SMS Marketing Automation: How to Streamline Customer Engagement & Boost Conversions
Automations

SMS Marketing Automation: How to Streamline Customer Engagement & Boost Conversions

Laura Serino
January 3, 2025
Reading Time: 5 minutes

SMS marketing automation is the easiest way to drive revenue without having to do manual work.

With powerful tools and streamlined workflows, businesses can be more efficient, engage more with customers, and get more conversions – all without the manual hassle.

SMS marketing automation refers to using SMS marketing platforms and automation features to deliver personalized messages, manage automated drip campaigns, and track responses. Unlike traditional methods, automation handles repetitive tasks like sending appointment reminders or scheduled text messages so you can focus on strategic marketing.

SMS automation can change the way businesses communicate with their audience. With automated text messaging, companies can deliver value at the right moment and increase customer satisfaction and ROI.

Discover the benefits of SMS marketing automation, the best practices, and how Postscript’s SMS messaging app can help your business succeed. 

Whether you want to streamline bulk SMS marketing or two-way texting, this guide has you covered!

The Power of Automated SMS Marketing

How can SMS marketing software be a game changer? 

Automation can help you unlock time efficiency and scalability, personalized messaging at a scale, and boost your engagements and conversions. Here’s how.

Workflow automation

With text message marketing software, you can create automated messages that guide customers through critical stages of their journey – no human intervention required. Here are some of the ways to do that. 

Welcome Series

First impressions count. Setting up an automated workflow for a welcome series helps you:

  • Send a welcome text to new subscribers

  • Introduce your brand and value proposition

  • Encourage engagement with exclusive offers or keyword opt-ins to get them on board from the start

Abandoned Cart Automations

Recovering lost sales gets easier with automated drip campaigns for cart abandonment:

  • Send text messages to nudge customers to complete their purchase

  • Include links for easy checkout with link tracking

  • Offer limited-time discounts to boost conversions

Post-Purchase Follow-Ups

Build relationships with existing customers through thoughtful automated follow-ups:

  • Send a thank you text

  • Share product usage tips or tutorials to improve customer experience

  • Ask for customer feedback with quick text surveys to improve future interactions

Some lesser-known but highly effective automations include:

  • Price drop alerts

  • Back in stock alerts

  • Last link clicked alerts

Using workflow automation, you can make every touchpoint count by engaging with customers at the right moment and sending the right message.

Triggered messages

Triggered messages are a vital part of SMS marketing automation, allowing you to send timely and personalized messages based on customer actions or events and optimize mass texting. 

By using zero-party data – information customers willingly share with you, such as their preferences or essential dates – you can create highly relevant text messages that drive engagement and loyalty.

Here are some of the ways to know: 

  • Event-Based Triggers: Triggered messages based on milestones like birthdays or anniversaries help you build personal connections. For example, celebratory text messages with exclusive offers or surprises can build emotional connections.

  • Action-Based Triggers: Customer actions like purchases, sign-ups, or website activity can trigger messaging such as thanking customers for their purchase and offering cross-sells, following up with cart abandonment reminders to recover lost sales, and notifying users of shipping updates or delivery status to be transparent.

Why bother with triggered messages? Here are the benefits you could gain: 

  • Relevance: Messages arrive at the right moment so they are relevant and contextual.

  • Automation: No human intervention is required, so your automated texting service does all the work for you.

  • Engagement: When you contact customers directly, they are more likely to respond to messages that are relevant to them or their situation.

Scheduled campaigns

Planning and scheduling campaigns helps you stay organized, consistent, and strategic with your SMS marketing. 

With Postscript’s Flow Builder, scheduling campaigns has never been more straightforward.

Postscript Flow Builder

Scheduling campaigns benefits you in the following ways: 

  • Time-saving: It automates sending messages for higher efficiency. 

  • Consistency: Your audience gets regular updates without you forgetting important dates.

  • Optimization: Send messages at the right time to boost engagement and response rates.

The prominent use cases for scheduled campaigns include: 

  • Seasonal Promotions: Plan your holiday or event campaigns well in advance to capture attention during peak times.

  • Recurring Messages: Use automated workflows to set up monthly or weekly campaigns for offers or tips.

  • Announcements: Share product launches, updates, or other timely news with your audience.

Postscript’s Flow Builder makes creating and scheduling SMS campaigns a breeze. With this easy-to-use tool, you can tap into advanced features for your text marketing and:

  • See the customer journey and map out campaign triggers

  • Segment your audience to send relevant messages

  • Track and adjust based on real-time feedback

Key Benefits of SMS Marketing Automation

SMS automation is a game changer for businesses looking to scale and deepen their relationship with their customers. By automating and sending personalized messages, companies will see better results overall.

Increased Efficiency

Automating mundane tasks like appointment reminders, drip campaigns, or follow-ups saves time and money. With scheduling and triggered response automation, businesses can focus on essential functions while their SMS automation platform does the behind-the-scenes work.

Enhanced Customer Experience

By sending on-time and personal messages, businesses can create a smoother and more enjoyable experience for their customers. Automation means customers get automated text messages based on their preferences, whether it’s a birthday discount or a cart reminder. This can be applied even to bulk messaging campaigns. 

Improved Customer Engagement

Automated workflows let you connect with customers at the right time and build stronger relationships. Features like two-way messaging and text surveys allow for natural interaction, and automated responses keep the conversation going.

Boosted Conversions and Sales

Targeted and strategic marketing campaigns drive more conversions. For example, a timely promotional text or a series of automated drip campaigns can generate huge sales by using targeting features to boost revenue.

Best for Transactional Messaging

Key touchpoints include transactional messages like order confirmations, delivery updates, and appointment reminders. 

With email marketing, these updates can get lost or buried in the spam folder. On the other hand, SMS has higher visibility and click-through rates than other marketing channels. 

Tips for SMS Marketing Automation

To get the most out of SMS automation, businesses need to go beyond just setting up workflows. 

By focusing on audience insights, testing, and performance tracking, you can tune your campaigns for better results.

Here are the main tips to keep in mind:

  • Segmenting Your Audience

Your SMS marketing campaigns start with your customers. You can send personalized messages that resonate by segmenting your audience based on past behavior, preferences, or demographics. 

For example, you could send first-time buyers a welcome discount or loyal customers an exclusive offer. Segmentation increases engagement and conversion rates by ensuring every text message is relevant to the recipient.

  • A/B Testing

Experimentation is critical to finding what works for your audience. 

Use A/B testing to compare different versions of your automated text messages, changing things like message content, timing, or call to action. 

Testing will show you what drives the most engagement and allows you to optimize your SMS marketing automation continually.

  • Monitoring and Analyzing Performance

Tracking open rates, click-through rates, and conversions is key to measuring your SMS campaigns. Tools like Postscript’s analytics dashboard give you valuable insights into campaign performance so you can refine and maximize ROI. 

Regular analysis ensures your automation is aligned with your business goals.

Boost Your Bottom Line with Postscript

The results are in for SMS automation: more efficiency, better customer relationships, and more conversions and sales.

SMS marketing automation lets you connect with your audience in meaningful, personalized ways, and save time and resources. 

With tools like Postscript’s Flow Builder and analytics dashboard, your business can send text message marketing campaigns that deliver.

Get started with Postscript today and upgrade your marketing efforts. 

Sign up for a free trial now!

Laura Serino
Laura Serino
Senior Manager of Content and Community
Laura is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at Postscript. She has spent the past decade working in ecommerce. When she isn't writing about her favorite topic (marketing) or listening to podcasts about her other favorite topic (ecommerce), she's hanging out with her two sons on an island off the coast of Maine.