Successful Strategies for Email and SMS

Email and SMS messages are innovative ways for brands to elevate their marketing strategies. Most ecommerce brands are already utilizing email and SMS, but in 2024, brands need to recognize that the environment has evolved, and your SMS and email marketing plans need to evolve, too. 

This article highlights key tactics that every ecommerce business should implement or test. By merging these strategies with the latest digital marketing methods, companies can effectively boost engagement, revenue, and both customer retention and lifetime value (LTV). Explore advanced tactics for leveraging the potential of email and SMS marketing, enabling your brand to not just keep up with current trends, but also to establish new standards for success.

Email Marketing Strategies

This section covers the latest methods for email marketing success in 2024. Successful email marketing campaigns have highly personalized and curated content that’s both interactive and dynamic. By incorporating these approaches into your email marketing strategy, you can forge deeper connections with your audience and drive meaningful engagement.

Personalized

Advanced personalization tactics in email marketing go beyond just inserting a recipient’s name in the email; they strategically make each email feel uniquely tailored to the recipient. 

Segment your email list based on factors like past purchasers, engagement level, demographic information, and browsing behavior. Then, tailor your emails to those segments to provide them with more relevant content. Look at their behaviors and seek out unique ways to engage or reengage with them.

Apart from the promotional emails typically sent to a broad audience, you might also want to send targeted emails based on your specific goals.

For instance, send personalized emails to customers who have made purchases. This email could feature recommended products, solicit feedback, and encourage repeat purchases through an enticing incentive. By personalizing this communication and tailoring your messaging to their preferences, you engage your audience and foster repeat business.

An alternative approach to personalizing emails is to target subscribers who have shown interest in the brand by signing up for emails but haven’t made a purchase yet. In addition to sending them an initial email with a special offer, conduct A/B tests to compare different content and styles. Sometimes, a personalized email using the sender’s name instead of the company name can significantly influence how a customer engages with the brand.

Focusing on new customers who are actively engaging with the brand early in their journey builds a relationship beyond simple a transaction. It cultivates a sense of loyalty to the brand from the outset.

Utilize your analytics dashboard and tailored reports within your Email Service Provider (ESP) to obtain insights into the type of content that resonates with your audience. Beyond assessing what content to send, delve into your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to determine if you need to enhance click-through rates. Experiment with more personalized content for subject lines and audience segments, which could comprise product recommendations, educational tips related to business or product, or customer appreciation, aligning with your target audience’s preferences.

By tailoring these messages to reflect actual interactions with your brand, your emails will be more likely to get engagement. 

Implementing these personalization strategies requires a strategic approach and the right technological tools. Advanced Email Service Providers are capable of handling sophisticated segmentation, automation, and dynamic content are essential. Equally important are skilled strategic professionals who can guide and oversee the process. They ensure that technology and strategy are perfectly aligned, resulting in a seamless implementation.

Interactive

Interactive content in email marketing is a great way to engage subscribers and collect feedback. Interactive content simply means that there is an element of the email that recipients interact with beyond just reading it. It could be quizzes, polls, surveys, interactive images, or even games. The key is to make these elements engaging, quick to interact with, and relevant to your target audience’s interests. 

Interactive content can also be a powerful tool to drive action. For example, after collecting feedback on a product, if some customers weren’t entirely satisfied, you could follow up with a targeted email offering a discount or incentive to give the product another try, addressing any concerns they might have had.

Polls and surveys allow you to collect feedback directly from your subscribers. You can get data on your products or services or their overall experience. 

For a new product launch, a quiz can help your subscribers understand how that product could solve a problem for them or how it would fit into their lifestyle. These types of interactive email marketing strategies not only educate your subscribers but keep them engaged and create a more memorable experience. 

Curated

Curated content adds value and educates or entertains the recipient, often leveraging user-generated content (UGC) or other forms of third-party content. Consumers are responding more and more to relatable, genuine content, so by layering curated content into your email marketing strategy, you can increase revenue, retention, and LTV. 

Include images, videos, testimonials, or reviews from real users to add authenticity and trust to your emails. This is particularly effective for products where seeing them in use or hearing about real results can drive sales.

For instance, if you’re selling a kitchen appliance, include a short video or a link to a video that demonstrates easy recipes using the appliance.

A best practice is to use GIFs or short clips in the email to give a preview of the video, making it more attractive and making the viewer more likely to click through to the full video or article hosted on your website or a social platform.

Remember that you’ll need to curate content for specific audience segments. Younger demographics might be more engaged by dynamic UGC, while older demographics might appreciate more detailed how-to videos.

Embed social media posts or snippets within the email that highlight positive experiences with your products. This is great social proof that it’s not just you and your brand singing your praises but real third parties. It also bridges the gap between your email and social media marketing.

Dynamic

Dynamic content in email marketing allows brands to tailor the content of a single email to different segments of their audience. This not only keeps your email marketing strategically personalized to each segment, but it also saves time by allowing you to make one design that’s tweaked slightly for each segment. 

Most often, the dynamic content of an email is the “hero section.” This is the first thing a recipient sees when they open an email. It typically has an image or graphic, a key message or value proposition, and a call-to-action (CTA). 

Change the hero section of the email based on the segment you’re targeting. This could mean showcasing different products, offers, or messages that resonate with each specific group.

Use dynamic content to offer tailored discounts or messages that speak directly to the recipient’s previous interactions with your brand, like a special offer on a product category they frequently browse. 

While dynamic content can save time by allowing you to create a single email for multiple segments, upfront investment in strategy, design, and testing is crucial. And make sure that your ESP supports this type of dynamic email marketing.

SMS Marketing Strategies

SMS marketing is an increasingly potent tool in brand communication. The personal nature of text messaging, combined with technological advancements, presents a unique opportunity for brands to engage with their audience in a direct and impactful manner.

