7 Ways to Overcome Lazy Cart Syndrome With SMS Remarketing

Using SMS marketing to increase conversions is more than just sending text message blasts to promote new products and services. A successful text message marketing strategy leverages the power of SMS remarketing to re-engage with an existing audience, boost lead conversion, combat lazy cart syndrome, and increase sales and overall brand awareness.

Wait – what is lazy cart syndrome? It’s when customers abandon their carts without making a purchase, and it’s one of the biggest hurdles for ecommerce brands to overcome. According to the Baymard Institute, the average global shopping cart abandonment rate is over 69.99, accounting for $260 billion in lost revenue annually!

Businesses must invest in SMS remarketing to combat lazy cart syndrome and recoup lost revenue. By learning how to implement SMS remarketing, you can watch your lead conversion rates and sales soar.

Table of Contents

How to Use SMS to Remarket to Your Customers

• Get phone numbers
• Obtain express written consent
• Create remarketing campaigns
• Promote sales
• Offer discounts and deals
• Share exclusive content
• Analyze your results

Other Ways to Decrease Abandoned Carts

• Streamline your checkout process
• Improve site speed
• Establish and maintain customer trust
• Be transparent about additional charges

7 Ways to Battle Lazy Cart Syndrome With SMS Remarketing

Mobile online shopping has the highest cart abandonment rate at over 85 percent, so reaching customers on their phones is critical to converting them. Here are seven ways to use SMS remarketing campaigns to fill those shopping carts – and empty them.

1. Get Phone Numbers

As SMS marketing becomes more popular, collecting phone numbers from your customers and site visitors is easier than ever.

A reliable way to grow your SMS subscriber list is to ask your customers to share their phone numbers and sign up to receive texts from your business. Because you can do this in-store or as part of the online checkout process, you will surely get more phone numbers quickly.

You can also give your customers a reason to sign up for your SMS marketing list by presenting a one-time offer after they sign up. This can be anything from a discount on their next purchase or add-on service the next time they visit your store.

2. Obtain Express Written Permission

SMS marketing is an incredibly lucrative opportunity, so ensuring you’re doing everything by the book is crucial. You should take SMS compliance very seriously, and respecting your customers’ privacy will protect your brand’s reputation.

Obtaining express written consent from your customers can be as easy as asking them to fill out a form to sign up for texts. In addition, some brands send a double opt-in message asking consumers to reply YES via text to confirm they want to receive text marketing messages.

3. Create Your Remarketing Campaigns

Compared to general SMS marketing, an SMS remarketing campaign is completely personalized to the customer. 

Once you’ve gotten permission to text your customers, it’s time to get your remarketing campaigns up and running! Here are some best practices to help you create an SMS remarketing plan that attracts customers without being too pushy.

• Focus on list segmentation: Segmenting your SMS subscriber list based on previous purchases, interests or demographic information is the best way to ensure you target your messages to the right audience.

• Send reminders: If customers have abandoned their carts, completing their transactions sometimes takes a little nudge. Sending abandoned cart reminders is an easy way to re-engage with customers who may have forgotten to buy.

• Include a call-to-action: Make it easy for your subscribers to take the next step by sharing a link to purchase, leave a review or check out new releases. Customers should immediately see the benefits of your SMS marketing messages so they’ll stay subscribed.
• Ask questions: Whether looking for customer information or collecting feedback about previous purchases, you should use questions in your marketing messages to prompt customers to respond. Start with yes or no questions or by asking them to rate a product or service on a scale of one to ten.

4. Promote Sales

Although the most successful SMS marketing campaigns are tailored to their audience, that’s not to say that a more generalized approach isn’t effective. In fact, text blasts are a convenient way to reach consumers, who spend an average of 5.4 hours a day on their mobile devices.

Promoting sales via SMS creates a sense of urgency that motivates consumers to purchase sooner rather than later. Plus, text blasts can reach hundreds—if not thousands—of subscribers simultaneously, so you’ll likely see results quickly.

