Next in Text: The SMS Trends Your Brand Should Capitalize On

We’re always chasing the next best thing in marketing. Or at a minimum, trying to optimize what’s already working.

We see a lot of inventive campaigns and unique approaches to developing a solid SMS strategy among our own customers. And we think a lot of the brands on Postscript are shaking things up (in a good way) with creative ways they use SMS—that you’ll want to start doing too.

Here are the biggest trends we’ve seen emerge in SMS with some ideas you can apply to your own brand too.

Bones Coffee got conversational with their “See a Chug, Send a Chug” campaign, driving UGC photos, customer engagement, and orders. 

The message was delivered to subscribers during prime coffee hour in the morning, and anybody who responded received 15% off of their next order. 

This playful photo exchange sent a message to customers: your engagement will be rewarded. After all,  SMS shouldn’t be a one-way street. In addition to a stellar community-building strategy, this kind of campaign can generate fun social or email content for later. 

We’ve seen the power of what happens when real people open up and get vulnerable on social media. It should be the natural next step that stories like these be shared over text.

Valabasas Denim sent a heartfelt message on Brother’s & Sister’s Day that tapped the power of their own family story. The deluge of genuine responses it elicited from customers made it a unique opportunity to build emotional connections and stronger brand rapport. 

Down-to-earth messages like these highlight the incalculable value of 1-to-1 conversations and how some campaigns don’t need to lean on discounts or sales. Fostering deep trust is a highway to long-term customers and subscribers who feel invested in your brand.

Does your product require instructions, have FAQs, or educational content that pairs with an order? Using SMS as an education and support tool lets you inform customers at each step of their journey and can have a massive effect on adoption and retention. 

Lashify found that customers who quickly learn to use their DIY Lash Extensions Control Kit are more likely to reorder and be satisfied with their purchase. Customers are prompted to respond with their success stories or with any issues they may have, triggering a series of tutorials, tips, and customer service check-ins.  

Brands can take this approach at any point of the customer journey. Hydration packet brand Hydrant’s “21 Hydration Reminders” flow helps customers build a healthy routine. Once a customer receives their product, they receive a text asking if they want to start a new habit. Subscribers then receive daily reminders to hydrate for 21 days, with the option to respond with “PAUSE” at any time to mute reminders without opting out of Hydrant’s SMS program.

CPG brands rely heavily on reminder emails to get those reorders. But we also know those can get lost in the email abyss. Double down on this by using SMS.

Ask customers when they want to receive a refill or repurchase reminder once their order is delivered. Then, automate that reminder and add subscriber tags to customers to track both the reminder’s conversion rate and the most commonly preferred reminder timeframes. If you’re a water filtration brand that requires periodic filter replacements, for example, this can be an extremely welcome value-add for customers who want to put their recurring order on autopilot.

Want to know why first-time customers haven’t ordered again? Just ask!

Dr. Squatch used SMS Sales to send an open-ended question to buyers who had lathered up once, but hadn’t ordered a second time. They found that some of these one-and-done customers had bought in retail environments, some had products they hadn’t finished yet, and many customers simply needed a little nudge to repurchase. 

Dr. Squatch struck a perfectly personalized tone in their messages, and the subsequent response rate was very high!

The most exciting thing about these trends is how much retention and revenue can come into play when you consider using SMS in non-traditional ways. Not on Postscript yet? Book a demo and we’ll help you set up all these automations and so much more.