Personalized

As with email, personalization in SMS involves tailoring messages to the individual preferences, behaviors, and history of each recipient, but it also requires a nuanced approach.

Recognizing your VIPs is a great way to utilize SMS marketing. Making them feel valued and singled out by offering them discounts or early opportunities builds loyalty and can prompt faster conversions. 

SMS can also complement your email marketing. For example, you can send your VIPs an SMS with an offer to shop early, an hour before your email goes out. These types of sneak advance previews reinforce that they are actually a special customer, building loyalty and driving sales. 

For customers who haven’t made a purchase recently, send a personalized incentive to reignite their interest, like a special discount on their next purchase.

Go beyond using just their names, followed by a generic message you send to everyone. SMS should feel more like a conversation, so try to make it sound like you are an individual talking to that person. 

Include personalized product recommendations based on past purchases or items viewed on your website. For instance, “Hey [Name], we noticed you loved our [Product]. You might also enjoy [Related Product].”

You should use advanced SMS marketing platforms like Klaviyo or Attentive that offer deep integration with ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, or BigCommerce. These integrations allow for more sophisticated personalization and segmentation based on real-time customer data.

Just be sure with SMS marketing to send messages only at appropriate times based on your audience’s timezone and typical behavior. Older demographics may be more likely to check their messages in the morning, while younger demographics may be more likely to do so later in the day. You’ll need to look at the data around your particular customers to figure out what works best. 

It’s generally advised to start with not more than about one SMS message per week. Over time, you can adjust your campaign based on the insights gathered from the data you’re collecting.

Rich Media

Rich media, including images, videos, and GIFs, can transform plain text messages into compelling communications that grab attention and convey messages more dynamically.

Use visuals to showcase products, demonstrate features, or highlight promotions in a way that text alone cannot. For instance, a GIF showing the ease of using a new product can be more effective than describing it in words.

Rich media is particularly useful when promoting product launches, special promotions, or events. Rich media makes your texts stand out in a crowded SMS inbox, setting a particular tone and creating a sense of excitement around time-sensitive events.

While rich media can enhance SMS messages, don’t overdo it. Reserve it for messages where the visual component adds significant value.

Two-Way Communication

Implementing two-way communication in SMS marketing transforms SMS from a one-directional broadcast tool into an interactive channel that fosters real-time conversations between brands and their customers.  

Explicitly encourage replies by asking questions or prompting feedback within your SMS messages, making it clear that you’re open to and interested in two-way communication.

This is a big step for a brand to take. Once you open the two-way communication door, you set an expectation of responsiveness and open communication with your customers. It’s an excellent method for nurturing connections, but it also carries a significant risk of disappointment if it’s not set up correctly or if additional resources aren’t available to support it.

You’ll need a well-staffed customer service team to handle the responses. More than just friendly, they need to be well informed and equipped to handle inquiries and provide support. But your customer service team has an opportunity to drive sales, too. 

For example, say someone responds to an SMS marketing message from a clothing brand about a particular dress. Maybe they say that they like that dress, but it’s not offered in their size. Your customer service team can sincerely apologize and take it a step further. Offer them a different color or a similar dress they perhaps didn’t notice. Take advantage of an opportunity to cross-sell through your customer service team.

Gorgias is a fantastic customer support app that integrates with various ecommerce platforms, such as Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce, to centralize customer support communications across multiple channels, including SMS. It provides your team with comprehensive insights into each customer’s profile as well as access to real-time data on inventory, order status, and customer behavior, facilitating more accurate and helpful responses.

Dedicated customer service teams for SMS marketing may be prohibitively expensive or time-consuming for some brands. Luckily, automated two-way communication has come a long way.

Another approach to consider, especially if you don’t have the resources or bandwidth, is to utilize keywords to trigger automated yet personalized responses. These responses can direct customers to the most suitable resource or support channel. Queries regarding order status or product usage tips are ideal opportunities for implementing automated responses. Continuously review previous messages to identify any recurring inquiries. This will enable you to provide informative, personalized responses and address frequently asked questions effectively.

Regularly review the interactions between your brand and customers to identify patterns, common questions, or issues, and use these insights to improve your SMS strategy and content.

Location-Based

Location-based SMS marketing allows brands to send hyper-targeted messages based on the geographic location of their customers. You can inform customers about availability or special offers for your products in local retail locations, encouraging them to visit in person or offering alternatives to purchase online.

Brands with physical retail locations can send SMS messages to customers in the vicinity, inviting them to visit the store for exclusive deals or to check out new products.

Location-based SMS can promote events, sales, or product launches in specific areas, increasing attendance and participation by making the message relevant to the recipient’s location.

The potential for hyper-targeting in SMS marketing is similar to what’s already possible in digital advertising platforms like Google, so we can expect more advances in location-based targeting capabilities in 2024. But these advancements are just one facet of broader technological changes shaping the digital marketing landscape. 

Ecommerce brands must remain adaptable and tuned in to rapid innovation. The ability to deliver highly relevant content directly to consumers via email and SMS is an unparalleled opportunity to foster loyalty, drive sales, and ultimately elevate the brand in a competitive market.

About the Author: Eliza Spencer brings over a decade of experience in digital marketing to the table, with a background that spans from in-house roles to agency work, specializing in Paid Media and Lifecycle Marketing. As the Lead Lifecycle Marketing Strategist at adQuadrant, she’s dedicated to pushing the boundaries of Email and SMS marketing. Beyond her digital endeavors, you’ll find Eliza pouring her energy into her small businesses, enjoying quality time with her two Frenchies, and embracing new challenges like mastering golf or hitting the lanes for a game of bowling with her husband.