You may be familiar with bounce back email campaigns, but what about bounce back campaigns using SMS? With open rates as high as 98%, text messages all but guarantee that your bounce back marketing efforts will be much more successful via SMS messaging than email.
Read on to learn what a bounce back campaign means and a few ideas to jumpstart your campaign creativity.
A bounce back campaign is designed to encourage existing customers to return (or “bounce back”) after making a purchase. Successful bounce campaigns typically target customers quickly after they complete a purchase, sometimes right after a transaction.
For example, a customer who just made a purchase at a cafe for the first time receives a text message after placing their order. The SMS message includes a special deal for a free pastry on their next visit. This exclusive offer would incentivize the customer to return to that cafe the next time they want coffee and a pastry.
Bounce back campaigns are highly effective because they target existing customers. It is much easier to convince a customer to continue choosing your brand than to try to convince new customers to shop with your business for the first time. In fact, acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer, so nurturing those relationships is especially important.
A study from Adobe found that 41% of an ecommerce brand’s revenue comes from just 8% of its customers. Most online retailers have a large percentage of “one-time buyers,” who are ultimately unprofitable because the cost of acquiring new customers is often too high.
However, returning customers, or “multi-buyers,” are increasingly more likely to shop with a brand after each purchase. After just one purchase, the customer has a 27% chance of returning to your store; however, after a second and third purchase, those chances double to 54%.
By converting one-time buyers to repeat customers, you can also spend less on conversion efforts like remarketing and abandoned cart offers.
Most retailers send their bounce back campaigns via email, but SMS marketing can help you reach more customers in less time with higher open and click-through rates. Here are some bounce back campaign ideas to help you get started:
Autoresponders allow you to schedule texts ahead of time so you can automate your replies for faster response times and more immediate customer engagement.
For bounce back campaigns, you can configure your autoresponder to start sending messages after a customer makes a purchase. With an SMS marketing platform like Textedly, you can easily schedule a message to go out minutes, hours and days after a purchase to make sure you remain in your customers’ minds.
A text keyword is a short, memorable word or phrase that your customers can text to your phone number to subscribe to your marketing list. By using text keywords, you can also easily segment your subscriber list in order to group together customers based on behavior or interest.
For example, you can create a specific keyword for bounce back campaigns and include it on your customer’s receipt or in their order confirmation email. Then you can send a message to that list with an exclusive offer for returning customers only.
One of the most effective ways to convert a one-time customer into a loyal returning one is to send them exclusive discounts via SMS and email. This is also effective for nudging customers who haven’t purchased from your business in a while, since they are already familiar with your brand.
For bounce back campaigns, you can offer credits to use on your website (like $10 off their next purchase) or a percentage discount (like 10% off any purchase). Around 90 percent of text messages are opened within three minutes, so your messages have a higher chance of being read and interacted with than email.
By adding a sign-up widget to your website, you can make it even easier for your customers to sign up for your SMS marketing list. Many brands encourage subscribers to sign up for both emails and text messages before they can receive a subscriber-only special offer.
Using a sign-up widget enables opt-in text messaging, which requires that businesses get express written consent from a consumer before texting them. In the form, you can add a double opt-in to ensure proper SMS compliance.
Not sure how to get started with these bounce back campaign ideas? When you use an SMS marketing platform like Textedly, bounce back marketing has never been easier.
Textedly allows you to set up an autoresponder, schedule bounce back campaign texts and respond to messages from customers, all on one user-friendly platform. To learn more about how Textedly can help you retain your customers, contact us today.