Take your SMS strategy up a notch with Klaviyo & Malomo

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Mariah Parsons

Head of Marketing

SMS marketing is a top communication channel for ecommerce brands looking to grow their business. With open rates as high as 98% and Apple’s recent email privacy changes, brands are leveraging SMS to drive growth and boost customer retention.

Consumers check their phones nearly 350 times per day—that’s once every 4 minutes—so your marketing messages are likely to be opened at the very minimum. But just because consumers are on their phone, doesn’t mean they want to hear from your brand every hour. Be cautious not to spam or overwhelm them with marketing messages.

SMS marketing helps ecommerce merchants increase subscribers, improve customer retention, and enhance a buyer's shopping experience, among numerous other benefits. Here's how Klaviyo helps ecommerce business owners take advantage of all the benefits SMS marketing has to offer.

What is Klaviyo SMS?

Klaviyo is a Shopify Plus Certified unified customer platform that gives online brands direct ownership of their consumer data and interactions, empowering them to turn transactions with customers into long-term relationships—at scale. In short, Klaviyo turns your data into dollars with personalized and automated text messages.

Klaviyo helps Shopify brands increase subscribers and send targeted, hyper-personalized text messages at scale. Now brands can create hyper-segmented campaigns, grow their SMS marketing list, create SMS marketing campaigns, and track ROI with powerful reporting options.

How much does Klaviyo cost?

Klaviyo pricing is dependent on the number of contacts you have. For up to 1,500 contacts, Klaviyo's email and SMS package starts at $60/month. They also offer a free package so you can test out the platform before you commit!

How do I use Klaviyo on Shopify?

Here's a more detailed rundown on how to get started with Klaviyo for your SMS marketing needs.

1. INSTALL KLAVIYO ON YOUR SHOPIFY STORE

Installing Klaviyo is simple, start by finding it on the Shopify App Store. The app will ask you to accept the permissions, and after accepting, it will take a few minutes to install and sync with your store.

While the app is syncing, you can configure the settings. At this stage, Shopify merchants can generate segments, create campaigns, and enable automation.

Klaviyo will send you an email confirming the sync, after which you can check how many customers in your store qualify as "sendable." These customers have provided their contact information and agreed to receive marketing messages (they opt into your list).

2. SET UP AUTOMATIONS

You can get started with Klaviyo's "Customer Win-back" and "Abandoned Carts" automations and configure trigger automations as needed. Don't forget to customize your automated messages—personalization is key!

3. SEGMENT YOUR AUDIENCE

Klaviyo lets you segment your sendable audience to launch targeted campaigns. The segmentation is fully customizable, and you can define criteria like "Total Spent" or "Number of Orders" to organize your customer list.

4. LAUNCH SMS CAMPAIGNS

While automations are activated by triggered events, campaigns are one-off events that you can send to segments or your entire list. Klaviyo SMS flows can be easily created and customized. To create a campaign, select "Campaigns" from the main menu and proceed to "Create Campaign." You can then select a segment and customize your campaign with text, tags, URLs, and if it's an MMS, you can also add media items.

After setting up a campaign, you can check if it functions as you intended with "Send Me A Test." After sorting the details out, you can select "Schedule Campaign" to send the messages later or "Send Campaign Now" to launch SMS campaigns immediately.


Tips and Best Practices for SMS on Shopify

You downloaded Klaviyo, so what's next? Here are some best practices to get the most out of your SMS marketing strategy.

NO ONE LIKES SPAM

When it comes to launching SMS campaigns, always pick quality over quantity. Customers don't appreciate being spammed. Sending them too many marketing messages comes across as invasive and will usually result in an unsubscribe.

First, determine the best way to convey the information for your SMS campaigns before sending out the messages. The goal is to provide your audience with the most value in fewer messages, to limit how frequently you communicate with them.

HAVE AN ORDER UPDATE? USE SMS

Did your customer's order get delayed? Is there a new flash sale on their favorite item? Shoot your customers a text message to get their attention quickly and make it easy for them to respond to urgent matters.

USE SMS WITH EMAIL

SMS messages work best when complimenting your email marketing efforts and increase user engagement and participation overall. For example, let's say you have a big sale coming up, and your marketing team launches an email campaign to share the details.

Now, if your email open rates aren't high enough, a segmented SMS campaign can help you reach your goal. You can create a segment of your audience that hasn't opened the emails and shoot a short text with the campaign promotions. By segmenting your compliant subscriber list and strategically executing supplementary communications, you increase your open rates significantly.

MAKE USE OF GIFS AND RICH MEDIA TO DRIVE ENGAGEMENT

Word count is important since SMS and MMS limit the amount of text you can send per message. Leveraging GIFS and images to communicate your message can be incredibly impactful when designing your email marketing campaigns.

Since SMS and MMS have a significant character limit, the quality of your messages is all the more critical. Thus, be sure to use fresh copy to drive engagement and increase conversions.

MAKE PERSONALIZATION A TOP PRIORITY

Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, Klaviyo lets you personalize your SMS subscribers' experience by including tags in texts. For example, instead of writing a generic greeting like "Dear Customer," you can use a tag to address them by name. Adding a personal touch encourages user engagement and helps build lasting relationships with your shoppers. But the personalization fun doesn't stop there- you can continue iterating on your SMS strategy with Malomo's other integrations as well, such as with Justuno!

How to drive revenue Klaviyo + Malomo

Did you know customers check their tracking info an average of 4.6 times per order? Instead of sending customers to a landing page with just their tracking status, create a landing page that gives them an update on their order along with product recommendations.

Malomo integrates with Klaviyo to enable brands to drive traffic from their post-purchase SMS campaign flows to Malomo’s beautiful, high-converting tracking pages. Shopify merchants can create pre-built SMS notification flows triggered by real-time carrier updates.

  • Create pre-built SMS notification Journeys triggered by real-time carrier updates from Malomo

  • Increase engagement and repeat purchases by driving SMS traffic to high-converting tracking pages

  • Turn operational SMS messaging into a revenue generating initiative

If you’d like to read more about how Klaviyo and Malomo work together, check out our case study with Who Gives A Crap.

Summary

SMS marketing presents ecommerce marketers with valuable opportunities to increase sales, grow their customer base, and drive revenue. Start using Klaviyo to grow your brand and improve the customer experience at all points of the customer journey.

To learn more about how Malomo integrates with Klaviyo and improves the post-purchase experience, schedule a demo with us.

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