SMS Marketing for even the busiest business owners
Is your SMS marketing program generating less than 10% of total store revenue?
If you’re saying yes, you’re primed to add major revenue to your business. At The Email Experience (EX), we consider 10% of revenue to be a red metric, 10-19% a yellow metric, while 20%+ is in the green. SMS has become a critical piece of the overall retention program no matter your business, and here's why:
Channel Preferences Matter: Some customers have solid channel preferences that no creative will overcome. 58% of Consumers Say That Texting Is the Best Way for Businesses to Reach Them Quickly (source: Businesswire). You likely have subscribers who haven't opened an email from you in months, regardless of your win-back offers. Traditionally, you'd attempt to retarget on Meta, but that's less effective these days. Having SMS as a second channel can be the difference between conversion and churn. According to Emarketer, sms marketing for small business is tied with AI in projected impact on business for 2024 (source: Emarketer)
It’s an ROI Powerhouse: When done correctly, SMS marketing is an ROI machine for e-commerce! At EX, we're averaging 16X ROI on SMS in 2024, up from 14X in 2023. If fear of messaging costs has kept you on the sidelines it time to get in the game, there's no ROI quite like sms marketing ROI.
Direct Customer Interaction: I'm a big fan of finding creative ways to measure intent for buying behavior - some of my faves are link mapping in emails, sophisticated segmentation based on browsing or purchase history, and detailed profile enrichment automation. But sometimes, you need to talk directly to your subscribers. SMS provides that direct line, allowing you to increase conversions at critical points of the customer journey and have the most meaningful conversations with your customers.
It's clear: you need a plan for your SMS retention program, and you need to establish your sms marketing best practices for 2024 and beyond.
Building bridges for your business
When you're building a business, days seem to disappear in a flash. I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of store owners over the last 15 years, and I've seen the sheer amount of work that goes into the day-to-day operations. It’s honestly exhausting.
One of the first marketing conferences I attended was a Traffic and Conversion Summit in San Diego, back in 2016 or 2015. Before the speakers started their presentations, Ryan Deiss gave his keynote and really started to hype the crowd up over all the new marketing techniques and strategies we were about to learn. He described them as bridges - each idea you picked up here was a potential bridge, with the desired outcome on the other side.
Then came the warning that's stuck with me far longer than any tactics I learned that at T&C that year: Don't go home and try to build all of these bridges at once. You'll likely fail at all of them, become frustrated, and never reach the other side. You'll stay right where you are, maybe even jaded for the experience, despite all the effort.
This metaphor resonates deeply with what I often see happen with email and SMS marketing. A first attempt doesn't land perfectly, and the channel is abandoned or neglected. But I assure you, if you build the right bridges, you'll get your ROI from SMS marketing.
So where's the juice? What buttons do we click? Let's get to it: we're going to focus on the highest-impact SMS marketing interactions, including list growth, data collection, and of course, ROI. I'll show you how to make the most of your limited time, ensuring the highest return on your efforts, with a focus on building tangible omnichannel customer engagement.
Understanding Your SMS Marketing Goals
Defining Clear Objectives: ROI and List Growth
Before firing off messages, let's set some goals. I know, I promised "clicking buttons" for busy brand owners, but bear with me. Unlike email, where revenue can suffice as a KPI, SMS requires a more nuanced approach. With each outgoing message costing money, you must measure ROI or $/message sent as your north star metric. This becomes increasingly critical as your list grows. Trust me, you don't want a massive SMS bill because you got caught up chasing revenue alone.
Setting Realistic Expectations
List growth dictates everything else initially. It's simple: you can only message those who've opted in. As your list grows, so does your reach. Be prepared to drive traffic once your opt-in modules are in place. Opt-in rates vary by offer, industry, and traffic sources, but you can project a 1% - 4% opt-in rate for your growth scenario, we will certainly look to beat it.
Measuring the Right Metrics
I'll say it again: ROI is king in SMS. Don't get distracted by fluffy metrics like top-line revenue. Each message must be profitable for the strategy to work. Period.
