4 easy automations for SMS marketing on Shopify

Integrate & automate 4 min read May 2022 |   Author: Sinch MessageMedia

All set up on Shopify? Ready to lure in the traffic and tally up some sales? It’s time to roll up your marketing sleeves and get busy building your brand on social media, winning new customers via paid advertising and, of course, boosting loyalty with SMS marketing.

Why SMS, you ask? It has a 98% open rate, and 90% of messages are opened within 90 seconds. In other words, SMS delivers incredible ROI for Shopify sellers. The best bit? It’s extremely simple to set up using our SMS for Shopify integration.

Under the hood of Shopify SMS marketing

To see just how effective text marketing can be, we analysed hundreds of thousands of SMS campaign sends from Shopify sellers. We discovered that:

• The average consumer spends 2 hours and 51 minutes on their phone each day. That’s a lot of screen time.
• On average, most Shopify stores expect a 15% click-through rate for their sends. This is almost double the click-through from email marketing campaigns.
• While Mondays and Fridays are the most popular days to send, campaigns sent on Fridays and Saturdays produce the best results.
• The most popular SMS campaigns include new product announcements, early access to sales, exclusive discounts, and alternative offers (such as 2-for-1 deals).

Get started with these four tactics

The magic of SMS marketing for Shopify lies in automation. Once it’s all set up, you barely need to lift a finger – the technology does all the hard work for you.

Here are four common ecommerce experiences that can easily be automated to send targeted SMS marketing messages to help win your customers over.

1. Abandoned cart reminders

In retail last year, over 76% of ecommerce carts were abandoned. Ouch.

Don’t despair, though. All those customers who abandon you at the last minute might just need a little prodding to complete the purchase. And SMS is the perfect way to do this.

It’s easy to set up simple, automated text messages at timed intervals to remind customers about something they were thinking about buying. You could even add in a sweetener, like a discount or extra deal, to help seal the deal.

Use our MessageMedia: SMS Marketing app for Shopify to monitor your ROI for each message sent, and watch more of your customers come back for more.

2. Entice customers back

If your customers regularly need to replenish whatever you’re selling – like pet food, personal care items, or cleaning products – nudge them into action with an automated SMS reminder.

For example, say you sell hair care products in your Shopify store. You know a certain bottle of conditioner lasts about 60 days. Send a friendly reminder to customers on day 50 post-purchase, giving them plenty of time to order their next bottle.

Winning customers back (aka winbacks) aren’t just for items that need to be replenished. If it’s been a few months since a customer last visited your online store, send them a surprise message with a discount code or news about an upcoming sale or event.

3. Back in stock

Give your loyal customers first dibs when their favourite products are back in stock. And, to make sure they’re the first to know about your restocked situation, set up automated messages.

You can create rules so customers are automatically alerted when a product they recently browsed or purchased is back on the virtual shelf.

4. SMS as part of broader marketing campaigns

With Shopify, it’s easy to set up a multi-step, omnichannel marketing campaign that uses a range of different channels, like SMS, email, and ads. This strategy is great for seasonal campaigns such as Christmas, Black Friday or Mother’s Day.

Text messaging forms just one part of your omnichannel campaign, as part of a more comprehensive journey that might include email, paid advertising, and more. To monitor performance and see which channels work best for you, it’s possible to add unique codes that track each channel.

Want more Shopify SMS templates and ideas?

Get more inspo and best practices for using SMS marketing. Find ways to boost Shopify sales by reading our Shopify SMS best practices ebook.