Retail is the sale of goods in relatively small quantities for use or for consumption, rather than for resale. A retail sale occurs when a business sells a product or service to an individual consumer for their personal use. The world is becoming a bigger place and every business is trying their possible best to connect to its customers easily. They make use of every possible marketing technique they can utilize, especially Text message Marketing which is popularly known as SMS Marketing. Text Message Marketing is the act of sending promotional messages to people in order to notify them about goods and services as well as other relevant information. It is an effective way for businesses to reach out to customers.
The retail business is not left out
However, there are many reasons why texting via SMS is one of the best choices for retailers to make use of, for their marketing campaigns. Some of the reasons are; most mobile devices are capable of receiving an SMS which makes it easy for retailers to communicate easily with many customers at once. Also, it has a much higher redemption rate than email. According to research, SMS marketing redemption rates are 3-4 times higher than email marketing. Very high open rates. According to the Mobile Marketing Association France study, 90% of SMS is opened within 90 seconds. Lastly, SMS marketing is surprisingly affordable. This is very nice especially for retail businesses that are just starting up and don’t have much to spend on marketing.
It is one thing to employ the use of SMS Marketing to market your products as a retailer, it is another to be able to properly utilize the features and functions of SMS marketing. If it is not properly utilized it can affect the business negatively. This, therefore, bring us to the main topic of this article, Retail Texting Ideas. You have to know the best practices that relate to you implement SMS marketing as a retailer, there are some dos and don’ts. If you follow these amazing retail texting ideas, one thing is certain your marketing campaign would be a success.
Timing
When sending promotional texts while implementing retail texting ideas, it is important for retailers to consider timing. Time in the sense includes both the day, month, and season. Many businesses don’t pay attention to this factor and it greatly affects the way their texts are being reacted to. It is safer to send promotional texts during business hours; this way it gets a positive response from the recipient. Text messages sent late in the night are likely to be ignored by the reader, due to the time the message came in. Sending a text at the right time is a significant factor that determines how useful the text would be to the recipient and how the customer would respond to it. Different seasons determine the way businesses would send out texts. For instance, when it is Christmas businesses can send out promotional messages that are in line with the season like Christmas wishes and offering special discounts. Also, a retail store that sells winter jackets is more likely to send out promotional texts when it is winter rather than summer. Most people need winter jackets during that period and would react positively to the text by placing an order for the jackets.
Connecting clients to your email marketing.
The reason SMS marketing is so effective is that most people have their phones with them most of the time. Therefore, it is a brilliant idea for any retailer to use this medium to get people to subscribe to their email marketing. Retailers can send out a text message teaser to increase their email open rates. These are just some retail texting ideas to get you thinking about how SMS marketing can work in your business.
Personalize
It is a brilliant idea for retail businesses to personalize the texts they send out to their customers. Everybody loves to be treated special and important. Customers especially, love to be treated specially by their favorite brand. The best way to achieve through texting is by personalizing the texts that are being sent out to the customers so that each message is sent in a way that is unique to each customer. This can be done by including the name of the customer receiving the texts at the beginning of the message. (This can easily be achieved when you are subscribed to a Mass Text message Platform like ExpressText) This way the person would be eager and willing to read the text. In addition, businesses can register the date of birth of their clients and other personal information, so that they can send them personalized messages on their birthday. This would make the customer feel special and would encourage the customer to patronize the business more often. Personalization makes customers have the feeling of one on one communication with their brand which is good for any retail business.
Free gifts
Customers love it when the brand they patronize offers them free products or provides them with discounts on certain products and services. Incentives, it is a creative way to promote brands and increase sales. It can also be used to attract positive responses from promotional messages sent by businesses. For instance, a salon can offer 20% discount on its services when a customer subscribes to their SMS marketing campaigns. This way the business increases its clientele. Also, promotional codes can be included within the texts sent to customers so that they would be encouraged to read the texts and find the code that would allow them to receive a prize from the business. They can also show the text they received to claim the offer. This is a good way to make your SMS campaigns a success.
Language
When communicating with customers through text messages, it is important to keep the message simple, short and direct. However, in an attempt to achieve that, businesses must not result in using casual languages or writing in short forms or using slangs. This would make the business look unprofessional and make them lose customers. Also, the limited amount of characters is not an excuse to use short languages or catchphrases. The tone of the language should be interactive and compelling. The text should include terms that relate to the business. Businesses should avoid sending other irrelevant messages with the text because it can end up annoying the readers with information that is not necessary. The way a business constructs their text messages shows how professional they are.
Option to opt out
Businesses and companies need to put the option to opt-out or unsubscribe within a text message. Customers have the right to opt-out from any SMS marketing campaign whenever they want to. For example, customers can opt-out from receiving messages from a particular business or brand by replying with the word “STOP” to any shortcode. It is important for companies to take note of this, because if there is no option to opt-out of a particular SMS marketing campaign they can face legal actions. In order to track the quality of their promotional texts, businesses can send out surveys to customers asking them for feedback on why they opted out from the service, this way businesses can keep improve the success of their SMS marketing campaigns. It also gives the customers the confidence that the brand is not trying to be intrusive.