Efficient List Growth Tactics
Leveraging Existing Customer Touchpoints
Start with your existing marketing funnel. Identify the current path your customers follow to a conversion event. (I use "conversion event" intentionally to cover e-commerce, recruitment, charity, etc. - any action we want from the end user.) Generally, you're looking for something like:
Ad engagement (add your platform/ad details here)
Website visit (add your landing page here)
Add to cart event (add your product(s) info here)
Begin checkout (add your product(s) info here)
Place order (add your product(s) info here)
Using a tool like Miro makes quick work of visualizing your customer journey.
If you're juggling multiple funnels, start with your biggest (in terms of traffic OR conversion events - you decide which moves the needle more for your business right now). Once you've mapped this basic path, you can spot opt-in opportunities.
Now, let's talk tech stack. I prefer Attentive for all my SMS (and email, for that matter) work. It aligns perfectly with my marketing philosophy and offers a ton of sign-up options. From aggressive spin-to-win units to customizable landing page launchers, it’s easy to spin up new user experiences. But today we are going to focus on their bread and butter opt-in. On-site popups. Their two-tap SMS sign-up is hands-down the easiest, most effective way to gather opt-ins from your hottest leads at critical journey points. Don’t worry, this guide can be used alongside any platform of your choice, as long as it has the same/comparative features.
As I said, we're focusing on popups today for maximum ROI, but remember, every opt-in unit adds value to your SMS program.
By the end of this step, you should have a quick map of your customer journey and clear targets for launching opt-in popups on your site. Click here for access to a Miro board template that you can use for this exercise.
Incentivizing Opt-ins Without Breaking the Bank
Next up: What goes on this popup? Here's where we decide how aggressive to be with our opt-in offer, and there's a straightforward way to think about it. Offer aggressiveness directly impacts opt-in rate and lead quality. It's a balancing act.
Imagine offering a free iPad for SMS opt-ins. You'd get a killer opt-in rate and a massive list. But will they buy from your welcome series? What will it take in the abandon series to get a sale? That's the game you're playing at this stage.
On the flip side, a low/no incentive opt-in will attract subscribers genuinely interested in your brand story and solutions. Lower opt-in rate, higher quality list. Here's how I categorize offers:
Least Aggressive: Exclusive access, behind-the-scenes info, extra resources, info downloads, guides, expert advice
[Everything else in the middle]
Most Aggressive: Spin-to-win, massive giveaways, free plus shipping, huge discounts (15% and up)
Understanding this spectrum helps you navigate outcomes. I also recommend tying your opt-in closely to your product/sale/service/offer.
For instance, a supplement brand might focus on:
Product level: "This specific calcium supplement"
Category level: "Our solutions for seniors"
Full catalog level: "Our premium supplements"
Your popup's location influences this choice too. Homepage popups might need to be general (store-wide), while product page popups could be product-specific. Controlling these factors will give you a solid opt-in experience for your users, while giving you clear dials to turn in the future when it’s time to iterate.
Cross-promoting SMS with Other Marketing Channels
Don't forget your existing owned lists! I love using what I call "platform bridge" campaigns. Repurpose your popup offer for email campaigns aimed at driving your existing email subscribers to your SMS list. I’d recommend at least two of these monthly while you're ramping up.
Get creative with these bridges. Offering early access to Black Friday deals via SMS? That's a platform bridge. Extra 5% off your Labor Day deal for SMS sign-ups? Another bridge. Sync these with your overall marketing calendar for maximum impact.
Remember, your most valuable subscribers are those with multiple opt-ins. When we talk about bridges worth building, this strategy sits at the top of my list. It's not just about growing numbers; it's about cultivating a high-quality, engaged audience across channels.
Recap
So far, we’ve mapped out journeys, identified potential opt-in opportunities, spent some time thinking about our popups and the incentives we can use in order to boost the effectiveness of their opt-in rate, and discussed list building by using our existing lists as lead sources. This is a very solid start.
If you made it down here, well done! In the next post I’ll break down what to do with these new leads we’ve started gathering.
