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Tip # 2 | Measure the effectiveness of your SMS spending

Hey SMS geeks, this week, we are sharing the most important metrics you need to know when measuring the effectiveness of your SMS program.  Share with us if you are tracking other metrics! 

Click-through rate (CTR)

A CTR of 30% is a good benchmark for you to aim for, as it would mean that a solid chunk of your audience finds your offers engaging enough to click on the links and wants to learn more about them. Think of low CTR as a leak in your budget that needs to be fixed. How? Make your messages more personal and appealing through segmentation and adding captivating visuals. Adding a pinch of FOMO is always a good idea, too!

Conversion rate (CVR)

Lower CVR indicates there is something preventing your subscribers from making a purchase — it could be anything from an unappealing website design to a bad user experience, or even a complicated checkout process.

Average order value (AOV)

The average order value is in direct correlation to the profits of your company. If you manage to achieve even a slight increase in the average shopping basket, you’ll raise your customers’ individual value over time and will make every dollar of your SMS budget well spent. To boost AOV, consider setting a minimum order value, try volume discounts, or simply group products in bundles.

Return on investment (ROI)

Return on investment is the most important marketing KPI, as it helps you see “the big picture” and evaluate if a particular aspect of your strategy is worth the effort. Monitor the ROI of each SMS you send to gain valuable insights on what performs well, what doesn’t, and what you need to focus on. Brands that use Yotpo SMSBump enjoy a 25x ROI on average. For a higher ROI, analyze your top-converting campaigns, focus on your highest-spending customers, and leverage automations.

Do you want to learn more about how to build a solid SMS marketing budget plan? Read our guide by our SMS Strategist @Mariya. 

Tip #3 | email and SMS are better together 

Happy Friday everyone! This week's tip is from our guide to SMS & email marketing Email and SMS Marketing: Increasing Customer Engagement on Mobile.

In a recent Yotpo survey, we sought to find out more about shoppers’ communication preferences to determine which mobile marketing channel brands should prioritize to engage them today: email or SMS?

What we discovered, however, is that one channel is not sufficient enough. Brands need to harness the power of both email and SMS marketing — not one or the other — to truly engage everyone.

And we already know that competition for consumer attention is fierce. Email and SMS work exceptionally well to support and strengthen each other.  

For example, if your customer win-back email is never opened, you can follow up with a text to increase the chances of that customer returning to your site. Or if you are promoting an end of season sale, you may want to start with a time sensitive SMS with a strong call to action, then follow up with a more visual email to better showcase the entire collection of sale items. 

Tip #4 | Activate your transactional messages

With Shopify gradually removing the option to select “SMS or Email” in the Customer Contact Method section of your Admin settings, now it's the perfect time to learn how to deactivate Shopify’s existing transactional messages and set up and customize your own in Yotpo SMSBump to keep customers informed of orders.

Step 1: Deactivate Shopify’s Default Transactional Messages
You can do that from the Notifications menu in your Shopify Settings. Simply go to the Manage SMS notifications section and click on the Deactivate button.

Step 2: Activate Yotpo SMSBump Notification flows
Go to Yotpo SMSBump, click on Flows & Automations in the main dashboard menu, and then on Flows. Don't worry, a pop-up will appear, prompting you to activate the personalized order updates by clicking on Get started.

  Remember: The activated flows will appear in your dashboard, and every time a customer fills in their phone number and shipping address at checkout, they will receive the relevant notification from your store. In your dashboard, you’ll see an overview of all preset flows, which you can edit and personalize to match your brand’s voice.
 
  Important: The Yotpo SMSBump transactional messages will be sent to all customers who have completed an order, not just existing subscribers. As these are non-marketing messages, you don’t need to get explicit consent to send them.
 
And that's all! Enabling a preset flow is the fastest and easiest way to start sending timely and personalized transactional messages to your customers, but if you wish to learn how to create one on your own, visit the Yotpo SMSBump's knowledge base. 

Tip #5 | Make the most of our SMS Analyzer

Want to know how your SMS message is going to perform before you hit send? Try our interactive SMS testing tool: the SMS Analyzer. This interactive and educational resource will give your text message a unique score, paired with a complete SMS analysis report to show you what you did well and where you can optimize to make that text even more powerful. Just copy, paste, and click. 

Tip #6 | The Conversational Welcome flow

One incredible way to start learning about what is the most important to your customers.

Over 41% of consumers are willing to share more information with a brand in order to receive personalized recommendations. 

A tailored Welcome Flow is the ideal way to get a customer sold on engaging with you via SMS while also maximizing CLV. All data collected through the Welcome Flow will be available in segmentation, ensuring you can target your promotions with data-driven insights.

