Bulk SMS marketing is great for announcing new product launches, flash sales, seasonal offers, and more.
There are more than one reasons to incorporate SMS marketing with your email marketing efforts. Studies have shown that:
SMS marketing complements the email marketing strategy really well. Your customers want well-timed, personalized brand communication via text messages.
In this post, you'll learn about the many advantages of bulk SMS marketing and how to set up an automated SMS campaign for your WooCommerce store.
Contents
Bulk SMS marketing simply means sending text messages to a mass audience.
These messages could be about an upcoming event, a festive sale, or a discount coupon to bring back lost customers.
Bulk campaigns are most beneficial if you want to send an SMS to a large audience and personalization is not your priority.
Here are some relevant statistics that show why you should try bulk SMS marketing if you don’t already.
Buyers love it when they receive discount offers, promotional offers, and festive deals - especially when you communicate the offer via SMSs.
According to SMS Comparison, the click-through rate is almost 10% higher compared to messages informing them of new products, confirmation, feedback, etc.
SMS is one of the two most popular marketing channels - the other being emails.
However, studies have shown that emails have lower open and click rates. Emails campaigns saw only a 20% open rate and a 2% click-through rate.
On the other hand, SMS messages were opened by 82% of recipients, the majority of them in the first 3 minutes, and 19% of users clicked the links in the SMS.
A mobile-friendly WooCommerce checkout page coupled with a powerful bulk SMS marketing campaign can definitely boost your sales.
Millennials love texting, but that’s not the point. The point is that millennials prefer receiving brand communication via text messages rather than calls.
A survey conducted on millennials concluded that 83% of millennials did not want to be communicated by businesses on social media but a text message.
Source: OpenMarket
You’ll need a Twilio account first to get started.
Twilio is an online solution provider that offers services such as calling, voice messaging, and SMS that you can use with different applications.
It provides a free trial of the premium services that you can set up and experiment with.
Head over to the Twilio website and sign up for the free trial.
Enter your name, email, and password to create your Twilio account.
You’ll receive a verification email - confirm it to proceed.
The next step is to verify your email address and phone number.
After that, select the products that you want to use.
Here, we’ll be selecting the ‘SMS’ with ‘Alerts & Notifications’. Then choose ‘With no code at all’ and ‘3rd Party integrations’.
Click on Get Started with Twilio once done.
You’ll get redirected to the Twilio dashboard.
Click on ‘Get a Trial Phone Number’ to link a phone number to your account.
This will generate your trial phone number.
You can find your Account SID, Auth Token, and Twilio phone number here on this screen.
Make sure to copy these details - you’ll need them in Step 3 of this post.
We will be using FunnelKit Automations to send SMS from WooCommerce via Broadcast campaigns.
FunnelKit Automations comes in two versions - Free and Pro.
With the Free version, you get various important pre-built automations like abandoned cart recovery, review collection sequence, first purchase anniversary workflow, and more.
Also, get a powerful analytics dashboard to assess the performance of your campaigns.
FunnelKit Automations Pro opens up infinite possibilities by integrating with different plugins and third-party applications to achieve your use cases.
So, install the Pro version now, and let’s get started.
Twilio lets you send and receive messages with ease using messaging APIs.
You can create an SMS marketing campaign with Twilio using FunnelKit Automations.
FunnelKit Automations integrates well with Twilio to set up SMS automations and broadcasts the way you want.
But first, you need to connect the two.
Go to the Connectors tab on FunnelKit Automations and click on ‘Connect’ under Twilio.
Paste your Twilio Account SID, Auth Token, and Phone Number here.
Once done, click on ‘Connect’.
You have successfully connected Twilio with FunnelKit Automations.
You are all set to send your bulk SMS messages to your audience.
Now, we need to set up our bulk SMS marketing campaign. So, go to Campaigns and select Broadcasts.
Go to the SMS section.
Click on Add New Broadcast, and assign a name to your SMS campaign.
FunnelKit Automations lets you send standard SMS campaigns, or you can even A/B test your campaigns and then decide on the best-performing one and roll it out completely.
Select what you need and click on Next.
