Effective customer engagement is about achieving a direct connection with the clients and creating a better overall customer experience. With its high open rate and cost-efficiency, SMS is just spot on.
According to the latest research, 80% of consumers check phone notifications within the first five minutes. In addition, almost half of Generation Z checks them every 10-20 minutes. But while a high level of SMS engagement can be ensured, what about potential sales? And what if a single text could ignite an indelible bond with your customers?
The level of SMS engagement directly depends on communication; even if it is difficult at first, it is through regular interaction that you can build trust and loyalty. So don’t just send a message — start a dialogue.
| “SMS as a channel is very in the moment, so brands can expect a more dedicated consumer. We see SMS campaign click rates that are 6-8x higher than email.” – Suze Dowling |
The Importance of Timing and Relevance in SMS Engagement
We all know that SMS marketing is fast, so engaging with your customers via SMS should be a key part of your strategy. Speed
➥ Recent statistics show that 90% of people read a text message within the first 3 minutes of receiving it.
Reinforcing order updates, purchase or activity updates, appointment reminders, and especially, instant responses to customer inquiries demonstrate your reliability to customers. Custom SMS content tailored to each recipient refers to a customer in a unique way, giving them individual treatment.
But personalization is more than just calling your customers by their names. It’s about understanding and analyzing numerous aspects of a prospect’s personality and behavior, from the products they’re interested in and the stage of the buyer journey to the messaging they respond to, and much more.
So is it all about data? To make sure you have all the user data required for delivering personalized content and ensuring higher SMS engagement, you must have the right martech stack and focus on key SMS engagement metrics.
Tracking SMS engagement metrics is crucial for understanding whether your messages resonate with the audience and deliver the desired results — after all, you can’t improve what you don’t measure.
Analyze key metrics to get the full picture of what’s happening within customer engagement in SMS:
➥ Open rate — the percentage of recipients who opened your SMS message.
➥ Click-through rate — the percentage of users who clicked on the link in the message.
➥ Conversion rate — the percentage of people who took the desired action after clicking.
➥ Delivery rate — the percentage of messages successfully delivered.
➥ Opt-out rate — the percentage of those who unsubscribed from the newsletter.
For a quick overview of how to track your SMS marketing performance, I cover key metrics like delivery rates, CTR, and conversions in the full guide here.
In addition, do not forget that SMS engagement is not just an advertising tool but a communication channel and a collection of valuable information. You have the opportunity to track customer satisfaction using SMS. How? Send feedback requests and surveys, giving a direct idea of
Key Benefits of Customer Engagement in SMS
Unmatched benefits abound from SMS marketing; the results of the PwC Mobile Messaging Adoption Report 2021 confirm its importance. Many businesses choose SMS engagement to increase cash flow, enable quicker customer outreach, and help reduce operational costs.
SMS engagement is becoming popular in more and more industries for campaign optimization.
| Finance | 36% |
| IT & Telecommunications | 35% |
| Retail and Wholesale | 33% |
| Professional and Administrative | 18% |
| Manufacturing | 23% |
SMS engagement rates are the highest in the financial and communications sectors.
Explore three main reasons to improve your customer engagement in SMS campaigns.
Instant Communication
The ability to provide instant communication is the main advantage of customer engagement in SMS. We have already discussed how SMS message campaigns differ from email ones in terms of speed and efficiency of interaction.
Source: Text Your Way To Success: How SMS Marketing Drives Business Growth
SMS is associated primarily with speed and efficiency of interaction, as 98% of messages are opened and 10.66% receive conversions, significantly exceeding the efficiency of emails. While email and instant messaging apps — WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger — have many advantages for businesses, SMS keeps the crown.
| “As an acquisition channel, texting is surpassing, or getting on par with, our email program.” – Lauren Zarzour |
Personalization and Digital SMS Engagement
Customer loyalty is beyond simple transactions. Data-driven personalization can help you capitalize on critical touchpoints that drive loyalty — a sense of connection, value, respect, and understanding — and ensure high SMS engagement. For example, you can streamline the process using AI-driven solutions to simplify creating a personalized SMS campaign for promotional and transactional purposes.
Two-Way Communication for SMS Digital Engagement
SMS allows you to create an individual space for each client, where they can always get important information, help, or support.
