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Written by: Ashley Randall
Almost everyone in the world now owns a cellphone. It’s no surprise that people check their phones up to 160 times a day, or once every 9 minutes, to look at text messages, social media feeds, emails, and more according to Findstack. The question is who would have thought a simple text message could help bring in more sales for your CPG business? This is just scratching the surface of what SMS Marketing can do for your brand!
We know that marketing can be challenging for a startup in the CPG space, because it is so competitive. To become successful in this industry, you need a solid CPG digital marketing strategy to promote your products. For those brands that are just starting out, it is important to implement a plan that is cost efficient, effective, and has a great ROI. You can get all of them with SMS Marketing.
SMS (Short Messaging Service) Marketing is a marketing strategy used to create and send promotional SMS text messages to potential, new, and existing customers. Some people use the terms Text Messaging Marketing or Mobile Messaging Marketing for Businesses. It is a form of digital marketing that some brands fail to use. Either way, they are the same thing and have grown popular over the last decade.
Businesses in other industries, including beauty and health, entertainment, real estate, healthcare, and retail shopping, use the power of text messages to communicate with their customers or clients. And since CPG brands often fall into the retail industry, it is almost a no brainer why your business should hop on board.
There are many ways to use SMS marketing. All depending on the type of campaign you are going for. Most businesses use this strategy to promote new and existing products, sales on products, coupon giveaways, service reminders, birthday or special event promotions, you name it. But as a business, you should focus on the SMS campaigns, which will help generate more CPG sales and customer service.
Since text messaging is a two-way form of communication, it is personal. So when you are developing a SMS campaign strategy, you want to focus on who you are reaching out to, the time you send out your messages, and the main goal on what you want your consumers to do next.
You always want to include a link within the text message for customers to click on. This will take them to the next step of the desired action you want them to take. You can promote a new product on your website, send a link to a digital coupon, or sign up to receive a free sample. These three campaigns will help increase your sales velocity in your partnered retail stores.
Related Post: What is Sales Velocity in CPG?
This is a great way to let your consumers know about new and upcoming products to try. You would want to send this text message to your consumers, who are already familiar with your existing products. If they loved your product or brand enough to sign up for SMS messages, they would want to know about any new items you may have.
Using this tactic will get your customers excited, especially because they will feel as if they are the first to know about it. Psychologically, everyone loves to be the first to know something. It gives them the upper hand against everyone else. They love the “I know something you don’t know” feeling, so always take that into consideration.
Also, you can promote sales. Can you imagine how excited your consumer will get once they receive a text message saying, “Guess what! Our chocolate bars are on sale at Walmart right now! Hurry while supplies last.” The sky's the limit when it comes to the creative ways you can promote your products.
Coupons will forever be a great strategy for CPG marketing. It's a great incentive to give your consumers so that they always want to buy your product. Since paper coupons have become a thing of the past, digital coupons have stepped in its place and taken over. Consumers now can pull coupons from their phones. And that makes it easy for CPG brands to capitalize on the market.
The best way to use this method with SMS marketing is to generate coupons with barcodes or QR codes. You can include a link to the coupon in your text message, so that your consumers can let a cashier scan the code. It’s that easy. So easy that your customers will look forward to future SMS messages from you in the future.
Since we’ve stepped into a post-COVID world, in-store sample demonstrations aren’t as popular as before. Despite the world slowly opening up again, some people still have the mindset of distancing themselves from others in retail stores. But that didn’t stop CPG brands from thinking outside the box. Now, they are thinking digitally.
Consumer packaged goods marketing agencies and consultants are now implementing redemption programs for sampling. The idea is for your customers to sign up for samples, and after a week or two, they will receive it right on their front door. Or, they can get their sample directly from the retail store and later receive a cashback rebate. This method is great, because you can send your consumers a link within the SMS message that will take them directly to the free samples sign up page.
Besides increasing CPG sales, one of the best things SMS marketing can do is help your brand engage with your audience. SMS marketing can help you stay connected with your potential, new, and existing customers by engaging with them. You will be able to track the progress of your campaigns and provide customer services for consumers who need additional support.
Tracking SMS engagement will give you insight into what your consumers like and do not like. You can measure what type of campaign has a higher click through rate compared to others. This tells you if your customers favor coupons or samples, and vice versa. You will always gain knowledge of which product they adore over others. Or which retail store they like over others, especially if you have coupons for the same product at two or more different retail stores. This will help you track the effectiveness of your distribution.
Customers prefer texting a business, rather than making a phone call nowadays. This is because they like the instant two-way communication it offers, especially when there is an issue they want resolved or additional information. This can be set up as an auto response, but if an issue can’t be resolved by text message, a link to your website or phone number can be provided for further assistance.
Sampoll is a new conversational marketing solution for CPG brands that leverages similar technology used by a SMS marketing software solution. Sampoll developed an AI-powered chatbot messenger called “Sam” to have text conversations with your consumers. Sam isn’t a regular, nonchalant chatbot you chat with on every other website.
“Sam” is full of personality, one that matches the tone of your CPG brand. That way it's not just dull text on a screen...it's full of bright and exciting product imagery and video content to showcase your brand, fun and familiar emojis, occasional dad jokes and visual GIFs that bring the conversation alive in a whole new way!
“Sam” also helps you promote your products, coupon giveaways, and free sample redemptions to your consumers. You can run all your SMS campaigns with Sampoll, so that you can get the best of both worlds without paying for additional SMS software.
Lastly, “Sam” collects opt-in customer panel data, including opt-in emails from consumers taking advantage of your free sample product trial campaigns. Unlike other product sampling providers, we provide first-party data from your consumers based on their feedback conversation with “Sam”. You will learn more about your consumers through our analytics insight dashboard. While the consumers learn about your brand, bringing customer relationships to the next level.
If you are looking for an SMS marketing software that will help you reach new and existing customers, promote products, coupons, and samples, while gaining customer insight from engagement, schedule a demo with Sampoll. A Sampoll rep will show you how it all works.