On the next tab, you need to select the audience to whom you want to send bulk SMS. You can either send the message to all of your contacts or assign a filter and send it to an exclusive group.
We are sending an SMS message to the contacts who are our customers.
So click on Add New Filter and select WooCommerce.
Now select Has Made a Purchase.
Customize the rule how you want. We are setting it as Yes.
Click on Filter, and then click Next.
On the Content tab, you need to add the SMS message, and you’re all set to go.
Some additional things you can do is:
As a marketer, it is important that you keep the SMS copy short and sweet. The recommended word limit for an SMS is 160 characters, so keep your message within that word limit.
Here’s the SMS message that we’re sending:
“Hey [contact_name]
Get excited! We have MASSIVE Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals coming your way. Wanna know more? Check this: [URL]”
Now, we are on the last tab - review and send.
FunnelKit Automations gives you the flexibility to either send the bulk SMS campaign right away or schedule it for later.
If you want to send it now, then click on Send Now, and your SMS will be broadcast to your audience.
Get ready to see some sales rolling in.
Efficiency
SMSs take less time than emails to write, format, and send. Sometimes, your emails will be ignored and remain unopened. However, SMSs are always opened by the recipients.
That’s why you should also use an automated SMS campaign with your email campaign.
Yes, personalizing your messages for different segments will take a little longer, but still, SMS marketing can give you better results when used along with email campaigns.
High Engagement
Almost all smartphone users open the SMSs they get, and thus, bulk SMS marketing gives you high open rates and click rates.
96% of the SMSs are opened within 3 minutes.
You can compare your SMS marketing analytics with your email marketing analytics and see which channel works the best with your audience.
Less competition
Most marketers only focus on email marketing - and it does work!
However, email marketing is a competitive domain. 82% of email users get at least 25 emails per day. On the other hand, only 25% of marketers use bulk SMS marketing with their email marketing. Thus, it has lesser competition.
Higher ROI
Twilio is one of the most popular platforms for sending bulk SMSs - and sending a text message via the platform can cost you a meager $0.0075.
But each message has the potential to acquire a big sale. For example, a retail company sending 10,000 texts would only spend around $75, which a single purchase would likely offset.
Massive reach
According to Statista, there are over 6 billion smartphone subscribers in the world. So, SMS marketing is a no-brainer. You can reach millions of people with a single SMS.
SMSs can give you an unimaginable boost in sales if you use them correctly. Below, we are sharing 5 best practices to keep in mind when creating bulk SMS messages.
Data privacy laws are getting stringent, and getting communication permission from your customer is not only legally binding but also a good marketing practice to follow.
The customers who give their consent for promotional messages give you more engagement and conversions.
Many marketers follow customer segmentation for their email marketing campaigns, and they see better engagement and conversion rates.
The same should be done for your bulk SMS marketing campaigns.
Segmenting your audience allows you to send relevant messages that are tailored to a group of people who share similar interests.
SMS stands for Short Message Service, so stay true to that.
Keep your messages short, concise, and to the point. Send clever and compelling messages.
Make your messages clever and compelling, so your customers take action instead of ignoring them or opting out.
In the US, TCPA Act and Can-Spam Act regulate SMS marketing. And they make it compulsory for marketers to get subscribers’ consent via opt-in but also provide a way to opt out.
Also, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws define how personal data should be handled. Every business should follow that.
You can attach a small line of text at the end of your message - “Text STOP to stop receiving these messages.”
FunnelKit Automations lets you add delay to your SMSs. So, send your messages after an appropriate interval or at any custom time that you want.
As a reminder, you must comply with TCPA requirements calling for texts to be sent between 8 am and 9 pm.
Combine Twilio’s text message marketing solution with FunnelKit Automations’ ability to customize your bulk SMS marketing campaign.
FunnelKit Automations lets you do more with your SMSs than just sending messages.
Personalize your messages for a particular customer segment, send messages according to the user’s timezone, delay the next message, set conditions to communicate with only interested customers, and SO MUCH MORE.
Visualize your bulk SMS marketing campaign on the minimalist Canvas interface and automate your workflow step-by-step.
Try FunnelKit Automations today and take your business to the next level!