Adhering to these principles will help you to conduct continuous and effective communication:
- Transparency in communication
- Speed
of response - Constant interaction
You can use a specific phone number for such conversations, which will help you show that you care about the recipients, foster a sense of connection, and increase the chances of getting a positive response from your prospects and long-term clients — all while boosting SMS engagement.
Phonexa offers eight performance marketing solutions powered to manage customized campaigns designed to hit marketing goals for businesses and enterprises across campaigns while adding dimensions to your marketing automation, lead generation, and distribution efforts.
Phonexa’s E-Delivery offers a powerful SMS feature to enhance your communication strategies. It allows sending automated messages and using phone numbers registered in Call Logic and Cloud PBX platforms – working hand in hand with other proprietary solutions, including E-Delivery.
Combined with Phonexa’s call tracking solution, the SMS feature will help you increase conversion rates, boost SMS engagement, and ultimately hit your revenue targets.
Build your plan now, or take a product tour to learn more about Phonexa.
SMS Use Cases for Customer Engagement Success
So what SMS messages do consumers enjoy? Here are the results of the short survey showing the SMS content that tends to catch the eye of prospects and drive SMS engagement:
At this point, you’re probably wondering how you can tailor SMS campaigns to boost SMS engagement. Here are use cases and tactics you can apply:
App Onboarding Campaigns
You can use SMS to remind users about your app and its benefits, increasing the number of downloads while boosting conversions and SMS engagement rates.
Cross-Selling
If your brand has a large product range, use SMS to encourage customers to try your new products or upgrade to old ones. Sending personalized offers based on previous purchases or views increases the average check.
Upselling Campaigns
Offer customers products and services in special formats, such as premium versions of products they already use. In SMS messages, briefly tell about expensive but improved products. Despite the high price, the speed and accessibility of information via SMS motivate people to buy.
For instance, when a user views a hotel on Booking.com, the platform might suggest nearby accommodations with better reviews or upgraded amenities.
Discounts and Sale Events
Sales and discounts are the perfect storm for unbeatable deals, which makes them a popular SMS and email customer engagement solution. When combined with email and social media, these SMS messages are particularly effective. First, they create a sense of urgency, which usually speeds up the purchase. Second, they can increase conversions and revenue.
Order Status Alerts
Notification that the product has been shipped, arrived at the warehouse, or is ready for pickup adds confidence to the customer and the brand. The more satisfied customers are, the fewer support requests they will have because they trust the brand.
Abandoned Cart
SMS engagement excels when it’s essential to remind customers about their incomplete purchases or registrations. For example, you can send an engagement invitation SMS or automatic reminders with special promotions, discounts, and offers that would bring the buyer back.
Seasonal Promotions
Customer engagement in SMS is most effective during special events and holidays like Black Friday or the New Year. Businesses should consider all popular local holidays and create effective SMS campaigns. These personalized messages should include tailored offers based on customer behaviors.
Re-Engagement SMS Campaigns
Bring inactive users into the fold using SMS engagement. This is effective even with those who are no longer interested and haven’t interacted with your brand in a while. Examples include special offers or new products to encourage users to come back.
Time-Sensitive Messages
SMS is a highly interactive channel that lets you quickly and effectively deliver important information to your customers, ensuring issues are resolved in time.
The following five industries stand out for achieving the highest response rates with SMS:
Service Continuations
The last resort is SMS subscription renewal reminder campaigns, which are no less effective in attracting customers and preventing churn. Use discounts or special offers for those ready to renew their subscription, and send them via SMS or email.
Exploring Consumer Perspectives When Using SMS for Customer Engagement
An impressive 92% retention rate confirms that SMS is a great tool for maintaining high engagement levels with current and potential customers. This serves as a signal that personalized messaging works.
SMS can outperform other communications in another way: it is particularly effective at engaging those unfamiliar with the brand.
Additionally, establishing contact with your prospects and customers on a deeply personal level is the best way to build brand loyalty. Addressing customers by name and sending them messages tailored to their interests, preferences, and pain points via SMS shows that you are willing to pay close attention to them, regardless of how familiar they are with your business.
Higher SMS engagement leads to higher response rates and improved customer engagement, ultimately increasing the success of your marketing efforts.
The Future of SMS Engagement Tools for Marketers
AI and Automation
What should the future of SMS engagement look like with AI? As technology evolves, AI becomes more realistic, and customer interactions become more personalized.
