The days of customers patiently waiting for a response from an online brand are long gone. Reaching out to a brand via email, only to be reverted to the ‘we will get back to you within x days’ automated response doesn’t work anymore.
Customers are now savvier than ever, and with information available at their fingertips, intrusive cold calls and boring emails simply won’t cut it anymore. We’re now looking at demands for real-time communication, non-automated responses and rejection on unrequested marketing messages – and for good reason!
Your shoppers expect you to be available when they’re ready to make a purchase. If they’re on your website, they expect to be able to chat with a member of your team. If they’re messaging you through social media, they expect an immediate response.
Similarly, if they have a customer support question, they expect to text. Nobody wants to wait 24 hours for a reply. Only to then have to email back with details and wait another day for someone to reply. And, chances are, one or two back and forth email sessions won’t be enough.
Now, you don’t want to start texting every single phone number in your list or, worse, blast them through an automated SMS platform. Your shoppers expect a hyper-personalized experience — and at Cartloop, we’re enabling brands to do that (in a breeze). Using technology and humanity, brands can interact real-time with shoppers, 24/7 — with zero overhead.
Want to amaze your customers with hyper-personalized text messages? Learn more about how we do it at Cartloop here.
To help you out, we’ve put together a list of successful text messages we’ve used in the past that created a lasting effect with our clients’ shoppers which led to cart recoveries and repeat purchases.
1. Abandoned Cart Recovery
Abandoned carts are amongst the top 3 challenges that online brands have to tackle on a constant basis. When shoppers have various items in their cart but don’t finalize the purchase, it makes for lost revenue that retailers should at least try to recover.
There have been many studies surrounding cart abandonment statistics, with rates growing to 88% in 2020. In other words, more than ¾ of shoppers choose to leave your website without completing a purchase!
The way to get those shoppers back to your website and on their way to finalizing a purchase is to interact with them, find out why they didn’t complete that buy. And the easiest, quicker way to do so is to find them where they spend most of their time: their phone.
Follow our template for a successful cart abandonment text message – one that doesn’t feel like forcing a sale, but more like a helpful outreach from a brand your customers already love.
2. Product Recommendations
Oftentimes people hesitate to buy because of a small issue – it could be that they had a hard time finding a certain product, your shipping costs are too high or, simply put, something came up in their daily life.
At Cartloop, we have a real team of Cart Recovery Experts™ that can help your customers navigate any questions that might have stopped them from purchasing and close the sale through discounts or personalized valuable incentives. Common types of questions that we get relate to shipping, payment methods or product-specific questions.
Take a look at the image below that shows a real conversation between one of our experts and a real shopper who abandoned a product cart, then use our template to format your conversational SMS marketing.
Once you find out the reason your customer abandoned his cart, you can move the conversation along in a personalized way, as per your client’s current situation. Recommending a product is one of those times that you simply cannot cover through email or any other marketing channel – at least, not in such an efficient way and with immediate benefits.
When customers have product-specific questions that they cannot find the answer for on your website, it’s no surprise that they choose to abandon their purchase - they might think about returning later with more detailed information, but let’s face it: most of the time, they don’t.
Therefore, your text messaging has the potential of becoming your shoppers’ personal assistant, helping them navigate complex product details, learn about product benefits and ultimately finalize that purchase.
3. Up-sells & Cross-sells
Because you’ve already established a relationship with these customers, upselling should, in theory, be easier than acquiring new leads. When you sell complementary products or offer volume-based discounts as a retailer, you can increase the average purchase value, by activating upsells and cross-sells through SMS marketing. This isn’t solely an eCommerce opportunity though – other industries can take advantage of conversational texts to provide this extra value to their customers.
For example: if you’re in the Travel & Hospitality industry, you can use SMS marketing to offer upgrades to your Rewards Club members, next to the usual text reminders that clients get.
After your initial offer to help and letting the customer know they’re looked after, starting a conversation to ask additional questions is much easier. When your customers feel they can quickly fix any initial issues that prompted them to abandon their cart, when they experience a pleasant interaction with your support team, they are more likely to stick around and be open to purchasing products your team is recommending.
At the end of the day, you shouldn’t look at up-selling and cross-selling as tools for your growth, but more like helping your users make the most of their experience with you and your products. Just keep in mind that this isn’t one-size-fits-all – your customers each look for different products and experience different pain points. Don’t be pushy, but aim to solve their issue – which will also organically result in your store being successful.
Because – remember – even if someone is set on buying a certain product and its complementary packages, nobody wants to feel like they’re aggressively being sold to. Be friendly and solve their problems – that’s all you need to do.
4. Welcome Texts
Starting a conversation with an already-existing client, who already trusts your brand enough to have made a purchase, or, at least create an account on your website, is much easier than generating new leads from scratch.
Many brands create loyalty clubs for their members, but oftentimes the value they provide fades over time as they fail to keep the conversation going to have their shoppers engaged and happy to interact with their favourite brand. Convincing someone to give out their details and enrol in your loyalty club is no small feat! So you should ensure you leverage that trust that they gave you by keeping the conversation going and ensuring your shoppers’ experience with you is nothing short of extraordinary.
And the easiest way to start that conversation is a welcoming text message – directly to their phone, short and to the point. You may also include a discount code as a welcome bonus if you like.
Pro tip: Try not to limit the validity of that code to a few days. This isn’t the time to create limited-time offers. This is a “thank you for trusting us” message to inspire loyalty and repeat purchases.
5. Kind Reminders
Many brands create loyalty clubs for their members, but oftentimes the value they provide fades over time as they fail to keep the conversation going to have their shoppers engaged and happy to interact with their favourite brand. Convincing someone to give out their details and enrol in your loyalty club is no small feat! So you should ensure you leverage that trust that they gave you by keeping the conversation going and ensuring your shoppers’ experience with you is nothing short of extraordinary.
Reminder texts can be a valuable resource for both businesses and clients alike. One of the issues we all face today is that we live in a ‘busy culture’, where we always have things to do and sometimes it can become overwhelming. With many distractions around us, sometimes it’s easy to overlook things like an abandoned cart from a purchase we wanted to make.
This also applies to other industries as well, not just eCommerce – businesses with booking systems could benefit tremendously as in their situation, a missed appointment means lost revenue for that day. When we overlook previously made plans, especially since a lot of time has passed since that appointment was made, both clients and businesses are affected. One by a lost service and the latter by lost revenue.
Thus, sending a gentle reminder text message to your shoppers can help boost your cart recovery rates and, in case your business is service-based, you can make sure your clients show up for their appointment they paid for.
Curious how we keep our customers’ shoppers happy? You can read more about it here.
Key Takeaways
SMS Marketing has the potential to significantly turn your owned marketing game around, efficiently and with direct impact on building long-lasting customer relationships. Conversational text marketing is raved by most shoppers because it’s less intrusive, happens in real-time and offers real value — not just a sales push.
If you look at the examples above, they all have a few things in common:
- Always address the customer by their name to give the text a personal feel
- Don’t send robotic, automated messages blasts
- Each text message is personalized according to your client’s situation
- It’s acceptable (and encouraged) to interact with your customer through emojis
- Provide real value through every single interaction
- Respond to customer needs in real-time
So remember – the more unique a customer’s shopping experience is, the more likely they are to return to your store. With text marketing, you now have the opportunity to bring the in-store experience online in just a few clicks.
Want to see how conversational text marketing can become one of your top 3 marketing channels? Sign-up for our 14-day unlimited free trial and start engaging with your customers like never before.
