The Best Strategies To Win at Text Message Marketing

Text message marketing is now one of the fastest-growing – and most effective – revenue channels for brands. 

Text is arguably the most personal channel out there and can help a brand drive significant growth. Why? The average US consumer checks their mobile device up to 200 times per day for incoming messages and engages with 95% of text marketing messages within three minutes. Text makes it easy to engage directly with customers and send them the most relevant information directly to their smartphone with just a few clicks.

In a world where attention is a precious resource, text message marketing is an exciting opportunity for brands to cut through the noise and convert and retain customers. Consumers are constantly flooded with marketing messages on social media, websites and video, oftentimes getting frustrated and disabling notifications and ignoring ads. As text is not as saturated as other channels, brands that are already using it are one step ahead of their competitors.

For best results, marketers need to be strategic with their channels and messaging. Nearly half of consumers prefer direct communication from brands via text messages, but they are sensitive to the volume of messages. Therefore, brands need to ensure their texts are helpful, relevant, and not too frequent or intrusive.

Let’s dive into the most effective strategies for text message marketing, using real campaign examples from our customers that are using text messaging to drive sales, revenue and retention.

The Best Text Message Marketing Strategies for Your Brand

1. Greet New Text Message Subscribers with a Welcome Series.

Subscribers are usually most engaged when they first sign up. Use your text messaging welcome series to create a great first impression. It’s a good idea to encourage subscribers to add your phone number as a contact so every time they receive a text from your brand, they know it’s you.

Here is a great text message marketing example from the luxury fragrance brand Nest New York. The brand thanks new subscribers with an exclusive offer and engages mobile subscribers with an invitation to become part of their “Nest.”

What makes this campaign so powerful is that Nest’s unique brand voice shines through. Customers who have signed up to receive text messages from your brand are usually your most loyal customers, so don’t be afraid to show your personality.

2. Retarget Shoppers with Abandonment Texts.

People get easily distracted these days. With text message marketing, you can set up automated texts to remind them of items they showed interest in. Including shoppers’ viewed or almost-purchased items in your message is an effective way to convert abandonment into a sale. 

Here is an example from the French fashion label Zadig & Voltaire. Through text message marketing, the brand encourages shoppers to complete their purchase by linking them directly to the products they viewed and offering complimentary shipping.

Abandonment texts are effective because they are highly personalized yet scalable, tapping into what the shopper really wants while enabling brands to scale their one-to-one messaging.

3. Keep Loyal Customers Up-to-Date with Catalog Alerts.

Did an item just go on sale or come back in stock? Your customers want to know! Use Catalog Alerts to keep interested shoppers updated with the most relevant information for them. 

If some items drop in price, you can send all interested shoppers a quick text message to let them know their favorite products are now on offer. Similarly, if a shopper has viewed an item that is likely to go out of stock soon, you can warn them in advance, so they don’t miss out.

For example, health brand Bulletproof sends their customers a text message to let them know when items they viewed come back in stock.

These powerful, one-to-one, automated text messages convert because they are genuinely helpful and tap into what the shopper really wants.

4. Let Customers Know About New Product Launches.

What’s new? Shoppers are always interested in what’s new and what they haven’t seen before. That’s why Product Launch announcements are an effective way to connect with your most loyal customers and reconnect text subscribers who haven’t engaged with your brand recently.

NYC-based sneakers brand Thousand Fell turned to text message marketing to let customers know about their new collaboration.

The eye-catching image and compelling copy help engage and re-engage customers, resulting in an effective text message marketing campaign.

5. Reward Loyal Shoppers with Sales and Special Offers.

A popular way to incorporate text into your marketing strategy is to ensure mobile subscribers are the first to find out about sales and special offers. 

Loyal customers like to be kept in the know, so offering them a “sneak peek” at your upcoming offers is an effective way to drive engagement with text messages.

Bombshell Sportswear does this very well. In this example, they let customers know that the Black Friday sale is starting tomorrow. Giving text message subscribers advance notice of the upcoming sale enables the brand to reward customers for their engagement and ensures they don’t miss out, building trust and customer loyalty. 

For more examples of wildly-successful text marketing strategies, including custom auto-reply and two-way messaging, download the Text Message Marketing Playbook.

Text Marketing Platforms

Now that we have seen how text message marketing works and why it is so effective, you might be wondering how to get started. There are many text message marketing platforms out there, including:

• Textedly

• Drip

• Omnisend

• Emotive

• Klaviyo
• Wunderkind

While there are many options available, the key factors to take into account are performance and scalability. Wunderkind’s expertise across email and text messaging and ability to identify website traffic are unmatched. Without relying on cookies, we recognize more devices down to an email address and phone number, so your sending efforts scale.

Wunderkind drives $2.8 billion in revenue each year for top eCommerce brands like Uniqlo, Sonos and HelloFresh, often ranking as a top 3 revenue channel in their own analytics. Brands use Wunderkind to identify and retarget their site visitors across websites, email, ads and text, delivering high-performing, one-to-one messages at a scale that’s not otherwise possible. 

Get the Playbook to Learn More About Text Message Marketing

Ready to boost revenue and connect your customers with products they love? Our playbook contains even more insights and real-world examples to inspire your text message marketing strategy. To find out how you can turn text into a top revenue channel for your brand, grab your free copy of our Text Message Marketing Playbook now.