SMS Marketing

Get started with SMS marketing with the powerful tools that GatewayAPI offers. Experience towering opening and click rates and delve into the opportunities and results that SMS communication can create as a part of your marketing mix.

“SMS marketing has the highest engagement rate among all media channels”

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Six good reasons to use SMS marketing

Anyone can receive your message

With all the new technological options available, it’s natural to question whether the good old SMS technology is still a viable option for your business. The answer is yes! Firstly, recipients don’t need to install anything to receive your message. Furthermore, surveys show that 75% want to receive offers and information via SMS. Finally, SMS is an owned channel that you have full control over, which means that you are not dependent on algorithms, imperfect tracking and the like.

Capture your customers’ attention immediately

The opening rate of SMS messages is over 98% and the click-through rate on links lies at a whopping 35% on average. Additionally, about 95% of SMS messages are read within 5 minutes. In fact, SMS marketing has the highest engagement rate among all media channels! That makes the SMS medium an extremely effective tool to capture people’s attention, and it is therefore very suitable for e.g. time limited offers.

People use mobile phones for online shopping

The use of mobile phones gradually increases. Today, mobile phones have overtaken the top spot from computers when it comes to online shopping and information searching. By using SMS marketing, you can cut through the clutter and reach consumers directly on the medium they prefer to complete their online purchases on. An SMS with a link to your product or offer will therefore have a good chance of ending up with a sale.

Create strong relations with SMS customers clubs

Offer your most loyal customers the opportunity to receive SMS messages with product news, information on exclusive events and deals, as well as tailored offers. SMS messages are perceived as a more personal medium than other media channels, and the use of SMS thus indirectly strengthens the personal relationship with the customer and the feeling of belonging.

Get back customers who have abandoned their cart

Send automated messages to users who abandon their cart right before checkout. The average recovery rate is 25% on abandoned cart SMS messages, meaning that 1 out of 4 who receives an SMS will return to your webshop and complete the purchase. It therefore quickly becomes profitable, and the ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend) is typically several hundreds of percent.

SMS works excellent as a part of your marketing mix

SMS marketing works tremendously well with your other channels such as emails and ads. SMS enables you to create a synergy effect as well as communicate via the medium that your customers prefer. It can also be used as a step-based strategy to create loyal customers where you use online advertising or physical events to get new subscribers to your email list after which you via email marketing encourage them to go one step further and join your SMS list as well.

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Choose between thousands of integration-options

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Hundreds of integrations options

Integrate with any kind of e-commerce or marketing platform

Our integration options allow you to easily implement GatewayAPI’s SMS service in the tools you like to use. If you have a webshop, you can choose between our Shopify, WooCommerce, Prestashop and Magento integrations, where you among other things have the possibility to set up abandoned cart SMS messages.

If your website is based on WordPress, you can use our free WordPress plugin. The plugin enables you to build audiences and handle SMS marketing as well as two-way SMS communication. It is therefore a perfect tool for you if you have a customer club, and wish to communicate regularly with your customers via SMS. You are also able to integrate with popular marketing tools such as MailChimp, Brevo, Intercom etc.

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Use with caution

Powerful tool to get the attention of the users

Unlike most other marketing channels, SMS marketing is able to capture the attention of the users here and now. That also means that there are a number of best practices that must be followed in order to maximize the effectiveness of the SMS campaigns.

It is paramount that you have obtained permissions from the users and that personal data is handled in accordance to the rules that apply in your area. Furthermore, it is also paramount that the message clearly states how users can unsubscribe from your SMS list, e.g. “Send STOP to 1234 to unsubscribe”.

It is important that:

The relevancy of the message is high

The sender/brand is clearly communicated

The frequency matches the needs of the target audience

The campaigns are scheduled within a reasonable time span

Be inspired

Read about how different businesses can benefit from SMS marketing

Webshops
SMS marketing is widely used by webshops, and for good reason! At GatewayAPI we have seen many examples of how SMS communication can create great value for all kinds of webshops. Do you need inspiration for your webshop? Then have a look at the opportunities below.
- Build SMS customer clubs, containing your most loyal customers, and keep them apprised on everything from product news to time limited offers.
- Build audiences by offering your customers a discount code if they sign up for your SMS customer club.
- Give recipients in your SMS customer club a feeling of being part of something exclusive and hold private (online) events for them or offer them early access to sales.
- Use SMS to send order updates to your customers, especially if there is an unexpected delay.
- Offer your customers the possibility to communicate with you via SMS with questions about products and events or if they have an issue that requires support. This creates an even more personal experience for the customer than communication via email or a support chat.
Brands
Brands, including lifestyle brands within fashion, interior decorating, jewelries, make-up, gourmet etc. can benefit greatly from implementing SMS in their marketing strategy.