AI impacts SMS customer engagement in the following ways:
- Helps provide instant answers to online inquiries
- Can respond 24/7
- Has intelligent, customizable workflows
- Optimizes scalable SMS campaigns without losing personalization
- Provides data-driven insights
Rich Communication Services (RCS)
Since 2007, RCS has revolutionized the digital interaction between customers and businesses, making it more dynamic. Unlike traditional SMS, RCS supports high-resolution images, videos, and other interactive elements.
With 86% of users now favoring messaging over calls, the potential of RCS to drive customer engagement is through the roof. This is an opportunity that’s ripe for the picking.
Source: RCS vs. SMS: Definitions, Differences & Current Trends
Here’s how much the potential for RCS from SMS engagement differs based on examples:
| Multimedia support | Real estate companies can send high-quality images or video tours to captivate potential buyers. |
| Customizable interface | Maintain consistency with your brand with personalized logos, specific color schemes, and design elements. |
| Interactive components | Adding carousels, “Buy Now” buttons, or product surveys can increase conversion rates by up to 40%. |
Personalization and Interactivity
Hyper-personalization is a way of using SMS for real-time engagement. It makes an even more unique experience for each user with the freshest data and artificial intelligence to predict customer needs and desires.
For example, Netflix recommends movies and shows that are relevant to your preferences, taking into account the time of day and season.
Spotify creates playlists like these based on the client’s music choices:
Source: Spotify
This approach allows companies to significantly increase customer engagement and loyalty. So, hyper-personalization is an advanced form of personalization that uses predictive analytics and real-time customer segmentation.
For SMS engagement campaigns, you may use the following approaches:
- Customized advertising (based on demographics)
- Unique mobile landing pages (branded content and interactive SMS)
- Service chatbots (self-service automation to resolve customer issues)
- Real-time product notifications (SMS notifications of product availability)
- Loyalty programs and re-engagement (offers for existing customers)
Unlock Higher SMS Engagement with Phonexa
Phonexa’s E-Delivery can boost your customer engagement SMS text efforts by helping you track and analyze campaign results.
E-Delivery ensures seamless SMS customer engagement through an omnichannel approach, offering tools such as behavioral segmentation, A/B testing, real-time analytics, and seamless integration with seven other proprietary solutions.
Learn how Phonexa can improve the performance of your marketing campaigns and close the loop between leads, calls, clicks, and revenue.
Get eight proprietary solutions at a single price (online price calculator):
| LMS Sync | Lead tracking & distribution software |
| Call Logic | Call tracking & distribution software |
| E-Delivery | Email & SMS marketing software |
| Cloud PBX | Cloud phone system |
| Lynx | Click tracking software |
| Opt-Intel | Suppression list management software |
| HitMetrix | User behavior recording & analytics software |
| Books360 | Automated accounting software |
Build your plan now, or take a product tour to learn more about Phonexa’s eight proprietary solutions.
Increase Customer Engagement With SMS Marketing
The impact of SMS marketing across industries and niches is undeniable. Consumers no longer care about sales pitches, so tailoring your SMS campaign to establish real contact with your customers can help boost SMS engagement and build trust and loyalty.
Combining SMS with other communication channels is a surefire way to hit your business goals. And the benefits are clear — happier customers, higher conversion rates, better SMS engagement.
If you haven’t launched SMS campaigns yet, now is the perfect time to start. Platforms like Phonexa can help you automate mundane tasks and streamline your marketing efforts. Help your business thrive and take your performance marketing to the next level.
Build your plan now, or book a demo to see how Phonexa can help you transform your performance marketing efforts and boost SMS engagement.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best metrics to measure SMS engagement success?
Track the following SMS engagement metrics:
- Open rate
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Conversion rate
- Delivery rate
- Opt-out rate
What steps ensure compliance with regulations?
Most importantly, follow GDPR, TCPA, or other local privacy laws. Each user must give explicit consent before sending them messages and, of course, provide an unsubscribe option in every SMS.
What strategies grow an effective SMS marketing list?
Personalized approach and timely delivery of messages are key factors for successful interaction. Use SMS to create a dialogue with customers, not just to send promotions or news.
How can SMS marketing improve customer retention?
With personalized messages that arrive instantly, such as order status updates, reminders, or special offers, SMS helps build trust and ensure higher customer engagement.
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