The average American checks their phone 144 times per day, according to 2023 research from Reviews.org. The question is, how many of those times is your audience thinking about your consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand?
Maybe your latest email campaign landed in their inbox, but it got buried under hundreds of new messages from other brands. Perhaps they encountered a paid ad or came across your content organically in their feed. Each of these channels can play a key role in your customer relationships—but one of the best ways to get your customers’ attention from their phones is by texting them.
SMS marketing is a powerful way for CPG brands to reach their audience in a convenient, personalized way. Done right, your SMS strategy is a win for you and your customers. Let’s explore why SMS marketing is a win, ideas for how to use it, and best practices to build trust, one ping at a time.
The context behind texting your customers
Consumers are no strangers to engaging with favorite brands via text. In 2023 alone, plenty of fan-favorite brands interacted with their audience through memorable SMS campaigns. Pepsi invited fans to text them to get a free can for the brand’s 125th anniversary. Simply Spiked fans in select regions took part in a saucy promotion where they texted the peach emoji to receive a free sample of their peach-flavored product.
But SMS marketing is far from just a guerrilla marketing tactic. SimpleTexting found that 80% of marketers use SMS marketing to text their customers in 2024, up from just 55% in 2022. Their research also uncovered that SMS is a top 3 marketing channel for over half of marketers and that it drives incremental business revenue for 73%.
Texts reach consumers via a personal, direct way channel (and device) that they rarely look away from, which makes SMS a great way for CPG brands to build a strong connection with their audience. A text from a brand often carries more immediacy than a busy social media feed and can garner more attention than an email in a crowded inbox.
The right SMS strategy sparks conversations, drives engagement, and builds loyalty with your consumers. As Jess Cervellon, former VP of Customer Experience at viral snack brand Feastables explained on an episode of the Startup CPG podcast, “With this phone in customers’ hands, brands have an opportunity to have a two-way conversation with them and make them feel like a part of that brand.”
Use SMS marketing as a direct line to learn about customers, make them feel special, and turn them into a customer for life.
A note on SMS open rates
For years, marketers have touted a 14-year-old Mobilesquared statistic that 98% of text messages are read. While this number may no longer be accurate, SMS marketing still boasts one of the highest engagement rates of any digital channel. 2022 data suggests a 55% open rate for SMS messages, compared to an overall 32% open rate for email.
Since more than half of texts are read, SMS should be a high priority channel for CPG brands to creatively and strategically reach audiences in real time.
Essential SMS marketing campaigns
Whether you sell cosmetics, clothing, or cleaning products, a few core SMS campaign types should play a role in your CPG marketing strategy. These ideas are just a starting point—leverage your brand personality and audience data to send bold text campaigns that your customers can’t wait to engage with.
Personalized offers and discounts
If your audience is looking for the right time to pull the trigger and buy your product, a well-placed promotion can seal the deal. But a lot of brands share the same offer over and over or send one discount to their entire audience base. While certain announcements call for the same messaging across your entire audience, most texts you send should be more personalized.
Target your messages based on audience data, and segment campaigns to offer discounts that are most relevant to a subset of SMS subscribers, based on what they’ve bought or browsed before. A custom approach resonates more with your audience and drives clicks and conversions.
Product recommendations
Cross-sell your loyal customers by texting them about new product releases or an item that would be a great fit for them. Segment your campaigns to acknowledge what they’ve bought from you (and loved) in the past, so they know they aren’t getting the same text everyone else is getting. Share a short link to let them browse new offerings or even a curated landing page for a certain customer preference, like crunchy and salty snacks or healthy and tasty bites.
Loyalty rewards
SMS marketing is a prime channel for engaging your biggest fans. Surprise your repeat buyers or long-time customers with a text to:
- Thank them for their loyalty
- Offer an above-and-beyond discount during an existing sale
- Invite them to add a special free gift to their next order
- Share updates on their rewards points or remind them how close they are to their next loyalty discount
You can even recognize “anniversaries” of their first purchase or subscription, or note a milestone purchase for an extra personal touch in a humorous, upbeat, or sentimental message.
Exclusive content and sneak peeks
When someone subscribes to texts from your brand, it likely means they feel brand affinity and have a vested interest in your CPG products. That’s why they’re the right audience to see what’s coming from your brand before anyone else. Share a text with a short link to a sneak preview of upcoming colors, flavors, or products—established CPG brands might even tease special edition packaging and limited-edition items. You’ll drive excitement, increase conversions, and boost pre-orders.
Not only do these text campaigns help your customers feel a sense of belonging and exclusivity, but you can use these soft launches as a way to gauge interest and market (and adjust) upcoming releases accordingly.
