How to implement a cross channel marketing campaign with SMS

Advanced SMS guides 3 min read Feb 2021 |   Author: Sinch MessageMedia

Today, building a relevant and smart cross channel strategy can feel daunting in the face of hundreds of different communication tools and options available to marketers around the globe. As our Chief Marketing Officer, Tara Salmon, advised in this HubSpot webinar, “start small and build from there”.

From our work with Vinomofo, and the results it delivered, SMS continues to reign supreme as both an effective standalone tool and also in conjunction with other communication channels.

Watch the webinar (link below) or read on to see our top highlights and takeaways on building successful cross channel campaigns that incorporate SMS. You’ll hear from special guest experts including HubSpot’s Cameron McFarlane and David Gutla, Vinomofo’s Head of Marketing Mariano Favia, and MessageMedia CMO Tara Salmon.

Why use SMS as part of my cross-channel strategy

With 90% of messages read within 90 seconds, text messaging can’t be beaten when you add it to a multi-channel mix.

For example, you could:

• Send out successful marketing campaigns to drive up sales
• Drive sales efficiencies by notifying internal teams with follow-ups
• Delight customers with an automated and personalised special birthday offer
• And many more examples!

MessageMedia CMO Tara Salmon talked to a particularly interesting use case with a financial services client. When a prospect called in enquiring about a home loan, the operator would fill in a web form with all their details. Once ready to book an appointment with a home loan officer, an email confirmation is sent to the prospect. An SMS alert is also sent to the home loan officer that the meeting had been booked, and then finally a text reminder is sent to the prospect a day before their meeting, which reduces the likeliness of a no-show.

Text messaging plays very well with other tools, too! While customer journeys can be complex when they cut across multiple channels, SMS is easily added to your HubSpot workflows and marketing automation journeys using the drag-and-drop interface, leading to amplified results.

Deep dive: Implementing SMS into your cross-channel strategy with Vinomofo

As one of our earliest adopters of the MessageMedia integration, Vinomofo’s journey with SMS began when they realised they needed another channel to contact customers. While email was performing fantastically, Vinomofo wanted to find even more ways to engage customers on a different level.

The main thing that stood out was how laser-focused Mariano and the team were on personalisation. They wanted to understand what made their customers tick.

Tara Salmon

‘Starting small’, they began by manually sending out text messages in their campaign, and while it was tiresome, they immediately saw great results. They started with a clear use case and tested what was most effective, adjusting incrementally while MessageMedia worked hard in parallel to refine their integration to meet Vinomofo’s needs.

RELATED: Check out how Vinomofo drove 120XROI and 21% uplift in conversions – all through SMS – in our in-depth case study.

For Mariano, having that solid foundation in terms of their use case and reporting helped them identify the challenge they wanted to address with this technology:

What are we trying to resolve here? And then that triggered better reporting and then that triggered optimisation.

Mariano Favia

Fast forward to now, after working with MessageMedia to build SMS for HubSpot, they can claim:

We are very proud of the results because our cross -channel strategy means we can send even more relevant messages to customers.

Mariano Favia

Vinomofo’s strategy around combining email with SMS for re-engagement not only struck a chord with churning customers but also engaged active customers too.

General questions about SMS

• What phone number would the SMS be sent from when sending via HubSpot?

With SMS for HubSpot, we can give you a dedicated number that ensures that all your communications come from the same number and that the messages you send go into the same conversation thread on your customer’s device. It also allows for inbound text messaging as well.

• How would you measure the success of SMS and what sort of metrics would you pull out?

Again, it all depends on what you are trying to achieve. Generally, you can look at message delivery rates – are your messages getting through?

MessageMedia also uses a short trackable link functionality that helps to measure click-through rates. You can connect that in with your conversion paths through to tracking parameters. This helps you see how many sales you are making through your site, for example, or whatever your objective might be.

Final thoughts, further reading

As one of many tools to choose from when building your cross-channel strategy, SMS is a great one to start on. Seeing how it has resulted in incredible results for Vinomofo, how can it deliver for you? Talk to our team of SMS experts and find out.

For even more reading:

• Learn how to supercharge your marketing with our guide on SMS automation
• Start implementing new HubSpot workflows now with 30 templates from our free SMS for HubSpot ebook 
• Dive into our beginner’s guide to building SMS workflows in HubSpot