Retail global: The power of SMS marketing ecommerce

News & announcements 3 min read Apr 2021 |   Author: Sinch MessageMedia

Off the back of our 2021 retail trends and predictions webinar hosted by Retail Global, MessageMedia was thrilled to be involved with Retail Global’s Retail Fest this year.

Retail Fest is a three-day conference celebrating the success of ecommerce brands and entrepreneurs alongside educational sessions on how to sell more online. After the accelerated shift to online thanks to COVID, many businesses are turning to events such as Retail Fest to learn how to take their business to the next level.

Teaching businesses how SMS messaging can work for them

Offering fantastic learning experiences and networking opportunities for attendees, we were delighted to be a silver sponsor for Retail Fest. With so many of our current customers able to use text messaging to achieve great success as part of their online experience, we were eager to share our expertise. Through our stall activation, we engaged retail and ecommerce shop owners and solution providers on all the incredible ways a marketing channel like SMS could help them win over more customers.

We spoke to numerous delegates from various ecommerce companies and retail businesses including pet food, sports equipment, cosmetics as well as service companies such as beauty and hair salons. Having one-on-one conversations and custom demos, delegates were able to experience the powerful cut-through and conversion rates of SMS first-hand while learning the various ways it could help drive more sales. For example, while some were using SMS already to promote marketing campaigns or offers, they were unaware of how else text messaging could be used such as for customer support, recovering abandoned carts, or as a new review and feedback avenue.

In addition, our activation was also a great way for attendees to win some fantastic prizes from our ‘MessageMedia shopping cart’ and grab some MessageMedia swag. One happy winner, Carla from All Things For Kids, took home some swish Bose headphones!

Best progressive technology solution at the VIP awards night

To celebrate innovation, excellence and empathy amongst the Aussie retail provider community, MessageMedia was nominated for three top awards at Retail Fest’s Vendor In Partnership awards. We are delighted to announce that we won the top gong for Best Progressive Technology Solution.

As a solution provider to over 65,000 global businesses since our inception 20 years ago, we continue to stay committed to being a best-in-class engagement platform for our customers. With MessageMedia’s advanced technology, we are able to send over 3 billion messages per year with a guaranteed 99% API uptime.

MessageMedia has heavily invested in building on-shore infrastructure and technology as well as connecting to thousands of integrations encompassing direct, iPaaS and partners. This has allowed us to enable customers to connect fast and more intimately with consumers through the power of SMS.

Newly launched integrations with major platforms such as Shopify and HubSpot have proved hugely beneficial for our customers. This means greater access and capabilities for their businesses to build integrated communication and marketing initiatives to drive better business outcomes and seamless customer experiences.

Hosting the ‘Maximizing conversions’ panel discussion

With her wealth of expertise and experience, MessageMedia CMO Tara Salmon was asked to host the Retail Fest panel ‘Maximizing Conversions’ alongside brands including PetStock, Eco Modern Essentials and web agency Convert Digital.

Often retailers miss the opportunity to utilize their sales and communication data to catalyze future growth and customer happiness. For example, macro trends indicate that consumers are seeking more personalized interactions with a brand on channels that suit them. For example, 76% of customers prefer to hear from a business on SMS over other channels.

If you’re a brand like PetStock with complex customer segments such as online, offline, hybrid and click and collect, data is critical to enabling activities such as segmentation and personalization, to strategically engage customers on certain days such as holidays or birthdays. You may also choose to use previous purchase behavior to upsell or personalize communications, so they’re more relevant.

When you’re a brand selling your own stock such as Eco Modern Essentials, data is a key enabler to driving onsite and offsite optimization. In fact, Eco took the audience through an example of how SMS alone resulted in 3700% ROI through text reminders to drive abandoned shoppers back to their carts.

Convert Digital spoke to the importance of running continuous A/B tests and committing to consistent fine-tuning. By tweaking your on-site experience, for example, you can more easily notice any gaps and optimize conversion. For MessageMedia’s customer Simply for Strings, having abandoned cart reminders wasn’t enough to convert sales. Based on the data they collected from customers, they added two-way messaging to their text reminders. Customers could now make last-minute queries about products and get fast real-time responses, which resulted in 40% more completed orders than before.

For any brand, there are multiple ways to ensure greater sale success from your data:

• Master data basics 101 before taking it to the next level
• Focus on the data points rather than the tool itself (what is the data telling me?)
• Tag and segment your customer so that it’s easier to attribute performance to sales
• Personalize and tailor your messaging based on the data at hand (i.e. including customer’s first name can achieve even greater cut-through)

Final thoughts, further reading

As one of the first major events MessageMedia has taken part in since 2020, we were excited to aid retailers and online sellers in understanding how they could benefit from the cut-through and performance that only SMS can offer.

With multiple new prospects educated on how SMS can help them resolve their business challenges, we see our partnership with Retail Global and our time at Retail Fest as a major success.

Make sure to also check out:

• IWD 2021: Fostering diversity and nurturing talent in cybersecurity
• Webinar: How to start sending SMS for retailers and ecommerce sellers
• Top 2021 retail trends and communication predictions from the ecommerce experts