SMS marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach your customers, with a 98% open rate.
In this article, we'll discuss how SMS marketing can help you increase sales for your WooCommerce store. We'll also provide a step-by-step guide on how to set up SMS marketing for WooCommerce, and introduce you to Sendlane – the best SMS marketing tool for WooCommerce stores. Let's get started!
What Are the Advantages of SMS Marketing?
SMS marketing is a form of permission-based marketing, which means you are only sending messages to people who have opted-in to receive them. This makes SMS marketing an incredibly effective way to reach your target audience.
Some advantages of SMS marketing include:
- A high open rate: SMS messages have an open rate of 98%, much higher than email (20%) or push notifications (2-8%).
- A high click-through rate: SMS messages also have a click-through rate of 36%, which is again much higher than email (3%) or push notifications (1-10%).
- Immediate delivery: SMS messages are delivered almost immediately, which means that your SMS notification will be seen by your customers right away.
- Personalized messages: SMS messages can be personalized to each customer, which makes them feel more valued and increases the chances of conversion. Custom SMS notifications are a great way for customers to feel special.
- Cost-effective: SMS messages are cheaper to send than other marketing messages, such as email or push notifications.
- Measurable: SMS marketing allows you to track metrics, such as open rate and conversion rate, so you can measure the success of your campaigns.
Why Should I Do SMS Marketing in WooCommerce?
Whether you're launching a new WooCommerce store or a seasoned eCommerce vet, there are many reasons why SMS marketing is a good idea for WooCommerce stores. SMS marketing can help you boost sales, increase customer loyalty, and improve customer support.
Here are some of the benefits of SMS marketing for WooCommerce stores.
Increased Sales
SMS marketing can help you increase sales by sending special offers and coupons to your customers. You can also use SMS marketing to upsell and cross-sell products. For example, if a customer buys a product from your store, you can send them an SMS message with a special offer on related products.
Improved Customer Loyalty
SMS marketing is a great way to build customer loyalty. SMS messages can keep your customers updated on new products, special offers, and events. You can also use SMS messages to send thank-you notes to your customers. This personal touch will make your customers feel valued and more likely to continue doing business with you.
Improved Customer Support
SMS marketing can also be used to improve customer support. SMS messages can notify your customers of new product updates, shipping delays, or changes in store hours. SMS messages can also be used to answer customer questions or provide customer service. Creating personalized customer experiences can greatly enhance their loyalty and desire to stick with your platform.
The Best SMS App for WooCommerce
Now that we've discussed the benefits of SMS marketing for WooCommerce stores let's take a look at the best SMS marketing tool for WooCommerce: Sendlane.
Sendlane
Sendlane is an email & SMS marketing platform offering several features that are perfect for WooCommerce stores.
Our features enable eCommerce brands to provide another communication layer to their customers on top of existing email campaigns and automation.
The best part? You can do all of this within a single, centralized dashboard!
Here are some features that allow digital retailers to provide a better customer experience with Sendlane & WooCommerce integration.
Two-Way Reply Center
Sendlane features a Two-Way Reply Center to respond to received messages and maintain a history log. Hold meaningful customer conversations, answer questions, and build profitable relationships via text!
Abandoned Cart Emails
The average cart abandonment rate currently sits at around 70%.
But winning back these iffy shoppers can be tough — especially if you're not personalizing your emails enough. Personalizing your abandoned cart emails can help convert buyers better by showing them the exact products they left in their carts.
With Sendlane, you can easily create a dynamic WooCommerce abandoned cart email and multiply your chances to retain customers and recover that lost revenue.
Deep Data
With this Deep Data integration for WooCommerce, you can pass along all the important data from your WooCommerce store back to Sendlane.
How does that help you?
Well, now you can use all that delectable data to help you track, segment, and personalize your customer’s experience with your brand on a more granular level.
You can gather data such as:
- Each subscriber’s Lifetime Order Value (LTV)
- All customer transactions
- Purchased items
- Revenue per order
- Their activity, like when they signed up and what they’ve been looking at on your site
- What list(s) they’re on
- If they’ve abandoned their shopping cart
- What pages they’ve visited
- How long it’s been since their last order
Learn more about Sendlane's integration with WooCommerce here.
What Sendlane Doesn't Offer
We are transparent about what we have and do not have! These features will be released shortly: back-in-stock notifications, virtual contact cards, and text-to-join features.
Pricing and Plans
Sendlane offers a 60-day free trial, so you can test out all of our email & SMS features. After the trial, email plans start at just $100/month with the addition of SMS subscription add-ons.
To learn more about our SMS plans and pricing, click here.
Get Started With Sendlane Today
Now that you know SMS marketing is a powerful tool for WooCommerce stores and Sendlane is the best tool for SMS marketing, it's time to get started!
With our 60-day free trial, you can test out all of our features and see how SMS marketing can help your store. To sign up for your free trial, click here.
2. Voyage
Voyage SMS is a two-way SMS marketing platform that enables brands to send and receive SMS messages from customers.
With Voyage, you can create SMS campaigns, coupons, loyalty programs, and SMS drip campaigns. You can also use Voyage to send automated SMS messages triggered by customer behavior, such as abandoned cart reminders or order confirmation texts.
