The goal of your SMS strategy should be to maximize conversions in today's digital era. Due to reduced funding and increased customer acquisition costs, efficiency has emerged as a keyword in marketing communication. To get the most out of your marketing investment and boost your customers' lifetime value for long-term growth, you must raise your SMS conversion rates.

What are SMS conversion rates?

The key metric of your SMS campaign is your conversion rate. By dividing the number of conversions (purchases, registrations, etc) by the total number of messages sent out, you can determine your SMS conversion rate.

Monitoring your SMS conversion rates is crucial to improving the return on investment of your campaign. By providing you with real-time insight into what appeals to your audience, this number enables you to test various message formats and make refinements to increase engagement and revenue.

SMS marketing v/s WhatsApp marketing

Like all other direct communication methods, SMS conversion rates are impacted by the following factors:

Targeting: Are you connecting with the people who are most likely to become customers?

Timing: Is the timing of your SMS perfect?

Personalization: Does your messaging resonate with your audience?

Content: How interesting and useful is your message?

CTA: Is there a clear call to action in your message?

But remember that these specific elements aren't the only ones that affect your SMS conversion rates. The conversion rates will also be impacted by the overall SMS experience. Consider it this way: Because you're offering content via social media or email alongside other businesses, your audience isn't as aware of whether you're repeating your messaging. However, your SMS campaign is a continuous, one-on-one dialogue with your customers. They can browse your thread to determine if you're sharing a range of beneficial offers, recommendations, and material, as well as if you're tailoring your interactions to their interests.

You should consider the following when tracking your SMS conversion:

• Who are we trying to reach?
• What kinds of communications do we convey to our various audiences, and what benefits do they provide?
• What time do we interact with our audience?
• Are we using our unique brand appeal to create a compelling brand experience?

How can the SMS conversion rate be improved?

Optimizing individual messaging is only one aspect of increasing conversions. Eventually, it’s about connecting with your audience. In addition to sending promotional messages that entice consumers to convert right away, you should use your brand voice and content that fosters loyalty to keep them interested and encourage repeat business.

It's also critical to strike the right balance between techniques (like testing Call To Action variations) and strategies (like portraying your SMS channel as a personal shopping assistant). These are our top seven suggestions for increasing both short-term and long-term SMS conversion rates.

Personalize your messaging based on the time of year and the offer you're running.

Your subscribers can be sure they will receive the most recent offers and content via SMS, which is an instant channel. It's crucial to make communication timely because of this. For instance: Is a holiday approaching? Is there a time of year that is especially suitable for your product line? Do you have any items that target a certain audience segment when there is an event? Or is there a trend or online conversation that is pertinent to your brand?

For instance, customers are raving about Dua Lipa's world tour attire on Instagram. With reference to the tour, you might promote a best-selling dress to your subscribers if your clothing brand has a line of fun going-out outfits. You may even go one step further and send similar emails to subscribers who reside in cities where concerts are scheduled.

Remember to personalize your automated messages.

One excellent method to provide consistent brand experiences across channels is to modify your triggered messaging to correspond with any sales or brand campaigns you're doing on your website. You can urge new subscribers to purchase your newest collection before it sells out or offer incentives to customers who have abandoned their carts to take advantage of a limited-time deal.

Rely on your brand voice.

Because of the limited space, many businesses are reluctant to use a strong brand voice in their SMS texts. However, we've observed that companies that develop a strong, identifiable brand voice do incredibly well.

Leaning into your brand voice allows you to stand out from the competition because your subscribers will be able to recognize you right away when they read your text. Additionally, it fosters loyalty. By using a common language, you demonstrate to your subscribers that you understand their interests. Whether it be by word-of-mouth or a memorable text message that goes viral on social media, their authenticity eventually aids in their natural growth.

Consider your SMS channel to be like your social media page.

Successful businesses send a wide variety of messages and content. They are aware that an SMS deluge of deals and offers will bore their audience. By adding branded images and videos, instructional messages, and brief invites to join loyalty programs or take advantage of special offers, they treat their SMS campaign like their social media profile.

This also applies to your SMS journeys. You can incorporate brand-building and promotional messaging into your welcome and post-purchase journeys to boost engagement. You can use instructive content (such as gamification scenarios or reviews of your top products) to help shoppers move down the funnel if they haven't made a purchase within a certain time after signing up. You can then send them a follow-up deal to encourage them to buy if they haven't bought yet.

