How an SMS Sales Funnel Boosts Revenue

Mara Lam on Jul 20, 2021 12:52:35 PM

Marketing your Shopify store sometimes feels like shouting into the void. You spend tons of time and money on email, blogs, and even paid ads, but no one’s biting. It’s time to try a marketing strategy that actually works for eCommerce: SMS marketing.

SMS marketing is about more than sending a shotgun message to everyone on your list when you feel like it. You need a strategic approach that allows you to put your SMS marketing on autopilot and rake in more customers—without any hands-on management.

Although SMS should be part of your overall marketing funnel, you need to create a funnel just for your SMS customer journey. From there, you can plug SMS into your overall sales funnel for a holistic strategy that pairs the effectiveness of SMS with your entire marketing mix for more customer engagement.

What is an SMS funnel?

A funnel is the process every customer goes through before they decide whether they want to buy your product or not. You probably have some kind of sales funnel for your Shopify store as a whole, but an SMS sales funnel really kicks things up a notch.

An SMS sales funnel looks specifically at how customers make a purchase through SMS marketing. Ideally, your SMS funnel should work in tandem with your other funnels, like email, social media, and paid ads. The result is a powerful, holistic eCommerce strategy that brings in more sales with less work.

The benefits of a text funnel

A message funnel will help you get more traction out of your investment in SMS marketing. And it’s definitely an investment that reaps dividends. Shopify retailers that create an SMS sales funnel are able to:

- Improve open rates: Sick of sending emails that no one reads? 60% of shoppers read SMS messages within five minutes. Since shoppers open 98% of SMS messages (compared to 20% of emails), an SMS funnel gets you more customer engagement faster.
- Meet shoppers’ expectations: 54% of shoppers want to get brand promotions via text, but only 11% of businesses send promotions via SMS. In fact, customers prefer SMS messaging over any other platform. An SMS sales funnel meets customers where they want to interact with you.

Stand out from the competition: Just 39% of retailers use SMS marketing. Stand out from other Shopify retailers by interacting with your shoppers in a distraction-free environment with fewer competitors.

3 Tips to Set up a Revenue-boosting SMS Sales Funnel

Text message marketing has a lot of promise for growing eCommerce shops, but it’s a new strategy for most businesses. To learn how to send marketing text messages wisely, check out these three tips to create a strategic SMS sales funnel that nurtures customers while you sleep.

1. Start with the opt-in

It’s against the TCPA to send your shoppers a text message without their permission first. Just like email, shoppers have to opt in to receive SMS messages. At the opt-in stage, they’re just learning about your business and might not feel certain about joining your list. So give them an offer they can’t refuse!

You can encourage people to opt-in by:

Promoting your SMS list with in-store signage if you have a physical location
Selling them on the benefits of subscribing, like monthly freebies or specials
Sending new subscribers a 20% off coupon

You can use a tool like Winback to send new subscribers an auto-responder sequence, too. All of the nurturing is done for you, so there’s no need to hire customer service agents to send individual welcome messages. Easy, right?

2. Customize content to the buyer’s journey

The big benefit of creating an SMS sales funnel is that it allows you to customize content for every shopper through segmentation. With the right approach, you can send messages tuned in to what each shopper needs to hear from you right now so they make a purchase.

Look at all three stages of the buyer’s journey to customize your SMS messages:

Awareness stage: These customers have just become aware of your products. Your goal at this stage is to get them on your SMS list by enticing them with discounts, a members-only club, or other juicy benefits.
Consideration stage: At this point, you want to deepen relationships with your shoppers. Send them educational content based on their interests. For example, if you sell makeup kits, shoppers at the consideration stage would love to see before-and-after pictures and tutorials.
Decision stage: Now’s the time to come in with the hard sell. Shoppers at the decision stage are ready to buy, but they need an extra nudge. Chat with them one on one, upsell other products to them, or ask for a review.

The goal of an SMS sales funnel is to encourage customers at every stage to move further down the funnel and, ideally, to buy something from your store. Stage-sensitive SMS messages make sure you aren’t coming on too strong with your customers so you send the right message at the right time.

3. Test and tweak over time

Like any marketing initiative, SMS marketing works best when you test it. With a platform like Winback, you can easily track your SMS performance over time. If you’re tracking data, then use it to write even better SMS marketing campaigns. Tweak your messages, SMS sequences, offers, and other variables to steadily improve your SMS marketing game over time.

Send Marketing Text Messages that Work

Empathy goes a long way in marketing. An SMS sales funnel helps Shopify retailers design useful, valuable messages that your customers will love. If you’re new to SMS marketing, follow our three tips to create your first text SMS sales funnel to start on the right foot.

Need more help? Get more ROI with an SMS platform designed just for Shopify sellers. Winback recovers 34% of abandoned carts with a 24/7 SMS marketing solution that works while you sleep. Sign up for your free Winback trial now.

Topics: SMS Marketing