’s not even close to the truth. The main reason SMS campaigns won’t enhance your ecommerce strategy is you aren’t sending them to real customers.
This is where elements like phone validation and other similar solutions come in. You should leverage APIs and other tools from top providers like TrestleIQ to ensure you only add accurate and reachable numbers to your contact databases.
Creating a Powerful, SMS-Based Ecommerce Strategy
Now that you know you can use SMS to enhance your ecommerce efforts,
it’s time to make it work for you. In that case, here’s how you can engage SMS throughout the entire ecommerce journey:
1. Pre-Sale: Optimising SMS Marketing
During this stage, you will mostly target your SMS efforts towards promotions and offers, and any other marketing techniques you may be using. If you were wondering why you need to validate and verify phone numbers before adding them to your databases, this would be one of the areas where you find out.
Personalised pre-sales marketing creates a sense of exclusivity, but you need to send the messages to active numbers if it’s going to work. Luckily, you can always track the delivery rates and use that information to decide if you should clean your contact data so you’ve only got valid phone numbers in your lists.
2. Purchase: Cart Recovery and Security Enhancement
It’s not unusual for ecommerce customers to abandon their shopping baskets. You can always save the day with a simple SMS that provides additional information that will help the customer proceed, or a discount that gives them the best deal they can find.
What’s more, you can also use SMS during the purchase stage to ensure the transaction process is as easy and secure as it can get. The easiest way to do this is by implementing authentication methods that rely on SMS such as One-Time passwords (OTPs) to verify a customer’s identity. This protects both your customers and business from the negative effects of fraud.
3. After Purchase: Regular Updates and Unlimited Support
Customers will typically have a lot of anxiety after placing their orders online, especially if they are doing it for the first time. Sending your customers a message that confirms their order will help them relax with the assurance that their purchase was successful.
Make sure to include additional information in the message such as the expected delivery time, tracking link, and any other crucial updates about the order. Be as consistent with the updates as you can since it improves the customer experience by a huge margin.
Not only that, but you can use SMS for post-purchase support to enhance the positive experience even beyond delivery. If, for example, your customers have a couple of questions or feedback about the product, it should be quite easy for them to do that via SMS surveys or through a link that you’ve sent via SMS.
Experience the Full Power of SMS in Ecommerce
If you’re one of the online sellers who may have been led to believe that SMS isn’t powerful in business any more, it’s time to discard this notion. In truth, it’s the simplicity of SMS marketing that makes it more effective than you’d expect it to be.
So if you’re looking to drive traffic, boost sales or enhance customer loyalty, consider adding SMS to your strategy. While at it, visit trestleiq.com to learn how their data identity APIs can boost your SMS engagement efforts.
