SMS marketing

Sara Heegaard March 3, 20222 minute read

Sara is a copywriter focused on lifting up Recharge's merchants, partners, and their customers. Before Recharge, her past lives included writing and editing at four different subscription... Full bio

What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing (short message service marketing; also referred to as mobile marketing or text message marketing) is an ecommerce strategy that involves businesses sending text messages (SMS) to customers surrounding campaigns and transactions. This allows businesses to reach customers on their mobile phones and other mobile devices. In order to communicate with customers via SMS, businesses must receive permission from those customers, who must opt in to the service as well as provide their phone numbers. 

Text message marketing benefits

Text marketing is a highly effective strategy, yielding high open rates, customer engagement, and conversion rates. Subscription businesses can use SMS marketing messages to empower their customers to manage their own subscriptions without having to log on, increasing customer satisfaction and customer retention while freeing up valuable customer service resources. Through SMS, subscribers can skip orders, swap products, add one-time products, receive order reminders and order confirmations, increasing retention and MRR on the business side. Marketers can also decrease customer churn and cancellations with SMS win-back strategies.  

Text messaging strategies for marketers

To optimize their SMS offerings, merchants can track and analyze customer data and purchase history via SMS marketing software. This not only allows for tracking which SMS strategies are most effective at generating engagement and conversions, but also for personalization of messaging, enabling marketers to meet users where they are with relevant SMS marketing campaigns and product recommendations. Promoting SMS opt-in across a variety of channels, including your website, email newsletters, social media, and paper mail can also increase the visibility of this service.