-png.png)
Text-based marketing, a subset of conversational marketing, is a form of marketing where brands are reaching and engaging with their consumers in a more personalized manner. With the proliferation of email marketing, consumers now disregard e-mails because of the amount of spam they get through it and as a result text based marketing is gaining popularity. With text/SMS having 97%+ open rates & 50%+ conversion rates, it is one of the highest ROI channels for brands & marketers. Although, there is still a missing link to the consumer buying experience as they shop via text. The friction point in the consumer journey is caused by the broken payment as consumers have to go through a web page checkout based experience.
What Is Needed To Complete The Transaction?
In order to make it a frictionless experience for the buyer, there needs to be two components in text - integration with payment processors and a workflow automation or chatbot type functionality that can help answer questions consumers may have as they are going through their buying decision. Completing a transaction within the text will be huge for e-commerce businesses as most consumers drop out when they are asked to click a link, add an item to the cart, and enter details on a web page. Below we go into details of the two missing links today to enable text based reply to buy shopping frictionless.
- Integration with Payment Processors
Text platforms today are not integrated with payment processors like stripe or paypal causing friction in the buyer's journey. Integrating text with payment processors can help one provide flexible and scalable solutions. Platforms like Shopify, Stripe & Paypal use advanced & flexible payment processors allowing businesses to regulate payments. Moreover, it also provides the customers with the payment security they need and gateways that help the business prosper.
- Conversational Chatbot
The chatbot is an instant solution to removing friction in the buying process that is caused by additional and simple questions that the consumers may have and left unanswered. Chatbots make sense of responses and automate the recommendation and buying process.
How Reply On Text To Buy Is A Channel That Will Emerge As One Of The Most Effective And Highest ROI?
E-mail is saturated, whereas SMS is under-utilized by brands (most brands only engage in text when it comes to support and services). It's vital to take note that these are just a few reasons SMS stands apart as a one-of-a-kind buying channel.
- SMS Is Quick & in-the moment
SMS messages are read fairly quickly on receipt. It is not unexpected to note that 90% of SMS are perused in the initial three minutes. This makes SMS advertising efforts incredible for time-constraint offers.
- Consumers Open Almost 100% of SMS texts
A review uncovered that individuals spent roughly 4 hours on their cell every day in 2021 and opened 97% of their texts. Promoting SMS permits B2C businesses to hit consumers where they are & where they invest a great deal of their energy.
Conclusion
Brands that will utilize text messaging intelligently would greatly benefit from this untapped channel. It's important to consider platforms that are integrated with key payment and e-comm platforms and platforms that have automated workflows and conversational chatbots in order to scale this very important channel.