What Voyage Offers
Voyage integrates into your existing tech stack, giving you segmentation capabilities that allow you to micro-market at scale based on customer attributes and event history. Your data, integrations, and custom events provide you with a multitude of ways to segment your SMS subscriber list.
What Voyage Doesn't Offer
While the Voyage platform comes with various features, it's missing some key marketing features essential for any SMS campaign.
For example, Voyage does not offer:
- A/B testing
- Tracking and reporting
- Scheduling
- Keyword-based opt-ins
Pricing
Voyage has four pricing plans: Small, Growth, Micro, and Enterprise. The Small plan starts at $49/month and includes up to 500 contacts. The Growth plan starts at $149/month and includes up to 5,000 contacts. The Micro plan starts at $349/month and includes up to 10,000 contacts.
3. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is an SMS marketing platform that helps brands send SMS messages to their customers. Klaviyo offers a variety of features, including SMS campaigns, SMS drip campaigns, SMS AB testing, SMS-triggered messages, and SMS reporting.
What Klaviyo Offers
Klaviyo integrates with some eCommerce platforms and CRMs and offers SMS campaign templates for easy SMS campaign creation.
What Klaviyo Doesn't Offer
Klaviyo does not offer keyword-based opt-ins, which can be a valuable way to grow your SMS subscriber list. Klaviyo also does not have a free plan, so you'll need to sign up for a paid plan to use Klaviyo's SMS marketing features.
Pricing
Klaviyo has three pricing plans: Basic, Pro, and Enterprise. The Basic plan starts at $30/month and includes up to 500 contacts. The Pro plan starts at $75/month and includes up to 5,000 contacts. The Enterprise plan starts at $250/month and includes up to 25,000 contacts.
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4. Emotive
Emotive is an SMS marketing platform that helps brands create personalized SMS funnels.
What Emotive Offers
Emotive integrates with several eCommerce platforms and CRMs, making it easy to send SMS messages to your customers. Emotive also offers SMS campaign templates for easy campaign creation. Emotive's SMS funnels allow you to create a series of SMS messages triggered by customer behavior, such as abandoned cart reminders or order confirmation texts.
What Emotive Doesn't Offer
Emotive does not offer keyword-based opt-ins, which can be a valuable way to grow your SMS subscriber list. Emotive also does not have a free plan, so you'll need to sign up for a paid plan to use Emotive's SMS marketing features.
Pricing
Emotive has four pricing plans: Starter, Pro, Scale, and Enterprise. The Starter plan starts at $299/month and includes up to 23,000 SMS texts. The Pro plan starts at $499/month and includes up to 41,583 SMS texts. The Scale plan starts at $999/month and includes up to 100,000 SMS texts. The Enterprise plan is custom-priced and requires customers to book a demo.
5. SMSbump
SMSbump is an SMS marketing platform that helps brands send SMS messages to their customers through Shopify and BigCommece.
What SMSbump Offers
SMSbump integrates with Shopify and BigCommerce to engage customers through SMS campaigns. It offers opt-in tools to help collect SMS and email and provides tracking insights on customers. SMSbump also offers SMS campaign templates, making it easy to create SMS campaigns.
What SMSbump Doesn't Offer
SMSbump does not offer WooCommerce integration.
SMSbump has four pricing plans: Free, Growth, Prime, and Powerhouse. The Growth plan starts at $19/month, the Prime plan starts at $59/month, and the Powerhouse plan starts at $199/month.
How to Integrate SMS with WooCommerce
Before you begin, it's important to know that you cannot use the SMS feature in Sendlane unless you have an email plan first. Once you do, here's how to get started.
1. From your WordPress website, click into Settings and find the Permalink section
2. Update both the Common Settings and Product Permalink from Default to Custom
3. Make sure Custom Structure isn't blank (the choice isn't important, this field just can't be blank)
4. Update Custom Base to product/
5. Click Save Changes
6. Next, navigate to the Admin section, and locate WooCommerce
7. Click on Settings under WooCommerce
8. Once in the settings, Click on Advanced
9. Locate the and click REST API
10. Click on Add Key
11. From here, you will enter the name of the key. Select yourself as the user if it is not already there for you, followed by Read/Write for the Permissions. Please note: Permissions will need to be Read/Write in order for the integration to work properly
12. The next page you will see will include your Consumer Key and Consumer Secret. Do Not leave this page. Please note: Once you leave this page, you cannot retrieve these keys again. If you do leave this page before adding the keys to Sendlane, you will need to create a new API Key by repeating steps 1-5.
13. In a different window, login to Sendlane.
14. Navigate to the Integrations tab, locate WooCommerce, and click on configure.
15. In the top right, click on Connect Integration.
16. Begin filling out the information that the pop-up asks for. Please note: The store URL needs to include the "https://" in order for the integration to work properly.
17. Return to your WooCommerce admin page to retrieve the Consumer Key (this is your REST API Key) and your Consumer Secret (this is your REST API Secret).
18. Select a default list. This is the list your existing contacts will be added to and where new contacts will be added after completing a purchase in your store.
19. Click Continue
20. You'll see the integration status as Initializing first, then Syncing as the data starts to transfer - please give the system just a bit of time to process here; then, once the status updates to Installed, you're all set!
Be sure to save this link to our step-by-step guide to integrate Sendlane with WooCommerce.