In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s more important than ever for businesses to build strong customer loyalty. While 90% of businesses have a customer loyalty program—many still find it challenging to stand out from the competition, track engagement, and measure ROI with their current loyalty program. In this article, we’ll explore the top reasons why every business should include text marketing as part of their loyalty program and how it can revolutionize their customer retention strategy.
Text Message Marketing is a Missed Opportunity for Many Businesses
Today’s businesses deploy a variety of tactics and channels when it comes to developing their customer loyalty program. According to a recent survey, 89% use email, while only 66% use text messaging.
If you think about how many emails you get bombarded with each day, you can understand why primarily relying on email to cultivate customer loyalty is an ineffective strategy. But businesses that use text messaging as part of their customer loyalty program could still be missing an opportunity to drive engagement. What do we mean by that?
Many businesses that have text messaging capability use it only to provide updates on points and rewards. For example, a customer may receive a text that says, “You just earned 1 point! ” after a recent purchase. While these texts are helpful for rewarding customers once they spend a certain amount, these tools miss a huge opportunity to proactively engage customers by offering special discounts, sales reminders, and more.
Remember: A loyalty program is designed to connect with your most loyal customers. Text marketing builds upon those connections to drive greater engagement.
By harnessing the power of text marketing, businesses can create personalized and targeted experiences that keep customers coming back again and again. As a text-based customer loyalty platform used by more than 10,000 merchants, here are a few specific ways we’ve seen text marketing make a direct impact on customer loyalty:
1.) Text messaging creates an opportunity for instant and direct communication.
Did you know that text messages have a 98% open rate, which is 5x higher than average email open rates? (Source)
Text loyalty programs are a great way to keep customers engaged with your brand. By sending regular text messages with updates, offers, and rewards, you can stay top-of-mind with your customers and encourage them to continue shopping with you.
2.) Text marketing enhances customer retention with relevant rewards.
According to a study by Bain & Company, it can cost 6-7 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Additionally, loyal customers are more likely to spend more money with your business. Text loyalty programs can help you retain your existing customers by rewarding them for their loyalty and giving them a reason to keep coming back. The rewards a business offers should be relevant to its target audience and be something they’ll actually want.
3.) Text marketing provides a proven way to quickly increase sales.
Text loyalty programs can help you increase sales by encouraging customers to make more purchases. When a business can speak directly to its best customers, it can be easier to fill more orders, launch a new product, or simply bring in traffic on a slow day.
4.) Text marketing offers improved customer insights.
Text loyalty programs can also help you collect valuable customer insights. By tracking customer engagement and the response of each campaign, you can learn more about your customers’ preferences and needs. This information can help you improve your products and services and create more targeted marketing campaigns.
5.) Text offers a way for small, local businesses to compete with national companies.
A good loyalty program is an easy way for small businesses to show their personal side and remain competitive in areas where larger companies with bigger budgets may dominate. Some customers make purchases with national brands simply for their loyalty rewards, even though they may not love the product. Now, smaller businesses with better products can offer the same or better rewards and have a greater chance to compete against the chains.
6.) Text loyalty programs offer a cost-effective solution for small businesses.
Managing a text loyalty program can be expensive—especially for businesses that rely on traditional punch cards or direct mail campaigns. Because of the low barrier to entry and higher ROI, text marketing ensures that businesses don’t have to empty their budget to start a quality loyalty reward program.
7.) Text loyalty programs generate higher redemption rates.
Compared to traditional loyalty programs that rely on physical cards or coupons, text loyalty programs tend to have higher redemption rates. Since customers always carry their mobile devices, they can easily access and redeem text-based rewards and incentives, resulting in increased customer participation and repeat purchases.
textLIVING: An Intuitive Text-Based Customer Loyalty Platform
Incorporating text message marketing as part of a customer loyalty program can provide businesses with a powerful tool to strengthen customer relationships, increase brand loyalty, and drive growth.
At textLIVING, we’ve designed an easy-to-use platform that helps businesses maximize the power of text marketing for customer loyalty. If you know and want to offer them a ready-to-use white-label solution, learn more about our platform or discover how you can become a resell partner.