SMS Marketing Trends in 2023
By Therese Tullgren | therese.tullgren@ungapped.com
During the year 2023, customer requirements will change. There is a desire for immediate and personal communication with brands they support. Companies are working to provide ingenious ways to connect and retain customer loyalty.
SMS has become the best channel for businesses to reach their customers, with a proven open rate of 97% compared to other media. As a result, many brands are finding new ways to use SMS to improve their overall customer experience and marketing campaigns.
It may be worth pointing out again that SMS will continue to grow in popularity, and consumers will receive more SMS than ever before. As a result, more companies are trying to develop a more direct relationship with their customers by hiring bulk SMS providers to start with SMS marketing.
We’ll explore rising SMS trends you should watch in 2023 and beyond.
1. Talk to your customers
SMS is successful from a marketing point of view, but according to Techjury, 75% of customers prefer to receive marketing offers via SMS.
Being able to interact with a brand and receive offers from your brand via text is quick and easy, and it paves the way for better brand-customer relationships and transactions.
Kissmetrics founder Hiten Shah sends a roundup of his favorite posts on content that includes marketing, sales, and growth. Others provide their readers with a range without them having to search for it online, and it helps them improve, which adds much value to the customers.
2. Growth of transactional SMS updates
More customers are opting for SMS to receive purchase/order updates, and brands can provide immediate value through purchase order updates such as confirmation and shipping/delivery notifications.
And this gives companies a chance to cross-sell and up-sell future orders while customers are engaged. Wonderment CEO Jess Meher noted that more consumers would choose SMS to receive real-time updates, compared to email with features such as pay-over text that are becoming more common.
3. Use text messages to retain customers
Retention is the new conversion strategy. As a result, more companies are now focusing on retaining existing customers. According to Forbes, this is the number one reason why loyalty and retention marketing spending will increase by up to 30% this year.
You can use SMS to send links that give your customers special discounts that would encourage them to continue to advocate for your business. Just take Netflix, which does it whenever a customer tries to cancel their subscription due to unscheduled billing. They give the customer a free month to enjoy their platform and reconsider.
4. SMS personalization through IoT
According to SmarterHQ, customers say they only engage with marketing messages that are tailored to their interests. As a brand in today’s world, you are expected to do more than shout sales pitches to your target audience. You have to create a personal connection and remember who the customer is, what they like, what they think, and what they want.
“SMS can become more personalized and location-specific thanks to the data insights collected by smart IoT devices.” Personalization does not stop at the customer end; brands are also expected to personalize their messages and make them unique to them with URL shortening tools.
5. Conversational SMS
Conversational messaging is about having one-on-one conversations with your customers in real-time to create personal connections and drive engagement. Using conversational SMS can reduce your operational costs by up to 30%. In addition, ThoughtSpot found it reliable and saw 10x more sales conversations, 70% more marketing-qualified leads, and 64% more appointments booked.
6. SMS automation
Brands are realizing that they can apply the same tactics used in email marketing to SMS by integrating with the right communication platform. As a result, we expect to see more brands taking advantage of the various text marketing automation strategies available.
These automated text messages come in reminder SMS, booking confirmation texts, order tracking SMS, and more.
7. Growth through campaigns, sales, and offers
SMS is fast becoming a popular marketing medium as it has a whopping 14% conversion rate and is excellent for generating revenue through sales.
Text messaging can be integrated into your marketing strategy in many ways. For example, you can use SMS marketing to send tips and relevant content that your customers love and respond to.
You can also keep your customers loyal to your brand by offering them special discounts and promotions based on their shopping history and preferences.
8. Possible preference for SMS as the primary customer service channel
Customer service is critical to the success of your marketing department. It helps ensure you deliver on your brand promise. More than 50% of smartphone users prefer texting customer service representatives to making phone calls, according to Gartner, and it’s becoming more mainstream.
- Some customer service features include:
- Payment confirmations and purchase receipts.
- Tracking information for item delivery
- Schedule meetings and send meeting reminders
- Get feedback on your processes, products, and services
- Customers with a phone can text your customer support to resolve issues quickly, and this can increase customer confidence.
9. Overall Adoption of SMS
According to a principal analyst at Juniper, a report predicts that consumers will receive more text messages than ever before, and it’s worth reiterating that SMS will continue to grow in popularity among SMBs. As a result, we will see a growing interest in introducing CPaaS solutions (communication platform as a service).
The solution will be integrated with other marketing channels. Then we will see more SMS newsletters with embedded links and SMS combined with social media marketing in a few years.
Messaging will be the next phase of -commerce
SMS is becoming increasingly popular and will reach new heights in the future, and it will be an essential component of your brand’s overall marketing and sales goals. As SMS continues to evolve, it will become a fully shoppable experience. Everything a customer can do on an e-commerce site will be achievable via text. Real-time person-to-person messaging will become the benchmark, and it’s in your brand’s best interest to get started now with SMS marketing so you can take advantage of it!
Contact us directly and talk about our SMS tool with us. Email to sales@ungapped.com