Create go-to segments.

One of the best strategies to increase SMS conversions is to separate your most loyal customers from the rest of your subscriber base. In addition to having a greater conversion rate, treating these devoted customers like VIPs will enable you to provide them with tailored experiences that increase engagement even further.

You can determine who your brand's fans are in a few ways: Use two-way text messaging to ask your subscribers directly, combine your SMS campaigns with loyalty programs, or base it on the number of transactions a subscriber has made in a specific time frame.

You should modify your communications for new subscribers who haven't made a purchase yet, the same as you would for VIPs. Adopt a 'getting to know you' approach with this audience, sharing with them the unique selling aspects of your company (e.g., products, processes, quality, or value proposition). To move them up the funnel and entice them to convert, you can then send them further promotional messages.

To better tailor your messaging, we advise creating these additional go-to segments:

• Involved or not
• Previous buyers and non-buyers
• Browsers with high intent
• Shopping preferences or content
• Time zone or geolocation

You can customize your SMS triggers (such as abandoned cart reminders) to appeal to their interests and habits by using branching. For instance: You can text a customer who has perused your sunglasses to invite them to browse your best-selling shades if they end up abandoning their session.

Additionally, keep in mind that every one of your viewers will have distinct tastes. The days and times you interact with customers, as well as the kinds of content you share with them (e.g., seasonal products vs. best-sellers), should always be A/B tested.

Become a personal shopper for your subscribers.

People don't always have the time to keep up with the newest products or trends because of their personal lives and jobs. The most successful brands we work with eventually feel like a real style manual in the pockets of their subscribers. They share hot-selling products and carefully chosen suggestions, demonstrating their awareness of both subscriber interests and the larger culture.

At the beginning of the season, this may be as straightforward as suggesting weekend essentials, or it could be as timely as suggesting items that customers can purchase to replicate popular looks.

Acting as a digital style concierge helps you foster enduring customer loyalty in addition to saving your customers time and boosting conversions right away. Customers value marketing that offers them more than just sales and discounts. They may believe that their favorite brands are actually assisting them in staying ahead of the curve as a result of this attention to what is trending.

Leverage product data to deliver compelling experiences.

Customizing your SMS subscribers' experience requires diving into your product data. You can personalize and enhance user journeys (such as welcome, browse, and post-purchase) with the products your subscribers are interested in when you combine your SMS campaign with your product data.

You can automatically give each subscriber a tailored product recommendation that is exclusive to them using GirikSMS.

Without having to provide a discount or other incentive, these product recommendation campaigns are an excellent method of reaching high-intent subscribers with content that will motivate them to convert. These kinds of SMS texts should be sent after popular shopping periods to optimize cross-selling opportunities, or in between seasonal specials or sitewide deals to increase conversions during sluggish times.

Enhance your website and app experience.

The texts your subscribers receive are only one aspect of your SMS experience. Additionally, the website and mobile app experiences must also be optimized.

Reducing the number of clicks required to convert should be your goal when choosing which pages to link to. For triggered communications, include a direct link to the last product page your subscribers viewed or their abandoned shopping cart so they can continue where they left off. Additionally, linking to your hot-selling items or new arrivals pages is a terrific method to let subscribers know that you're sharing content that is related to your general campaign messaging (such as site-wide sale announcements or offers on particular categories). It's an additional way to show your audience that you're aware of current trends.

Landing page design is also a key consideration. Your customer's interaction with the page may be affected by the way it is structured.

Are your subscribers more inclined to convert on pages,

• With an unending scroll?
• Arranged according to price or popularity?
• Filtered based on their tastes, color, or characteristics of the product?

Despite being little adjustments, these aspects can significantly affect your SMS conversion rates.

Nurturing Conversations That Convert

With two-way SMS, you can have genuine interactions with your audience in real-time. You can use texts to answer consumer questions, receive feedback, and deliver targeted marketing in a fast and easily accessible way. In addition to improving engagement, this straightforward, conversational approach can increase sales. Two-way SMS can drastically change your communication strategy and create the conditions for increased customer satisfaction and conversion rates, regardless of your company's size.

Ready to cultivate enduring relationships? GirikSMS, is a 100% native SMS for Salesforce platform that can seamlessly integrate conversational messaging into your marketing strategy.

Our enterprise-grade two-way Salesforce SMS platform can lay the foundation for enduring, loyal relationships by meeting your audience where they spend most of their time—in their text message inbox.