3 ways to leverage email and SMS together to maximize your brand’s revenue

SMS is the best kept not-so-secret secret in maximizing your brand’s revenue beyond the 40% you should be driving from your email marketing. Email’s still king but as inboxes become more and more crowded, SMS has stepped in as the perfect queen to the email marketer's toolkit. Together, email and SMS are quickly becoming the must-have power duo for brands looking to engage their customers through their full buying journey and maximizing sales. Emails are great for generating leads, gathering customer data, and sending interactive messages that incorporate multimedia (like gifs, images, and videos), but with a 98% open rate and a 36% CTR, you can’t deny the benefits of adding SMS to your marketing strategy. As an email marketer, here are the must-have SMS strategies to incorporate into your current campaigns and flows to accelerate your growth:

Leverage email and SMS to grow your list and maximize revenue

First things first, to drive revenue with your SMS and email marketing strategy, you need to have a list of customers who’ve provided opt-in and consent to be on your SMS list. You could have amazing SMS campaigns but if you don’t have an audience to send texts to, you won’t be able to drive sales. Make sure you’re using the right tools to build a comprehensive list of customers who’ve opted in and want to hear from you. Collecting the right data from the get-go will help you tailor your messages to each customer’s unique journey with your brand, and leverage SMS and email in the right instances to drive more revenue.

Luckily for you, if you already have an email marketing list, you can send targeted campaigns to current customers asking them to sign up to be on your SMS list, as part of your next campaign. Pair your CTA with a small discount to incentivize sign up and you’ll see more signups in no time!

Collect SMS opt-in with popup forms

A targeted popup form is also a great way to build your SMS list because they’re hard to ignore and usually incentivize signup with a sweet offer or discount. Not only are you building your list but they’re a great opportunity to get customer insights you can use to send targeted campaigns right from the start, helping maximize engagement and conversion. Start off with the basics; ask your customers for their name, email, phone number, and birthday to get a sense of who they are. Then ask about their interests and when they’d like to hear from you. By asking the right questions during sign up you’re able to personalize campaigns, engage customers, and add value from the get go. The more value customers get from your campaigns, the less likely they are to churn, and the more opportunities you’ll have to drive purchases.

Pro tip: some customers may only want to opt-in to either email or SMS. To ensure you capture the most signups possible, try setting up signup forms specifically for the device your customers are using when they browse your site. On mobile, you can ask specifically for SMS opt-in as customers are more likely to sign up since they’re already on their phone. On desktop, you can ask for both, making SMS optional, or just email!

Use SMS for time-sensitive campaigns to drive sales

Time sensitive campaigns are where email and SMS really shine in maximizing your sales. Even though most people read emails on their phone, there’s no guarantee that they’ll read it right away or click your CTA, especially with how crowded inboxes get these days. If you’re sending a campaign that’s time-sensitive, using SMS can get you the immediate results you’re looking for. The average text is responded to within 90 seconds, so combining SMS with email is perfect when you want instant results.

Use an Abandoned Cart automation series

With 88% of online shopping carts abandoned, you can’t afford to not have an abandoned cart automation set up to recover a percentage of those carts, and maximize revenue. With the time-sensitive nature of an abandoned cart, they’re the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the high conversion rates from SMS automations by adding it to your current email workflow. Start off by sending an email reminding customers that they left something in the cart. After a couple of days if they still haven’t purchased, send an SMS reminding customers that their carts will expire or that the item is almost out of stock and add a small discount code to really drive sales. Make sure you personalize the text with your customer’s name, and always include a link to the product that’s left in the cart.

Best practise is to follow the following message format for abandoned cart SMS reminders:

This would look so good on you! Don’t let it expire! Use code [code merge tag] to get a 20% off for the entire order. [link to the site]

Use email to build a relationship, and SMS to drive brand loyalty and higher revenue long term

SMS and email work together to bring your brand experience to your audience and build strong customer relationships that drive revenue, even when a worldwide pandemic is making it difficult to see your customers face to face. Think about it this way, 80% of future profits will come from just 20% of your customers so it’s super important that you’re nurturing the customer relationships you have with your email and SMS marketing strategy. Use email to build relationships and SMS to secure commitment. Emails are great for sending longer campaigns and newsletters while texts are better for time-sensitive and shorter messages. Use emails for most messages in your campaign, and then send a text to really seal the deal and drive conversions.

Build a welcome automation series

If you want to nurture customer relationships that drive revenue, you need a welcome series that includes both SMS and email! Welcome emails have a 91% open rate and, with over 74% of customers expecting to see one as soon as they sign up to be on your list, they’re a must have in your omnichannel marketing strategy. Think about it this way, it would be weird if you walked into a store and no one greeted you. It’s the same with your omnichannel marketing!

Leverage the immediacy of SMS to send a quick welcome message and discount code right away, and schedule a welcome series over the next few days to remind them of their discount code, while also sharing more about your brand and what they can expect from your future emails. You’ll drive conversion by connecting with them instantly since chances are they’ll see your SMS more than an email in their crowded inbox. Automating your welcome series and using both SMS and email will engage customers better right at the start of their journey with your brand, lead to stronger customer relationships, and drive higher revenue long term.

Wrap up

There’s no doubt about it, email is still one of the best drivers of ROI but to really maximize your revenue you need to add SMS into the mix. SMS is fast in every way, more personal than email, and you don’t have to compete in a noisy inbox to drive conversions. No really, when was the last time you got a text you didn’t read? SMS has become a must-have for any marketer looking to drive the most revenue from their marketing strategy, and with 61% of brands increasing their SMS budget within the last year, you don’t want to fall behind the curve by relying solely on email.