Most marketers, brand managers, and business owners prioritise generating new leads. A modest 5% improvement in client retention may lead to a 75% boost in business profitability, while acquiring new customers is three times more expensive than keeping the ones you already have.
Many businesses struggle to choose the best communication channel and messaging to increase consumer engagement. With so many small businesses booming, developing customer loyalty is critical if you want to stay ahead of your competition.
A smartphone is owned by more than two-thirds of the world’s population, and this number is continuously growing. While most people ignore their emails, 85% of people read every text message they receive, making messages open rate five times that of email open rate.
People are becoming more dependent on their mobile phones and consistently checking their phones for any new messages received. Brands are realising that SMS is more than just a way to talk to friends and family and keep in touch, and they’re using it to draw customers to engagement-boosting initiatives like loyalty programmes. Many organisations are integrating Communicat-O into their Salesforce CRM as it is the best application to stay engaged with your customers. Furthermore, its unified inbox for all the messages received around the social media platforms ensures that you don’t miss any of your customer’s messages.
Developing a solid base of loyal consumers benefits any business in any sector. Customers loyal to you may wish to spend more money with you. In addition, they are more inclined to tell their friends about you, which can help you win over new clients and expand your clientele.
Let’s understand how you can drive traffic to your business through the SMS loyalty program.
Firstly, a customer registers by providing their phone number. In turn, the merchant sends text messages with loyalty prizes to encourage consumer purchases or visits. Retailers may efficiently increase customer traffic by implementing a text message or SMS loyalty programme. 71 per cent of customers believe loyalty programmes are an essential component of the overall experience
Regarding positive word-of-mouth, most customers (70%) aren’t averse to suggesting businesses with solid loyalty programmes to their friends and family.
Welcome your new members
From the start, welcome new members to drive Loyalty Program behaviour. Utilise the chosen communication channel of a new SMS subscriber to your loyalty programme to greet them promptly and keep your programme front of mind. Show your appreciation to your steadfast clients by giving them discounts on future purchases or more details on upcoming goods, services, and events. Communicat-O’s bot automatically sends a welcome or greeting message to your new subscribers just as soon as they enter the system.
Bring in Qualifying Subscribers
Customers that provide their phone numbers for SMS marketing, as opposed to traditional methods such as email and voice, allow the brand to get closer to them. Consumers want to remain up to date with real-time notifications, promotions, and special deals from their favourite businesses by using SMS marketing. This is a blatant indication that customers desire to get valuable updates, which makes them qualified leads and prospects in a company’s database. Through Communicat-O, you can send SMS to your customers in the channel of their liking without even being present on it.
Reward your customer
The crucial point is that your loyalty programme should value your consumers to remain members. Based on your client’s preferences and purchase value, rewards might depend from customer to customer. Communicat-O’s bot can be designed to send a message to your consumers every time their purchase is logged into the system, alerting them of the reward points they received on that transaction.
Deliver your promises
If you break your promises to clients, you run the danger of fostering disloyalty if customers feel that you are not honouring your loyalty programme and will go next door to your competition. Whenever you launch a loyalty programme, ask your management to list policies and guarantees that will help you honour your commitment. Communicat-O will assist you in making these policies available to your customers by sending an SMS with a link to a policies brochure or your website.
Implement reward point expiration
If your reward points include an expiration date, your consumers are more inclined to use them before they expire. You may use Communicat-O to send SMS messages to your customers, notifying them of their reward point balance and expiration date. This will assist you in instilling a sense of urgency in your customers’ thoughts to act quickly and spend their reward points.
Final Thoughts
Including SMS messages in your loyalty programme will help you retain clients and keep them loyal to your business. SMS marketing fosters client relations and provides an excellent avenue for communicating directly with your target audience.
Chat with one of Communicat-O’s SMS experts if you’re interested in getting started with SMS marketing to power your customer loyalty programmes. They can guide you through your choices or set you up with a free trial.