Using Postscript SMS Marketing to Promote your Shopify Store

SMS marketing makes it easy for ecommerce platforms to interact with their target audience directly and engage customers while they're on the go. While the prevalence of mobile users has increased how often consumers check their emails, SMS still prevails as the communication medium with the highest open rates (hitting as high as 98% in the US).

Approximately 50% of consumers check their phones a minimum of five times an hour, which means your marketing messages are unlikely to go unnoticed. However, as easy as it is to contact customers through text messages, you need to be cautious not to spam or overwhelm them with marketing messages.

SMS marketing helps ecommerce merchants increase cross-sells and upsells, launch a welcome series, improve customer retention, and enhance a buyer's shopping experience, among other benefits. Here's how Postscript helps ecommerce business owners ramp up their revenue and drive customer engagement.

What is Postscript?

Postscript is a text message marketing platform exclusively designed for Shopify store owners. The platform lets you create hyper-segmented campaigns, automate text marketing, create SMS marketing campaigns, and track your ROI with advanced analytics.

Originally, Postscript started as a one-way text broadcasting tool. However, the platform has evolved significantly over the years. It now facilitates entire two-way conversations, meaning you can use Postscript to manage subscriptions, provide text-based re-order services to customers, and collect consumer feedback via reviews.

Does Postscript Cost Money?

Postscript offers a 30-day free trial for you to test the platform out and get comfortable with its capabilities. The platform itself isn't free, although the pricing structure is both free and transparent, so you can select a package that best suits your marketing needs. Postscript also lets you send inbound messages for free, which is a nice touch.

How do I use Postscript on Shopify?

Here's a more detailed rundown on how to use Postscript SMS Marketing.

Installing Postscript

Installing Postscript is easy - you can find it in the Shopify App store with a quick search, and press the "Get" button to install it. The app will ask you to accept the permissions, and after accepting, it will take around 1-15 minutes (subject to your store's size) 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 automations.

Postscript 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).

Step 2 - Sending Messages Out

Postscript offers various options for sending messages and designing text message conversations from your dashboard. You can take your pick from campaigns or automations and choose between sending an SMS or an MMS.

Shopify merchants typically use campaigns for one-off announcements, while automations are used for sequential interactions. Automations are especially useful for win-back messages, follow-ups, and sending shipment notifications.

Step 3 - Setting Up Automations

You can get started with Postscript's "Customer Winback" and "Abandoned Carts" automations and configure trigger automations as needed. Don't forget to customize your automated messages!

Step 4 - Segment Your Audience

Postscript 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.

Step 5 - Launch A Campaign

While automations are activated by triggered events, campaigns are one-off events that you can send to segments or your entire list. 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

Next, here are some best practice tips to get the most out of your SMS marketing strategy.

Less is more

When it comes to launching SMS campaigns, pick quality over quantity. Customers don't appreciate being spammed. Sending them too many marketing messages comes across as invasive.

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.

Use texts for urgent communications

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

SMS supplements email communications

SMS messages work best when complementing 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.

Use GIFs and fresh copy to drive engagement

Word count is important since SMS and MMS limit the amount of text you can send per message. Thus, 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.

Use tags to personalize content

Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, Klaviyo lets you personalize your SMS subscribers' experience by including tags in emails. 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.

Summary

SMS marketing presents modern marketers with various opportunities to increase sales, grow their customer base, and drive revenue. Platforms like Postscript make it easy for even beginners to get started with SMS marketing. The marketing solution lets you automate text flows, launch win-back campaigns, segment your audiences, and more.

Enhance the Post-Purchase Experience With Malomo

Malomo's native integration with Shopify and Shopify Plus, as well as its deeper integration with Postscript, make it easy to integrate Malomo's post-purchase communications with your email and SMS workflows. Schedule a demo today.