94. Driving ecommerce sales with SMS & Instant Messaging

In episode 94 of the Customers Who Click podcast, I had a fantastic chat with Jeremy Horowitz about how SMS and Instant Messaging is the must-have channel for 2022.

SMS has been around for years, but it's only in the last maybe 12 months that the tech has really evolved and allowed brands to use it properly. I remember the first campaigns I sent out for a brand, it was a manual process of exporting the data from one place, and loading it into the SMS platform for sending. Now, SMS platforms integrate seamlessly with your systems or are just a part of platforms like Klaviyo anyway.

But it’s never really about the tech. So many people now view email like their letterbox because 99% of the stuff that comes through it are either transactional related (bills, products etc), or marketing, like catalogues, leaflets etc. - it’s SUPER rare for something personal to come through, isn't it?

SMS on the other hand is different, SMS is very personal and your customers expect it to be treated properly. If you’re not doing SMS yet, or even if you are and want to learn how to improve it, this is the episode for you.

Jeremy is the Director of Marketing at Daasity and host of the Messenger Mastermind Podcast. He’s also an early-stage investor for startup ecommerce brands and SaaS apps. Jeremy has been involved with SM marketing since 2017 when he first started experimenting with it. Today, for some of his clients, SMS revenue surpasses their email revenue. You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter or head over to https://www.daasity.com/.

Key highlights:

04:51 - 13:43 - What Does SMS Marketing Bring into the Table - It’s just unexpected. People don’t generally expect anything personal or “good” to come through their mailbox because it’s normally just spammed with promotions etc. SMS or instant messaging is still very intimate, and reserved for family and friends. If you get it right, it’s pleasantly surprising - and engaging because the best marketing is when it goes unnoticed, when it feels like an actual two-way conversation.

Just think about this: 83% of millennials say they open texts within 90 seconds of receiving them, so SMS & instant messaging is a great opportunity to create another great experience for your customers that isn’t your standard email campaign.

13:52 - 16:09 - Don’t Start with SMS Until You Understand This - Many marketers and ecommerce owners are afraid they’ll annoy their customers if they message them too often. But Jeremy says it’s not the frequency but the content you should be worried about because if you have interesting and valuable things to talk about with your customers, they will listen and join the conversation. And remember - you only really get one shot with this, you’re limited by character counts so really put effort and time into designing a great SMS campaign because people will only spend a few seconds reading it - and if it fails to engage them, they won’t spend a second longer thinking about it.

16:09 - 21:31 - Don’t Get Consumed by Trying to Earn Revenue - Of course you want to see ROI on SMS, but don’t make your campaign all about trying to get that sale more than anything else. Think of SMS as a way to start building goodwill with your customers by cultivating your relationship with them with high-value communications, and once you’ve built it enough - that’s when you strike and find a way to monetise it. Make it engaging, make it short and concise and above all, make it something your customers want to read and the revenue will follow.

29:47 - 34:22 - Don’t Try to Be Everything for Everyone - The big thing that most people miss in this industry is that they want to appeal to as many people as possible and they think that growth comes from acquiring and getting as many people to buy. That’s not true. You want to focus on your most valuable customers, whether you’re calling them VIPs or Power Purchases. Use data to identify the 20% of your customers that are literally obsessed with your brand - it’s these people that will generate the overwhelming amount of your revenue.

34:50 - 45:57 - How You Can Get Started With SMS Marketing - There are three steps to get you started:

Get your email capture right. First, collect their email and then, give them a reason to share their phone number (i.e. a better offer) but never ask for both email and phone number at the same time. And think about your lead capture - are you better off going straight for the phone number or is your email game good enough to get the number further in the tunnel?
Run Welcome campaign. Set up 2-3 flows that show off the best of what you have to offer or send out simple questions like “Hey, do you have any questions about our brand?”.
Run cart abandonment campaign. As soon as they convert, send out a follow-up offer “if you place this order within the next three to four hours (it depends on the fulfilment window), we're going to give you this insane deal”.

48:55 - 54:04 - Bad Practices with SMS & Instant Messaging Marketing - 1. Making it all about your brand, product launches, and especially promotions. 2. Repeatedly sending SMS reminders. And 3. Your brand is your team, so don’t be afraid to make them the face of your communications - not just your brand.

54:10 - Jeremy’s Must-Have Ecommerce Tools:

If you’d like to hear more from Jeremy, you can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter or head over to https://www.daasity.com/.