After following these brilliant texting ideas for retail businesses, it is important that you subscribe to a very good service provider that would bring all your ideas to life. Express Text is a good example of an SMS marketing service provider. We provide a platform for businesses to market their products to their subscribed customers via text messaging. We have many amazing features that are useful for retailers to market their products. Some are listed below;
Auto-Replies
Auto-replies, also known as SMS autoresponders, are the automated messages that your customers receive after sending your text words to a shortcode. You can offer incentives, reply with images, ask additional questions and much more!
Email Capture
This feature allows you to capture subscribers’ email addresses after joining your text lists. It is a great way to grow your email marketing efforts in conjunction with text marketing. From your dashboard, you can easily export your collected emails directly to your favorite email marketing provider.
Detailed Analytics
Gain some incredibly useful insight into your text marketing efforts. With everything from opt in/out graphs to geographical stats and link tracking, Express Text got you covered on all the important things you need to know.
2 Way Text Messaging
Inboxing / 2-way text messaging allows existing subscribers to reply to your campaigns and send you text messages. It’s a great way to stay connected and answer questions people have. A key business text messaging feature that everyone should be using.
Uses of SMS Marketing for Retail
SMS marketing can be used in a lot of ways in order to help retail businesses build a stronger relationship with their customers. Many retailers don’t know how effective this marketing technique is. Retail marketing ideas can be used for many things, some of which can be seen below.
Order confirmation
SMS marketing can be used by retailers to send order confirmation texts to their customers. This is most effective for online retail stores. After a customer shops on your website, you can immediately send an automated text, thanking them for their patronage as well as notifying them about the confirmation of their order, when it would arrive, and other relevant information.
Feedbacks
Text message marketing can be used by retail stores to get feedback from customers about their products and services. Afterward, the retailer can send them a text message with a couple of questions asking them to rate the quality of their products and services. This would help the business in improving the quality of their products and services. Customers appreciate it when businesses give them the opportunity to pass their opinions
Mobile Coupons
Everyone loves saving money. Sometimes the prospect of saving some money is just the push a customer needs to make a purchase. Especially when the item is more of a “want” than a “need”. Regardless, offering coupons via texting is a great way to connect customers with your marketing messages and ensure they’re being read.
Allowing Customers to Shop
You can also set up automation rules so that customers can easily text keywords and you can respond with links to the product they want. This allows them to find the items they want and quickly make purchases, and it requires little effort on your part. This method increases productivity.
Promote Events
SMS marketing can also be used to promote events for any retail store. This is useful when a retailer is opening a store at a new location. They can send out mass text messages to their customers to invite them for the opening event. Reminder for the event can also be sent through text messages a few days to the event to remind the guest. However, if there is a change in venue or time, due to the speed of SMS, it can easily be sent to notify guests.
In conclusion, Retail texting ideas are very useful in order to get the best out of your marketing campaigns. Retail businesses are in a great position to benefit from text message marketing. It provides a one on one interaction between retailers and their customers.
Retail is the sale of goods in relatively small quantities for use or for consumption, rather than for resale. A retail sale occurs when a business sells a product or service to an individual consumer for their personal use. The world is becoming a bigger place and every business is trying their possible best to connect to its customers easily. They make use of every possible marketing technique they can utilize, especially Text message Marketing which is popularly known as SMS Marketing. Text Message Marketing is the act of sending promotional messages to people in order to notify them about goods and services as well as other relevant information. It is an effective way for businesses to reach out to customers. The retail business is not left out of this. They also need a very effective marketing technique to help them market their products to a very large audience at the same time. Marketing is a very vital tool for retailers in order to increase the sales of their goods and services as well as maintaining good customer relationships with their clients. Text message marketing and retail, work perfectly together because text messages help retailers boost their sales, expand brand awareness and improve customer relationships. In this present age where there are many other means of communication, most retailers are very skeptical about using SMS for their marketing campaigns.
However, there are many reasons why texting via SMS is one of the best choices for retailers to make use of, for their retail marketing plans. Some of the reasons are; most mobile devices are capable of receiving an SMS which makes it easy for retailers to communicate easily with many customers at once. Also, it has a much higher redemption rate than email. According to research, SMS marketing redemption rates are 3-4 times higher than email marketing. Very high open rates. According to the Mobile Marketing Association France study, 90% of SMS is opened within 90 seconds. Lastly, SMS marketing is surprisingly affordable. This is very nice especially for the marketing of retail businesses that are just starting up and don’t have much to spend on marketing.
It is one thing to employ the use of SMS Marketing to market your products as a retailer, it is another to be able to properly utilize the features and functions of SMS marketing. If it is not properly utilized it can affect the business negatively. This, therefore, brings us to the main topic of this article, Retail Texting Ideas. You have to know the best practices that relate to you implement SMS marketing as a retailer, there are some dos and don’ts. If you follow these amazing retail texting ideas, one thing is certain your marketing campaign would be a success.
Retail texting is the process of using text message marketing to connect with customers of a retail sales business to increase outreach, sales, announce special promotions or events, or conduct transactions.
SMS messaging is one of the easiest, most cost-efficient ways for business to reach existing and potential customers. Marketing texts which arrive on mobile devices also have very high read and response rates compared to other forms of reaching customers.
It’s important for businesses to consider timing when sending promotions via text message: time of year, week, or even day can have a big impact on customer response. Texts are a specific, personal form of communication, so how the message is worded, plus when it arrives matters.
Businesses can use SMS messaging to offer personalized messages, information about upcoming sales or events, announcements, free gifts, even purchase receipts. Always provide an option for customers to opt-out from receiving future communications via text.