Interactive content
As a channel, texting welcomes two-way interactions with your audience. Create campaigns that encourage customers to join the conversation and even co-create community with your brand. Share personality or product quizzes that let them categorize their clothing taste or pick the right snack for their mood.
Invite them to enter giveaways or vote on their favorite options for upcoming potential products. Chandler Dutton, the former Senior Director of Retention at cereal brand Magic Spoon, explains that the product team needed to decide on holiday flavors within a 48-hour period, so they turned to SMS. As he shared on 2% the Podcast, Chandler’s team sent a text to their audience and got back 7,000 responses within four hours, which gave them the input they needed to make a decision and made customers feel invested in the brand.
6 best practices for your SMS strategy
Feeling energized to send your next (or your first) SMS campaign? Before you start texting, here are a few must-know tips and tricks to build and maintain trust with consumers—and drive loyalty and sales.
1. Track engagement from every campaign
With the right tools, every SMS campaign offers a wealth of information about your audience, starting with engagement. When you send trackable Bitly short links, you can review every click in real time. And with the help of Bitly Analytics, you can gather additional data like clicks by location and comparative campaign performance, all from a central dashboard. Gain an in-depth understanding of every SMS marketing campaign, and learn what resonates with your audience to improve future messages, targeting, and timing.
Bonus tip: Brand your Bitly short link with your custom domain to send a trusted URL and boost clicks.
2. Spark additional mobile interactions
Drive engagement from every text with strategies like mobile deep linking. If you offer a mobile app to your customers, send some SMS campaigns that are deep linked to your app. When they click the link, one of two things will happen:
- If they have the app, they’ll head straight to the designated page in the app.
- If they haven’t downloaded the app yet, they’ll be sent to the App Store or Google Play Store to download it for additional shopping options, rewards, and a better overall experience.
Use SMS campaigns to encourage mobile app engagement, and boost loyalty across multiple channels.
3. Personalize and simplify link experiences
Every online order is a chance to dazzle your audience with convenience and proactive communication, and SMS texting helps you get there. Deliver personalized order updates via short link that let them know when to expect the next delivery of their favorite treat or body care product.
Plus, go above and beyond by sending a securely personalized link that they can click to review their order status and details without even having to log in or track down their order confirmation number. (Hint: You can use the Bitly API to do this! Check out how the Koozie Group does this to the tune of thousands of daily orders.)
4. Adjust your offer if it isn’t working
Pay as much attention to a lack of engagement from your audience as you do to their excitement and conversions. If you send the same discount off the same product type many times and notice fewer clicks than normal overall or no clicks from part of your audience, get creative.
Try offering a different discount or even promoting a different product. While you want to lean into your audience’s prior behavior and the preferences they’ve shown you, stalled engagement may mean it’s time to try something new.
5. Get creative with segmentation
While some of us love a good group text, it goes without saying that your entire audience shouldn’t get the same message all the time. In fact, the highest engagement will come from segmenting your campaigns based on what you know about your audience—and not just basic demographics, but their preferences and behaviors.
Try targeting texts based on factors like:
- The products they’ve purchased before. If they have a favorite snack, let them know when a new flavor comes out. Send them a short link to a custom Bitly Page that promotes similar products that would complement what they’ve expressed interest in.
- Their location. Based on the regional audience data you gain from Bitly, promote local swag and clothing or a pop-up event near them.
- Timing of a prior purchase. Use customer data to gauge how long customers typically go through a product, and send a text to let them know it’s probably time to reorder their go-to shampoo or makeup.
6. Don’t overuse SMS
While you might be buzzing with excitement to start sending every campaign idea that comes to mind, don’t send them all within the next week. Pace your SMS campaigns thoughtfully.
Take it from Chandler Dutton: “They’ve chosen to let us into their phone—a privileged space. … We’re really careful about SMS,” he notes, explaining that Magic Spoon sent up to one text a week to make sure campaigns were high-leverage and unique. “We want to make sure that it’s rewarding people for signing up for the channel and that we’re not taking advantage of their trust.”
Consider a slower SMS cadence where you can ensure that every text you send is meaningful and high value. Your customers will see that you have something important to say when you text, and they’ll stay subscribed for a long time.
Turn every text into a connection with Bitly
Loyal customers come back to their favorite CPG brands because they love the products, but that’s not all their loyalty is built on. They might return for the brand personality, values, partnerships, or the feeling that they’re a part of your brand. Further this audience engagement and belonging with every SMS campaign.
When you send a Bitly short link or landing page, you turn a text message into something more: a chance to learn something new about them and to offer more of what they love about your brand in the first place. Take your SMS strategy to new heights when you use Bitly to connect to your biggest fans with every notification.
