How to improve SMS ROI? I have 6 thoughts!

Every time there is a big sale, major online stores will try every possible way to recall users. As a promotion method with the highest ROI, SMS has always been popular among businesses. However, in this era when promotional information is everywhere, some SMS messages are no longer effective for users. So how can you make your SMS ROI higher and higher? Please see below.

I started working on CRM (Customer Relationsh ip Management) for the Tmall flagship store in March this year. Although it is just managing the customer system in one store, even such a small place has exposed many problems, as the saying goes, "Although the sparrow is small, it has many problems." My specific work here can be roughly divided into two levels, one is customer stratification management based on the entire store, and the other is membership operation . Below I will share my experience on one small aspect of my job, that is: sending text messages!

First of all, I want to confess my innermost feeling. What I hate most is when people say to me, "Dear, please send a text message to all customers..." Usually, my inner thoughts are, "I won't send it. If you want, you can send it yourself. Won't the customers be annoyed by you? Why do you keep sending text messages for no reason? Do you think you are Daniel Wu?" The text messages on the platforms nowadays can be said to be very cheap, especially during the Double Eleven promotion period. In order to attract a wave of customers, various platforms and agents have launched special text message packages. The lowest quote I have received is as low as 0.025 yuan per message.

But even though it is so cheap, text messages cannot be sent randomly. Aside from the fact that a store spends at least several thousand yuan on text messages every month, frequently sending text messages to unintentional customers will only drive customers away. Below I will summarize several texting methods that I think are better based on my nearly one year of texting experience.

The following does not come from the Internet, it is all based on my own hard work!

The first point is to explore more potential repeat groups

Our store is divided into five categories, A, B, C, and D. Category A has the largest population and Category B has the highest average customer spending. One time, Category B wanted to send text messages, but they had too few customers and wanted to achieve a wider message coverage. I said that we should cross-target people in Category A. There is some overlap in the two categories, but because Category B has a higher average order value, my suggestion at the time was to screen customers who had purchased Category A within the past year (user stickiness is still there), whose ordered product names contain "female" (customer overlap), and whose average order value is above 500 (to ensure payment ability).

Later data showed that the ROI at that time was 1:278, much higher than the previous ROI. The key data here lies in overlapping user groups and average order value. Another time, Category C wanted to hold an offline event . It was a purely experiential event with no promotional nature. In order to increase attendance, it also borrowed people from other categories. But it should be noted that not all potential people can be pushed across categories. You must ensure that your messages will not harass customers, and that they must be what customers need after screening.

The second point is non-marketing text messages

The text messages we usually receive from merchants are basically about Juhuasuan discounts, unlimited discounts, etc. We receive text messages more frequently before big sales. In fact, I have always been careful about SMS push notifications, because personally, I don’t like merchants always pushing this kind of promotional text messages to me. They just want me to buy, buy, buy, which is quite boring. Mainly, after I log in, I don’t see any real value for money. Later, as soon as I saw the text message, I unsubscribed.

So in order to prevent customers from thinking that we always send promotional text messages, I will send blessing text messages on major holidays. For example, on Thanksgiving Day, I will express gratitude for everyone’s company, and then attach a store link. It’s good that you receive the blessing. Whether you come to the store or not, it’s up to fate. It’s a Buddhist text message! But surprisingly, these text messages still bring in a lot of orders. In addition, I am working on a membership system . On the membership day of each month, I will selectively select people who have made recent transactions and have had high frequency of interaction in the past to push membership benefits. The link is the membership page, which still has no promotional content, but there have been many completed orders since then.

The third is not to send text messages to all customers with historical orders

Based on the data I observed in the past year, people who placed orders but did not pay within a year and added items to their favorites have the highest ROI. Customers from too long ago have basically been lost, and the cost of recovering them is too high. It is better to spend money on customers who are still loyal to the store. Don’t be too nostalgic for customers who leave too early! ! ! When people responded to the unsubscribe request, they didn’t hesitate! ! ! And users who place orders but do not pay are more likely to buy again than those who successfully complete transactions.

This actually depends on the attributes of the store. Because we are a 3C digital store, the repurchase rate is naturally low. Basically, people who have bought once will not buy again, but those who failed to make a successful transaction for various reasons may still place an order again. If you are a women's clothing store, consumable goods naturally have a high repurchase rate. On the contrary, I suggest sending them to users who have made successful transactions and repurchased in the past year. Such customers have higher loyalty.

The fourth one is to directly push the coupon link

There are many text messages asking users to go into a store and get coupons in order to increase store visits. However, users are smart now and know that merchants use all kinds of tricks. Many times, even if you tell them to go to a store and get the coupons, they still don’t like to get them. So I tried to push coupons directly. The text message said, "Dear, you have a 150 yuan coupon + link." Click on the link of the coupon and receive it directly. But after receiving the coupon, you always have to see what you can buy, so people who receive coupons will basically become visitors, and with the encouragement of coupons, the order conversion rate is higher.

The fifth is to continuously screen the people with high response rate through SMS

Alibaba ’s customer operation platform also provides the behavior path of people who receive text messages after opening the text messages. We can use this to do customer filtering.

For example, when the first SMS was sent, it was pushed to 10,000 people. After data analysis , 4,000 of them opened the SMS and visited the store. When the second SMS was sent, it was pushed to these 4,000 people. After data analysis, 2,000 of them opened the SMS and visited the store... and so on. By doing so, you can gradually filter out a customer group with a high SMS response rate, and then push promotional information to this group of people in a targeted manner to increase ROI (return on investment ).

The sixth one is text messaging

When I first started working in the SMS field, people always told me that I had to have some profit points. The so-called interest points are nothing more than "big sale on XYZ, flash sales at 9.9 yuan, 50% off for all items, 20 yuan off for purchases over 200 yuan, and a free key chain..." and so on. So the same thing again, do you think all users are fools? It’s said to be a flash sale, but it’s never been successful. There may be only one 50% off special item in the 50% off store. You can get 10 yuan off for orders over 200 yuan, but the order amount is 199. I want to add to the order, but the cheapest one costs 99!

I particularly dislike this kind of thing when I am editing text messages. So I kept trying different styles. For example, during the Double Eleven shopping festival, I pushed a text message saying, "After buying ***, Mom no longer has to worry about me not being able to memorize words." This was because in the minds of users, there would definitely be discounts during the Double Eleven shopping festival, and there was no need to emphasize this in the text message. So some familiar and interesting words could increase the response rate of the text message.

If I’m talking about a certain women’s product in a store, I’ll post, “With this, you can post selfies on WeChat Moments . Are you still worried about not finding a boyfriend?” At this time, I can just attach the biggest benefit point at the end. Because the text message begins with an interesting sentence instead of being full of promotional content, it reduces users’ aversion. Or you can also take advantage of the hot topics, such as "On this day, you and I lost Lu Han together, the boss lowered the price*** to comfort us who were heartbroken!"

The above are some of my little experiences in text messaging when I was doing CRM. Although I still receive unsubscribe replies from time to time, my ROI has been greatly improved. There are a few important pieces of advice to remind you:

1. Don’t send text messages too frequently;
2. Don’t linger on silent customers;
3. When there are real benefits, they must be given to people with high loyalty.

I hope this will be helpful to those friends who need to send text messages at work, so that they can lose less hair when typing text messages in the future.

This article was compiled and published by @简运行深夜餐堂(Qinggua Media) by the author @简运行深夜餐堂. Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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