In particular brands that target a young demographic audience, who use their mobile phones to a great extent, can benefit from exploring SMS marketing. If the brand has a webshop, then many of the same principles that are mentioned at the case example for webshops can be applied here as well.
- Create an advanced segmentation of audiences based on relevant parameters, e.g. age, gender, product interests, geographical location etc. and ensure a high relevance.
- Perform ongoing segmentation, for example on recipients who often click on links in the SMS messages, and on recipients who have not clicked on links in the past 90 days. This method of further dividing the audiences can also be transferred to the website, where user behavior on the page as well as purchases can trigger different SMS messages automatically.
- Give VIP customers early access to sales and new products as well as benefits such as free shipping.
- Use geo-targeting to send news to followers alerting them to upcoming events or special offers near them.
- Create a synergy effect between your different channels, for example by sending the target group an email in the morning and then an SMS in the afternoon. If done right, it can be an effective strategy to get recipients to take action.
Restaurants & cafes
Restaurants, cafes, take-aways, delis, dessert stalls, franchises, chains, etc. can benefit greatly from SMS marketing to promote special offers, news and events.
- Send offers to your customer club on certain dishes/menus, where the customer can redeem them by showing a code on the mobile phone. In many case examples, this has resulted in a redemption rate of over 15% on the discount codes, and a ROAS of over 1,000% in relation to the cost of the SMS messages.
- Send messages to your customers with a time-limited discount code if they haven’t ordered from you in a while. Set up automatic messages that are sent, for example, after 60 days without orders from customers with repeat orders.
- Send information to customers in connection with major events or special anniversaries, for example Valentine’s Day, Black Friday etc.
- Encourage your customers to refer their friends. This can be via discount codes, which give both the customer and the customer’s friend a discount when it is redeemed.
- Send information to customers in connection with new menus and other major product news. Offer a competition, e.g. an evening for two with the opportunity to taste the new menu, where customers can enter by writing back.
- Send spontaneous SMS messages when the opportunity presents itself. If it is a very hot day, you can send out an offer for ice cream/iced coffee, and if, conversely, it is an exceptionally cold day, you can send out an offer for a hot chocolate drink or soup.
Many of the above examples can also be transferred to bars and nightclubs, especially in relation to the promotion of events and special offers.
Gyms and sports clubs
Members who regularly go to fitness centers as well as crossfit centers, yoga studios, sport centers etc. are often very committed to the center and the training that is offered. For some, it turns into a whole lifestyle. By using SMS marketing as a tool to create an even stronger bond with your customers, you can ultimately increase turnover.
- Broadcast news about new teams, new machines, new instructors or the like, and ensure high support for new initiatives.
- Send SMS messages with access to special offers, e.g. discounts on additional products and vouchers.
- Keep the level of engagement high by sending messages of praise to members who have visited the center many times during the month.
- Set up automatic SMS broadcasts to customers whose membership is about to expire. Offer them an early bird discount on next year’s membership or what makes sense to your business.
- Send SMS messages to your existing members with a code that they can share with friends and family, giving them one month’s free membership to the center. Then follow up with the leads who have accepted the offer to convert them into members.
The opportunities above can also be used within various sports and clubs, such as football clubs, golf clubs, tennis clubs, padel tennis centers, sailing clubs, swimming clubs, martial arts clubs, squash centers etc.
Hotels
Use SMS communication to improve your guests' experience all the way from before check-in to after check-out.
- Before arrival: Send a greeting in which you are telling the guest that you are looking forward to welcoming him/her and offer the guest the opportunity to write back with any questions or special requests. If you have an app, it is also an obvious opportunity to promote it here.
- Right after arrival: Send a welcome message in which you wish the guest a good stay and tell them about the possibility to write to you via SMS if they need help or a specific service.
- After check-out: Send a message with a link to a satisfaction survey, where you give the customer the opportunity to tell you what you can do to make the stay even better the next time.
- For those customers who have been engaged in the SMS messages, you can send special offers and promotions to them afterwards.

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Advanced SMS marketing platform

Have you tried our sister platform RelationCity?

Our sister platform RelationCity offers a number of SMS marketing services that enables you to manage and segment audiences, build content, plan campaigns, view statistics and much much more. As a GatewayAPI user, you have direct access to RelationCity, thanks to the shared OCiD login.