5 Tips for DTC Brands to Connect With Customers
A modern day hero of SMS marketing for DTC, Arri Bagah, gives us the rundown on how to connect with customers the RIGHT way over text. He’s the CEO and Founder of Conversmart, and he also wrote the official Shopify guide to text-based marketing. Here are top 5 tips from him on how to use SMS marketing to engage with new and existing customers and generate revenue.
- Be where your consumers are. Once upon a time that was on the busiest roads. Now, it’s on phones, in messaging apps. You have to be able to reach them where they are naturally giving their attention.
- Performance on email has dropped. It does still work, and you don’t have to replace one channel with another. But it pays to be aware that the effectiveness of various touchpoints are in constant flux – right now text is getting 90%+ open rate whilst emails are becoming more and more ‘avoidable’. On test, email alone performed worst, better was text alone, best was an integrated combination.
- Owned lists top paid spend long term. Arri sights algorithm changes, legal battles over data privacy with tech giants like Facebook and Apple, and growing PPC costs as three clear reasons why ‘owned’ lists for email and text will benefit genuine audience building and revenue generation in the long term, while spending on ads and social is becoming more of an unpredictable minefield.
- Content really is king. Lots of brands are venturing into SMS marketing, but the ones who are cashing in are the ones with the best, more relevant content. This isn’t about mass marketing and corporate ‘faceless’ messaging, this is about forming human connections with exclusive content, content that people actually want to read/watch/enjoy/share, all the while keeping it lowkey and fun.
- Not just for ‘sales’. The entire customer lifecycle can be made more cohesive with a sharp SMS messaging strategy, including relieving pressures on your support team. Order confirmation messages, requests for reviews, even options to edit your subscription/order details… SMS can influence revenue with existing customers through nurturing and developing the relationship after it has been initially formed through first purchase.
Here you can check out the full interview:
