Your brand’s last interaction with a customer shouldn’t be their purchase receipt.
With the rise of e-commerce businesses—where customers are spoiled for choices—and the ever-growing competition, customer engagement beyond the point of sale has become increasingly important in building brand loyalty and driving repeat sales. One effective, yet often overlooked, way to maintain post-purchase engagement is through SMS marketing campaigns.
While many marketers use SMS marketing mainly for acquisition and conversion, it can also be a powerful tool for customer retention and repeat business. But why does post-purchase engagement matter? Are there benefits to building a post-purchase engagement strategy? Let’s find out below.
Why does post-purchase engagement matter?
Post-purchase SMS marketing refers to all interactions and communication you have with customers after they make a purchase. It includes sending:
- Order confirmations
- Shipping updates
- Product recommendations
- Promotional offers
- Feedback and review requests
- Customer appreciation messages.
It’s a crucial step in the customer journey because it offers an opportunity to build a relationship beyond the transactional level. Engaging customers after their purchase fosters a sense of connection and customer loyalty, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Benefits of building a strong post-purchase engagement SMS strategy
A well-structured and well-executed post-purchase engagement SMS strategy can bring numerous benefits to your brand, including:
Increased customer retention
Retaining existing customers is five times cheaper than acquiring new ones. Moreover, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25% up to 95%.
SMS strategies help keep your brand top-of-mind for consumers by providing timely and relevant post-purchase follow-ups, such as care tips, related product recommendations, and restock alerts. These personalized messages have near-perfect open rates (98% compared to 20% for email marketing) and can lead to higher engagement and ultimately increased customer retention.
Improved customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total revenue a customer brings to your business throughout their entire relationship with your brand. It takes into account not only the initial purchase but also repeat purchases, referral sales, and other interactions with your brand.
Post-purchase engagement directly influences CLV by creating a positive customer experience and nurturing a long-term relationship. Continuous engagement through SMS and other channels makes your customers feel valued and connected to your brand, contributing to a higher CLV.
Higher likelihood of repeat purchases
SMS marketing also incentivizes customers to make repeat purchases through exclusive offers, loyalty rewards, and early access to new products. Statistically, existing customers are 60–70% more likely to repurchase and spend 31% more compared to a 5–20% conversion rate for new customers.
Let’s say you run an online clothing store, and a customer recently purchased a pair of jeans from your store. After a week, you send them an SMS with a discount code for 20% off on their next purchase of any top to go with their new jeans. The customer is more likely to make another purchase, encouraged by the personalized and timely offer, increasing the frequency of purchases and boosting overall sales revenue.
Reduced customer churn
Customer churn (or attrition) is when customers stop doing business with your brand. It can happen for various reasons, such as:
- Poor customer experience
- Lack of interest in your products or services
- Finding a competitor with better options
Consistent, relevant, and personalized post-purchase communication through SMS can show your customers that you care about their experience even after the sale.
For instance, sending a follow-up SMS after purchase with tips on how to use the product or requesting feedback shows that you care about their satisfaction and are willing to go above and beyond to ensure it.
What to know about creating SMS marketing content for post-purchase engagement
Having a post-purchase engagement strategy is one piece of the puzzle. You also need to create effective post-purchase messages to ensure a successful campaign. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating SMS content for post-purchase engagement:
Understanding the customer journey post-purchase
Every customer that interacts with your brand goes through five stages of the customer lifecycle:
- Awareness: When they discover your brand or product
- Consideration: When they start researching and comparing options
- Purchase: When they make a buying decision
- Retention: After the purchase, when they interact with your brand again
- Advocacy: When they become loyal customers and refer others to your brand.
Post-purchase engagement falls into the retention and advocacy stages, where you have an opportunity to nurture a long-term relationship with your customers and turn them into loyal advocates for your brand.
It’s important to understand where your customers are in their journey after making a purchase and tailor your SMS content accordingly. For instance, a customer in the retention stage might appreciate care tips or recommendations for related products, while a loyal advocate may enjoy exclusive offers or rewards. You can use customer data such as purchase history, behavior, and preferences to create personalized SMS content for each stage of the journey.
Applying automation for efficiency
With a gazillion other things to juggle, creating and sending individual SMS messages to each customer post-purchase can be time-consuming and inefficient. Automation tools help streamline the creation and delivery of SMS marketing messages, promoting efficiency and consistency in your post-purchase engagement strategy.
You can set up triggers and actions that automatically send bulk SMS messages to customers based on specific events, such as purchase completion, abandoned carts, or loyalty program milestones. This comes with several benefits, including:
- Saving time, effort, and resources by automating repetitive tasks
- Ensuring timely and consistent messaging across all customer touchpoints
- Personalizing messages based on customer data for better engagement
- Tracking and analyzing the effectiveness of your SMS campaigns for continuous improvement
Still, it’s crucial to strike a balance between automation and personalization. While marketing automation can make your job easier, it’s essential to maintain a human touch in your SMS content and avoid generic, robotic messages.
Creating personalized messaging
Personalization helps you cut through the noise and stand out in your customers’ busy lives. You can personalize your SMS content based on previous interactions, purchases, and customer data such as demographics, behavior, and location. This can involve using the customer’s name, referencing their previous purchases or interactions, and tailoring offers or recommendations based on their preferences.
For instance, if a customer purchases a skincare product from your website, you can send them an SMS with related products based on their skin type or concerns. Automated processes can also help personalize messages at scale, ensuring customers receive timely and relevant communications without manual intervention.
Timing the messages strategically
Timing your post-purchase SMS messages strategically will help ensure high open rates and engagement. You want to catch your customers’ attention when they are most likely to see and respond to your messages. It’s also important to avoid sending messages too soon or too frequently as this can come across as intrusive and annoying.
The best time to send a post-purchase SMS depends on your target audience and their behavior, your industry, and the purpose of your message. You can use customer data and analytics to determine the optimal time for your specific customer segments.
According to Infobip, SMS texts sent between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. have higher open rates and engagement than those sent in the morning. There’s also an increase in clicks for text messages sent from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.
When it comes to days of the week, Tuesday is the best day to send SMS marketing messages, followed by Friday and Thursday. Monday and Wednesday are the least engaged days for SMS messages. You can run A/B tests to see which timing and frequency of messages work best for your customers.
Using clear CTAs in the content
A clear call to action (CTA) serves as a guide for customers, directing them toward the desired action after reading your SMS message such as:
- Providing feedback
- Accessing loyalty programs
- Exploring new products
- Engaging with your brand on social media
- Participating in a contest or giveaway
- Visiting your website or physical store
CTAs on your post-purchase SMS content can help drive engagement, increase conversions, and strengthen customer relationships. Here are some best practices for creating effective CTAs:
- Keep it short and clear: Use simple, action-oriented language that clearly states what you want the customer to do. Avoid using jargon or vague phrases that may confuse the customer.
- Create a sense of urgency and scarcity: Include words like “now” or “limited-time offer” to motivate customers to act quickly and increase the chances of conversion.
- Make it stand out: Use visual elements such as bold or colored font, borders, or icons to draw attention to your CTA and make it easy to spot.
- Personalize the CTA: Use the customer’s name or mention their specific purchase or behavior to make the CTA more relevant and personalized.
- Offer an incentive: Give customers a reason to click on your CTA by offering a discount, freebie, or other special offer.
- Place it strategically: You should place your CTA toward the end of your SMS message after you have provided valuable information or context. This helps increase the chances of customers taking action as they are more likely to engage with a CTA once they understand its purpose.
Measuring SMS campaign success
Tracking and analyzing key metrics can help you understand what’s working, what’s not, and how to improve your post-purchase SMS campaign. Some key metrics to consider include:
- Open rates: The percentage of customers who open your SMS messages. A high open rate indicates your messaging is relevant and engaging enough to warrant attention.
- Click-through rates: The percentage of customers who click on links or CTAs in your SMS messages. This indicates how effective your messaging is in driving desired actions.
- Conversion rates: The percentage of customers who complete a desired action after receiving an SMS message. This can include making a purchase, signing up for a loyalty program, or leaving feedback.
- ROI: The return on investment for your SMS campaign, calculated by dividing the net profit by the total cost of the campaign. It helps you understand the overall success of your campaign.
Based on these metrics, you can identify areas for improvement and adjust your future messaging strategies. For instance, if your click-through rates are low, you may need to improve your CTAs or personalize your messages further. The same goes for conversion rates—if they are low, you may need to reevaluate your offers or improve the user experience on your website.
How Bitly can help make your post-purchase engagement strategy a success
Bitly is a powerful URL shortener and link management platform that can help you optimize your post-purchase SMS campaign in several ways:
Enhance brand presence with branded short links
Long, clunky links can be a turnoff for customers and may even raise red flags for potential phishing scams. With Bitly’s branded short links, you can create custom, shortened URLs that include your brand name.
Using a URL shortener for SMS, you can create links that appear professional and trustworthy, enhancing brand recognition and increasing click-through rates. For instance, instead of using a long and confusing URL like www.yourwebsite.com/product12345, you can use a branded short link like yourbrand.ly/product—simple, clean, and instantly recognizable as a legitimate link from your brand.
Improve the customer experience with QR Codes
Integrating Bitly’s customizable QR Codes into your SMS post-purchase follow-ups can offer customers quick and convenient access to additional content related to their purchase, including:
- Setup guides
- Feedback surveys
- Loyalty program registrations
- Product-specific recommendations
You can use QR Codes to prefill SMS text, making it even easier for customers to engage with your brand. When a potential customer scans the QR Code, the prefilled SMS text will automatically pop up on their device, saving them time and effort.
The best thing about Bitly QR Codes is that you can tailor them to reflect your brand’s identity. You can use your brand’s logo, colors, and design elements to reinforce your brand aesthetics while providing practical value to your customers. For example, a QR Code for a skincare brand could include its logo and colors, with a prefilled text inviting the customer to take a skincare quiz to determine their personalized routine.
Optimize links for mobile users
There are over 6.84 billion smartphone users worldwide, which accounts for over 86% of the world’s population. If your post-purchase SMS campaign is not optimized for mobile users, you risk losing out on a significant portion of potential customer engagement.
Bitly’s mobile links are specially designed to ensure that customers are directed to mobile-friendly content that loads quickly and displays correctly on their devices, crucial for engaging customers on the go.
Let’s say you want to send a post-purchase follow-up message to customers who have recently bought a new phone from your brand. You include a link to a video tutorial on how to set up their new device, but the link takes them to a slow-loading, non-responsive page that is hard to navigate on their phone. Frustrated customers may abandon the process altogether, leading to a poor user experience and potential damage to your brand’s reputation.
Monitor analytics to refine SMS campaigns
Bitly Analytics offers insights into how customers are engaging with your SMS campaigns. You can track critical metrics such as:
- Total engagements
- Engagements in the last seven days
- Week-over-week change
- Engagements over time
- Locations (country- and city-level, depending on your plan)
- Referrers
- Device type
You can then use this data to refine message timing, content, and targeting for future campaigns, increasing the overall effectiveness of your post-purchase SMS engagements. With Bitly, you aren’t diving into the murky waters of post-purchase engagement blindly—you have all the necessary data and tools to guide you toward success.
Build a stronger post-purchase engagement strategy with Bitly
Our platform’s powerful features can help transform your post-purchase SMS marketing efforts, making them more effective, measurable, and customer-focused. With branded short links, customizable QR Codes, and optimized mobile links, you can enhance the customer experience and increase engagement rates.
Additionally, our analytics tools provide valuable insights to refine your SMS campaigns, allowing you to make data-driven decisions for future engagements.
Get started with Bitly today to elevate your post-purchase SMS strategy with ease!