After all, what is the current state of your inbox — or that of any consumer? It’s glutted with marketing messages from brands trying to establish a new connection using an old contact list or get reacquainted with the customer who got away. No one reads those emails anymore.

Businesses need an automated process that is in step with the latest marketing trends. You may have a great product. But do you have your customer’s attention?

There’s an easy, affordable and effective alternative to email marketing: SMS marketing, also known as texting. Its benefits are intuitive — it’s instant, it’s attention-grabbing, and it helps you sell more products. Your message also gets across. Open rates for SMS messages are as high as 98%.

SMS marketing is still largely untapped. According to 2022 data, 61% of marketers haven’t yet started using text messaging. 

Here are five ways SMS text marketing can help your consumer goods business grow in 2023:

Instant Communication

Your messages may languish in an email inbox for hours or days, or they may never be opened. With SMS, consumers get your message and read it almost instantly. Sixty percent of people read texts within five minutes of receipt.

Speed is key to e-commerce. Those high and quick read rates mean texts can be the ideal way to let your customers know about time-sensitive matters, such as: 

• New product drops
• Flash sales
• End of promotion periods
• Items likely to sell out
• Holiday sales 

Unlike computers, phones are portable and almost universal. Most of the planet — 7.5 billion people — will have mobile phones by 2026. Right now, 68% of people spend three to six hours per day on their mobile device.

So when you need to reach your consumer right now, it makes sense to contact them through the device you know they are already carrying. SMS marketing gets your customer no matter where they are.

Up-to-Date Consumer Data

SMS lets you get a quick read on whether your customer base is still engaged with your brand and interested in your products. SMS text marketing can help you measure important metrics for your campaign, such as:

• Coupon redemption
• Click-through rate
• Conversion rate
• SMS subscriber growth
• Opt-out rate

These data points are key to measuring the success of any marketing campaign. Since SMS has such high engagement, you’ll get more complete, up-to-date data. Do sales and discounts help with conversion? Launch.ai’s metrics give you a clear picture to answer that solution – it’s the what’s what of what’s working with your product from the consumer perspective. You can track SMS data to see how many people bought after clicking through to your target pages. If your conversions are on the upswing, you can assess whether it’s the product or how easy it was to purchase that made the difference.

If you worry your SMS campaigns may hit your valued customers the wrong way, you have an easy way to assess that, too. Review your subscriber growth and opt-out rates to see whether people want your marketing. Your emails may be simply ignored or deleted, but people don’t often bother to unsubscribe. Because SMS is easier to opt out of, you can more easily assess this feedback. 

Quick Conversion

Because SMS is an opt-in service, your subscribers have to agree to get your messages. This is good because it shows they’re already interested in what you sell. They’ve probably already purchased one of your products and want to buy more. This is how to find ideal customers: stick with those who have already told you they are interested. 

Consumers are 134% more likely to engage with a text than an email. So if you’re only using email to remarket to your existing customer base, you’re significantly reducing your chances of a new sale.

With SMS, customers can take advantage of a flash sale, redeem a coupon, or buy a new product with a few clicks. Since it takes mere minutes for customers to read a text, that conversion typically happens quickly while your marketing is front of mind. Capturing your customers when their attention is turned to your brand is how to increase sales. 

Consumers are 4.5 times more likely to respond to a text than an email. Sixty-five percent have actively unsubscribed from a business text.

Supports Mobile E-Commerce

Email marketing is one legacy of the days when online commerce meant shopping from your laptop. Now, 76% of U.S. adults have bought something online using their smartphone.

Your customer base is ready to buy from their smartphone, so when you have a text marketing campaign you can make big sales. About one-third of people respond to a call to action in a text, and of those, almost half end up making a purchase.

What does this mean for an e-commerce marketer? A text message is the best way to get back that consumer who almost closed the deal but navigated away from your site before doing so.

Too many abandoned carts? Start a system in which you send text reminders with a quick link to the items awaiting payment.

Remember, an abandoned cart means the consumer was interested and engaged. Often all they need is a quick heads-up to finish the purchase.

Easy To Implement

With all the benefits of SMS you might think it’s too hard to put into practice, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. With launch.ai, you can use AI technology to create custom message campaigns for your most valued consumers.

Track your campaigns on your easy-to-navigate dashboard, get suggestions for text content, and use launch.ai’s Quick Reply feature to retain consumers when they want a response from you.

Launch.ai wants to help your consumer goods business to grow by increasing marketing efficiency and lowering costs. Learn more about how we’ve helped businesses increase their profitability, or book a call with us. We look forward to hearing from you.