E-commerce retailers should be the star of their own love story. Having customers fall in love with your brand and start a long-term relationship is the goal for every business. Yet like any good Hollywood rom-com, turning a dream into a reality is never straightforward.
You see, online customers are spoilt for choice, and what they want from brands has changed too. Recent research found two-thirds1 of shoppers expect companies to understand their needs and desires. Those that get it right are handsomely rewarded, with consumers happy to spend 10%2 more for excellent customer service.
But how can retailers deliver the service and experiences consumers expect? Enter the hero of our love story, Grow. Grow is our mobile marketing platform, which has been designed to drive conversions via its ability to deliver automated triggered messages, making campaigns more efficient and with an enhanced customer experience (CX).
Triggered messages are text messages like SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, and Viber sent in direct response to an action or inaction by the message recipient. With incredibly high 98% open rates3, and nearly two-thirds (58%)4 of consumers wanting to hear from brands multiple times a week, automated mobile triggered messages offer an unmatched 12x ROI, driving subscriber growth and enhancing CX.
Check-out four ways automated mobile triggered messages can make shoppers fall in love with your brand, turning a first date into a long-term relationship:
1. Start the Right Way
First impressions are make or break. For e-commerce retailers, it is even more important to start off on the right note, with other brands, or “suitors”, just a swipe or click away.
Use Grow to trigger loyalty as soon as a customer lands on your website or opens your app. When a shopper lands on your website for instance, fire a pop-up message asking for their mobile number in exchange for something you know they will love, like a 10-15% discount code. Once signed up, you can start fostering a long-term relationship with them by adding their details to your contact database, instantly boosting subscriber growth.
Book a demo to see how this effective technique helps to woo customers, drive up conversions, and intrigue them into exploring what potential lies ahead.
2. Rethink Cart Recovery
The all-important follow-up gesture. We’ve all been there. After visiting a site and filling a basket, the phone rings, the dog needs a walk or time simply slips away from us. Distracted, we leave a full cart waiting at checkout or abandoned in our browser. This alone is estimated to cost retailers $4 trillion a year5 in lost profit!
But not anymore. Automation and smart-triggered retargeting messages are the answer. After detecting inactivity from a shopper, retargeting messages are sent to a customer’s mobile reminding them of their basket and encouraging them to complete the purchase. Focusing on mobile with these time-sensitive messages is the best way to re-engage consumers, with SMS having an amazing 98% open rate7. It’s no wonder retailers who engaged our e-commerce mobile marketing solution powered by Grow recovered up to 17% of abandoned carts and browsers.
3. Triggered Post-Purchase Messages
Again, like a first date, hopefully, shoppers will leave feeling so charmed they’d like a second. So don’t forget about triggered post-purchase messages. Keeping customers up to date on the status of their orders, or sending reminders of appointments, is a great way to continue building brand loyalty.
The blow to reputation that missing a delivery creates cannot be understated. In fact, it is the number one annoyance for consumers when it comes to e-commerce sales7. This can easily be avoided by sending shipping notifications with updates so shoppers know when to expect deliveries. By sending shipping updates, retailers build trust and loyalty with consumers, spurring a full-blown romance.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you keep customers in the loop after a purchase, then book a demo.
4. Complete the circle: Customer Winback
Nurtured right, a whirlwind romance can quickly become a lifelong partnership where no one is waiting for the phone to ring. For e-commerce retailers, this can be achieved by using Grow’s advanced features to monitor customer inactivity (e.g., 30 or 60 days) following a purchase. By monitoring inactivity, retailers can create winback strategies that engage shoppers with automated messages at exactly the right time.
Sweetening the deal, you can look to send highly personalized discounts and relevant content based on a shopper’s previous purchase habits. This level of personalization gives the feeling of extra care consumers want, boosting customer lifetime value (LTV).
So, what are you waiting for?
Triggered messages are key to the success of a mobile marketing e-commerce campaign that creates long-term relationships with customers. From building a contact database, and improving cart recovery, to enhancing CX and increasing LTV, smart, automated triggered messages via Grow boost average order values by 25%.
Today’s consumers want to be the star of their own rom-com too and have a long-term relationship with e-commerce retailers. Thanks to Upstream’s e-commerce mobile marketing solution powered by our advanced technology, and team of experts, brands wanting shoppers “to swipe right” now have the answer to their prayers.
If you want to find out how Upstream ’s experts can help your business build stronger connections with customers and hit 12x ROI, then don’t delay, book a demo today.