The Welcome Flow benchmark:

• Average CTR: 16%
• Average CVR: 12%
• Average ROI: 25x+ ROI

Tip #7 | Create Engaging SMS Experiences with Yotpo Loyalty Segmentation

Winning customer loyalty is one of the best ways to raise brand awareness, drive repeat sales and really stand out from the competition. 

Integrating Yotpo SMSBump with your Loyalty program will enable you to target customers with hyper-personalized messages at just the right moment, giving you access to over 14+ data points you can use to segment audiences to the finest detail. Use them to promote your Loyalty program to SMS subscribers, send point balance reminders, share special offers, and more. 

To begin, go to the Yotpo SMSBump menu on the left and click on Lists & Segments.

You’ll see an overview of all your existing Lists and Segments. Click on the Create New button at the top of the dashboard. 

Next, choose Segment from the Type drop-down menu, enter a unique name for your segment that will help you distinguish it from the rest, and click on the Create button.

You will see a drop-down menu with all available data points you can use to segment your audience. Find the Yotpo Loyalty filter and select it.

The Yotpo Loyalty Datapoints

With Yotpo Loyalty, you can choose from 14 data points to create specific audience segments and launch highly personalized SMS campaigns: 

• Loyalty program member: This filter will check whether or not the customer has opted into your loyalty program. 

• Membership date: Filter customers based on the date or period they opted into your loyalty program. 

• Has/Has not engaged with the loyalty program: With the help of this data point, you can segment customers based on the date they last interacted with your loyalty program. 

• Points expiration date: Filter subscribers based on the date on which their loyalty points will expire. 

• Last redeemed date: Easily filter customers by the date or period they last redeemed loyalty points. 

• Entered current VIP tier: Specify the date or period when the customer entered their current VIP tier. 

• VIP tier expiration date: The date or period in which the customer's current VIP tier will expire.

• Points earned: The number of points the customer has earned (all time).

• Points balance: The customer's current point balance.

• Total number of point redemptions: The number of times a customer has redeemed points (all time).

• Total redeemed points: The number of points redeemed by the customer for rewards (all time).

• Current VIP tier: The customer's current VIP tier status.

• Total number of successful referrals: The number of successful referrals made by the customer (all time), as defined in your Referral Program settings.

• Customer was referred by someone else: Checks whether or not the customer was referred by someone else to the loyalty program.

To segment audiences to your liking, click the filter of your choice.

Yotpo SMSBump’s segmentation allows you to add as many rules as you wish, narrowing down your audiences and delivering a unique customer experience. You can target customers who aren’t loyalty members yet and encourage them to join; customers who recently joined your loyalty program and welcome them; or customers who have enough points but never made a redemption. Feel free to mix and match!
 

Tip #7 | Personalize your Customer Interactions with

a Contact Card

Personalization in SMS marketing is key to improving conversion rates and building a strong brand identity. 

Contact Card is a feature that will allow you to create a personalized contact ID for your brand and send it to your subscribers as an MMS. The Contact Card is great to use as part of your welcome flow when you are greeting your new customers. 

This is especially useful with the latest iOS changes. Privacy changes are not slowing down. With their latest operating system update, iOS 16, Apple has taken yet another step towards giving mobile consumers more control over how they engage, and who can reach them. While the true impact of this update on consumer behavior remains to be seen, brands using SMS marketing should take action now to build trust and start generating more engagement with customers. Learn more about it here:

How to setup your Contact Card

To begin setting up your Contact Card, go to your Settings menu and scroll down to Branding. There you will see 3 sections: Brand logo, Store Name, and Message. 

Brand Logo: The first thing that you need to do is upload your brand logo.  In case you have a strong brand, built around a specific person, you can use a photo of them as well. For best experience, we advise you to use a square image (1:1 ratio), with a max size of 1MB. 

Store Name: Write down how your customers will save your phone number in their phones. To avoid any confusion,, we recommend you  simply type in your brand name. The maximum size is 15 characters. 

Once you are done, you will see a preview of your Contact Card on the right side.

Message: It would be strange for your customers to receive a contact card out of the blue and without any additional information, right? Let them know why you are sending them your contact info and invite them to save it on their phones. We’ve already set a message for you, but you can tailor it to your brand, so it feels more personal. 

Each Card (the contact ID + the follow-up message) will be treated as a separate MMS message, apart from the welcome text you have crafted for your customers. The feature is currently available only for the US.

Bonus tips:

• Contact cards can be added to your welcome messages, so subscribers can save your number right after the very first message they receive from you. 
• You can also add them to your Welcome Flow. The first step to adding is to select the trigger New subscriber confirmation. In case you already have an existing welcome flow, you can skip this step and simply go to your welcome message.