SMS Notifications: The Perfect Communication Platform for E-Commerce Stores
Updated: Mar 23
With an impressive click-through rate (CTR) of 9.18% and customers being 35 times more likely to read SMS notifications, SMS offers a great opportunity to build authentic and enduring relationships with customers. Brands can make use of different types of SMS notifications such as Promotional SMS and Transactional SMS updates to keep customers engaged and retained.
Contents:
What is an SMS notification?
What are the main types of SMS notifications?
What are the advantages of SMS as compared to other mediums?
How brands can establish a relationship with customers via SMS?
How can SMS notifications significantly improve real-time customer experience?
How can you enjoy this seamless experience?
Conclusion
What is an SMS notification? SMS notifications are personalized text messages sent to recipients who have agreed to receive communication from a brand. These messages contain important information about an order or service update, such as order alerts, payment alerts, promotions, and delivery status. E-commerce stores created on the Wix platform leverage SMS as a communication medium to offer customers real-time personalized updates. These services help establish and nurture strong relationships between the store and its customers, ultimately leading to repeat purchases and customer loyalty in the long run.
What are the main types of SMS notifications?
SMS notifications can be broadly classified into two categories: Promotional SMS notifications and Transactional SMS notifications.
Promotional SMS:
Promotional SMS Notifications are used by brands to raise business awareness and keep customers informed about upcoming events, discount offers, and new products. Brands have control over what and whom to send these notifications to ensure a positive customer experience. For example, a brand might offer a 20% discount on a customer's first premium SMS plan to encourage sign-ups. These notifications are typically short, creative, and aimed at generating sales by prompting customers to make purchases.
Transactional SMS:
Transactional SMS Notifications, on the other hand, contain information about orders, bookings, and payments, and help customers track their orders, events, and shipping details. They follow a simple format, unlike promotional notifications, and are intended to provide customers with relevant information about their purchases.
What are the advantages of SMS notifications?
SMS notifications offer a significant advantage in terms of their high open rate. Gartner reports that while email has an open rate of 20% and a response rate of 6%, SMS messages have a remarkable open rate of up to 98% and a response rate of 45%. Unlike email, which is often overlooked, SMS messages are almost always read within the first five minutes of receipt, making them an ideal medium for time-sensitive updates such as seasonal offers or delivery updates.
Studies show that 73% of customers have made a purchase after receiving an SMS notification, and with the average human attention span lasting just 8.25 seconds, a concise yet impactful SMS message from a brand can effectively drive traffic to their store.
Interestingly, while 54% of customers prefer to receive promotional SMS messages, only 11% of businesses provide them, making this an unexplored avenue for businesses to reach out to existing customers and significantly grow their business.
How brands can establish a relationship with customers via SMS?
Brands can leverage the power of SMS flows to establish and nurture relationships with their customers. Typically, there are three types of SMS flows that brands use:
Welcome texts: This is a critical part of SMS flows where the brand informs the customer about what they signed up for and assures them of future communication. The first message sets the tone for the customer relationship. For example, a message that reads "Thank you for signing up for our newsletter. We are excited to have you on board and want to keep you updated" can help build a strong relationship with the customer.
Post-purchase flows: In this flow, brands prioritize the customer experience by providing transactional texts, feedback surveys, order updates, reviews, and tutorial video links related to the purchased product. By using SMS texts, brands can improve customer experience and engagement, leading to better customer retention.
Replenishment flows: Brands can leverage the information about how long their products last to send SMS texts about new products or refills that the customers can avail of. This works well for makeup brands, electronics brands, wellness brands, and more. As SMS texts have high open rates, customers are more likely to view the text and make a purchase.
How can SMS notifications significantly improve real-time customer experience?
SMS notifications offer several advantages to brands as they provide immediate and real-time updates to customers regarding their orders, transactions, events, and product upgrades. The short and creative nature of SMS messages allows for specific and relevant information to be conveyed, resulting in a seamless customer experience. Additionally, customers prefer SMS notifications as they do not rely on the internet or third-party services to receive alerts from their favourite brands. Research indicates that 31% of American customers want to receive weekly texts from their favourite brands, and 72% of customers are more likely to make a purchase if communicated with in real-time via text messaging.
Personalization is another key advantage of SMS notifications as businesses can use a customer's first name or reference their recent purchase to create a more engaging and personalized experience.
How can you enjoy this seamless experience?
You can experience the same benefits by downloading the Santhe E-commerce SMS app on Wix. Our app provides E-commerce stores with transactional and marketing SMS services that ensure timely updates and personalized attention. Our goal is to help you establish trusted, secure, and long-lasting relationships with customers. For more information, please visit www.santhe.info.
Conclusion
To sum up, SMS notifications have become crucial for e-commerce stores as they offer several benefits, such as high open rates, personalized messaging, immediacy, and cost-effectiveness. These advantages make SMS messages a useful tool for businesses to keep their customers informed and engaged during their shopping experience. With the increasing popularity of online shopping, SMS notifications are likely to become even more important for businesses to remain competitive in the e-commerce industry.