So you decided to launch SMS for your brand. Now what?
While the task of launching a new channel can be daunting, growing your SMS subscriber list shouldn’t be. You have the opportunity to leverage what you already have–your email channel and other channels, like social media. There are also some great ways to collect both SMS and email sign-ups to grow both channels simultaneously.
We’ll discuss a few tactics below to get you started.
Leverage your email channel.
Whether your email list contains 100 people or 1 million, promoting your SMS program across email is a great way to engage your current subscribers, as both channels are designed to nurture your existing customer base. In some cases, subscribers respond better to SMS campaigns vs. an email campaign with similar content and vice versa.
Luckily, we’ve already compiled a list of great email examples promoting SMS. Email is an important tactic for growing your SMS list fast, especially around key holiday periods when you’re planning to offer exclusive SMS discounts.
While you can offer a discount percentage like this Duluth Trading Co. example, you can also highlight perks of joining your SMS program, like exclusive offers or restocks. For example, this email from Ouai haircare teases VIP access to their Cyber Week deals when you sign up for their SMS list.
Make it social.
There are several ways to encourage SMS sign-ups on social media. Leading brands today use swipe-up ads or stories on Instagram pointing to a dedicated SMS landing page, or feature posts and Instagram messages with text-to-join language (e.g., “Text SHINE to 999999″).
To share on social media, you’ll likely need to build a landing page that can be created on SMS platforms such as Attentive or Klaviyo. These pages are typically easy to edit too–users can quickly update page copy or create versions for different SMS list initiatives.
Here are a few of our favorites:
Diff Eyewear has a page that includes its website navigation for seamless integration to its existing web environment.
Milani cosmetics has a page that incorporates a standard SMS sign-up form from Attentive, making it easy for people to sign up from an ad and be added to future segmentation within the platform.
Incremental offers.
If you’ve already implemented an email capture pop-up form on your website, consider adding an incremental offer for visitors who provide additional information.
For example, try offering 15 percent off to visitors who provide their email. Then on screen two, increase the offer to 20 percent off if they add their phone number.
Incentivize, incentivize, incentivize!
If there’s one thing we’ve learned from both email and SMS, it’s that people LOVE discounts. Even if you’re not a discount-heavy brand, a giveaway can be a great way to entice shoppers to sign up. This is especially true during sale-heavy periods like Black Friday when many brands already offer percent-off discounts. Critical holiday periods are essential for nurturing and growing your lead list. These SMS tactics ensure that you don’t experience slowed growth.
What’s next?
First things first: You’ll want to get your welcome series set up first to greet new subscribers with any applicable discount codes depending on which SMS list growth strategy you implement.
Once you’ve started growing your SMS subscriber list, you’ll want to nurture subscribers just like you do with email. Many SMS platforms allow you to segment using specific subscriber data including purchasing data, behavior such as cart abandonment, and more.
More targeted segmentation will help your overall ROI, as many SMS platforms charge per text sent.
Need more tips on how to navigate SMS? Read our Complete Guide to Ecommerce SMS Marketing.
Happy texting!