5. Offer Discounts and Send Coupons

As mentioned, offering your customers an incentive to sign up for marketing texts from your brand can drive conversion and sales. In addition, sharing an exclusive discount or offer code can inspire people to purchase new products or return to their abandoned carts.

Most mobile phone users check their phones up to 63 times daily. Sending special offers to customers on their mobile phones makes it easier to access coupons in-store or complete purchases with just a few taps on their smartphones.

6. Share Exclusive Content

Adding customers to your SMS subscriber list isn’t difficult. The real challenge is retaining those subscribers and converting them into loyal customers.

By creating content designed specifically for insiders, you can transform your subscriber list into a community of engaged consumers, making them more likely to promote your business through word of mouth.

7. Analyze Your Results

An SMS remarketing campaign is only as great as the results it generates. Therefore, as part of your SMS marketing strategy, you should also determine which SMS marketing KPIs to track to measure the success of your campaigns.

For example, to determine your unique clicks, you can use an SMS marketing platform or analytics tool such as Google Analytics, which allows you to track campaign metrics through custom URLs (UTMs). Textedly’s SMS marketing platform automatically tracks each campaign's analytics, including delivery, open, and click rates.

Consider tracking other SMS marketing KPIs like:

• Subscriber growth rate
• Conversion rate
• Attrition rate
• Response rate
• Return on investment (ROI)

Do you own a Shopify store? Read How to Send SMS From Shopify Using Textedly Integrations

Pro Tips for Decreasing Abandoned Cart Syndrome

In addition to using SMS remarketing strategies, creating a good user experience is key to attracting and retaining customer trust. 

Streamline Your Checkout Process

Customers may lose motivation to complete their purchase if they encounter too many steps to get to checkout. Therefore, limiting the number of clicks required to make a purchase is essential to combating lazy cart syndrome. 

Experts recommend avoiding mandatory registration before buying unless customers understand the benefits, such as saving time on future purchases. In addition, streamlining the checkout process can reduce the likelihood of lazy cart syndrome and increase the chances of a completed sale.

Improve Your Site Speed

Slow page speed is one of the top reasons why ecommerce websites lose sales. If a webpage takes too long to load, customers may become frustrated and abandon their cart before completing the purchase. In fact, research has shown that even a one-second delay in page load time can result in a 7% reduction in conversions and 11% fewer page views. 

To prevent lost sales due to slow page speed, you must optimize your website’s pages and ensure they load quickly on all devices. Optimizations can include minimizing image sizes, using a content delivery network, and utilizing caching to improve page load times.

Ensure That Customers Trust You

If your website isn’t secure, is without safety certificates or is poorly designed, you will have difficulty gaining their trust – and their business. SSL encryption protects customer data during transmission and implements secure payment processing methods. 

Customer privacy policies should be transparent and easy to understand, and you should promptly communicate any potential security incidents to customers. By taking these steps, ecommerce store owners can help ensure the safety and security of their business and customers.

Be Transparent About Additional Charges

High shipping charges and other unexpected fees during the checkout process can be major turn-offs for customers and cause cart abandonment. Customers may feel that they are being charged unfairly or that the final price of the purchase is much higher than they initially anticipated. 

To reduce the likelihood of lazy cart syndrome, ecommerce businesses should ensure that all fees are clearly stated upfront and that the checkout process is streamlined and straightforward. Providing multiple payment options and offering free shipping or other incentives can also reduce cart abandonment rates and increase customer satisfaction.

Start SMS Remarketing With Textedly 

You’ve seen how effectively an SMS remarketing campaign can boost your sales. If you’re ready to convert leads and increase brand awareness, Textedly can help.

Textedly’s SMS marketing platform offers powerful features like text scheduling, text keywords and mass group texting so you can reach customers where they spend most of their time — on their mobile phones. In addition, our user-friendly platform automatically collects data about your subscribers so you can personalize your campaigns to your audience.

Sign up to get started with a free 14-day trial of Textedly today.