The Startup That's Helping E-Commerce Unlock Growth Through Text Marketing – Forbes
Young Adults Texting
While the pandemic accelerated online shopping, the platforms people use to make purchases is also changing. Shopping online is no longer reserved for the desktop: 56% of Gen Z makes purchases from their phone, according to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics Survey.
Prosper – Smartphone Activities-Making A Purchase
Retailers are responding to this accordingly, by reaching customers on new platforms. With text being the dominant method of communication on mobile, it only makes sense that brands take advantage of this critical medium. While text marketing is still an emerging sector, that same Prosper Insights & Analytics Survey found that 39% of US adults have already received text messages from brands with special offers.
Prosper – Smartphone Receiving Text Messages With Special Offers
Postscript is at the forefront of SMS marketing and is one of the most advanced players in the space. With advanced features such as campaign automatization, compliancy integration, and subscriber growth strategies, Postscript is building a robust offering that allows brands to leverage SMS marketing for growth. Forbes recently named the company a Next Billion Dollar Startup, further validating the opportunity ahead for the business.
I recently had a chance to sit down with Postscript co-founder and CEO Adam Turner to discuss the changing retail landscape and how text fits into the marketing ecosystem.
Gary Drenik: Tell me about your background and what led you to start working on Postscript.
Adam Turner: Before starting Postscript, I was working at StackCommerce with Alex Beller, one of my co-founders. StackCommerce runs white-labeled e-commerce stores for publishers like CNN and Mashable. I was responsible for product management and growth through driving traffic to their sites. This was my first time working with native commerce and looking back, it was pivotal for me as we began Postscript because I had a clear understanding of what e-commerce businesses needed to be successful.
One of our tasks was maintaining this email list that had about six million people on it. Our click-through rate was decreasing over time while our mobile interaction rate had jumped from 50% to about 70%. This made me realize that the shift to mobile was here, and is what inspired us to start Postscript.
Postscript is an easy-to-use SMS platform that enables Shopify stores to create and send SMS messages and drive new revenue with texts, gifs, and more. We provide tools to help businesses grow their subscriber list, automate their marketing and best utilize their existing data. We also handle all legal components ensuring everything is opt-in, legally compliant, and spam-free. Today, we have over 5,000 customers, have grown from a team of 60 to almost 200 in just the last 8 months and were recently the only marketing company to be named on the Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startups 2021 list.
Drenik: How does SMS communication help brands better connect with their customers?
Turner: Texting has become one of our primary ways of communication. About 90% of potential customers tend to read text messages from brands in less than three minutes. Compare this to the average 30% open rate through emails and it’s clear that text is one of the best possible ways that brands can connect with their customers.
But even with high open rates as table stakes, what matters most is the messages. While any customer loves deals and promotions, we’ve found when brands communicate things like new product releases and real-time updates on restocking, customers feel like the brand is more engaged with them. It adds a new level of personalization. For example, when Postscript customer Kopari launched a new scent for their coconut melt product, their text subscribers responded quickly and positively. The product sold out within a few hours.
Drenik: What are the biggest shifts you expect we’ll see in retail marketing over the next 5-10 years?
Turner: Since everything we get is being delivered to us faster over time our attention spans are shortening. We expect quick and instant experiences for everything and that means companies will need to change their marketing strategies. On top of that, customers are being inundated with more content than ever before.
Ecommerce brands are going to need to construct more targeted and relevant content in order to stand out amid the noise and sheer volume of messages they’re receiving. We’re helping brands prepare for this shift by launching a resource called Fantastic Texts which gives marketers inspiration and the ability to see the unique approaches others are taking with their campaigns.
We’re also in a digital age where shopping is no longer just something to do on your home computer – much less even in person. Customers shop whenever convenient, especially on their phones and through social media. Brands need to keep their marketing within the sphere of their customers’ attention to stay on their radars. That means moving from mediums like email which require more time and becoming more obscure. Customers want frictionless experiences. When they have to interact with something that involves multiple steps before even viewing a message, they’re already likely to not even try to look. SMS marketing offers one of the most frictionless methods to reach a customer.
Drenik: In a world where Amazon now owns about half of all online shopping sales, how can independent retailers (like those on Shopify), be expected to keep up?
Turner: With Amazon, brands are limited in their ability to differentiate and connect directly with customers. Everything is sold through the same interface. They have no choice but to connect with customers the way Amazon dictates.
Independent brands stand out in their ability to speak directly to their customers. Brands on Amazon aren’t able to show any individualization and they can’t connect directly with their customers. Independent brands should capitalize on their ability to deliver branded experience, personalized customer support and catered individual messages. This combats large brands who rely on “set-and-forget” campaigns or make it the customer’s job to find out information about their recent purchase, their size restocks, etc.
Better customer service is another way to do this. Brands should let customers know that they’re reachable and can respond in a fast and personal manner. When a customer makes a purchase and then gets a text that their question was received and can reply on the thread, they’re able to build a relationship with the brand. The next time they send a promotion, they’ll remember you as the company that was super helpful and has a great customer experience.
Drenik: What best practices do you have for brands that want to incorporate texting as a touchpoint with their customers?
Turner: Don’t treat your entire customer base as one. You don’t want to send the same message to a customer who hasn’t recently purchased something and to a customer that bought something just yesterday. By targeting content to your customer, brands can scale relationships and personalization which leads to greater engagement.
Creating a sense of urgency also encourages customers to act quickly. When Facebook and Instagram went down last month, many of our customers quickly enacted campaigns to activate customers. As people anxiously waited for the apps to be restored, our customers gave consumers another option – shopping – by offering deals for that day only or until Facebook and Instagram were working again.
It’s also important to listen to customers. Kinfield is a customer that does this well. The company was facing an internal debate for the product packaging of an upcoming product launch. They launched an SMS campaign with a simple question: paper or plastic? Although they thought it would be a 50-50 split, 87% of their votes favored paper packaging. The campaign left a strong impression on Kinfield customers and helped them build their relationship with the brand.
Drenik: What results should a brand expect when incorporating SMS into part of their strategy? What does success look like?
Turner: Overall, SMS should help increase sales and profits. Businesses should see higher conversion rates, increased customer loyalty, and fewer customers falling out of the funnel.
More specifically, with text marketing, brands are also able to address one of the biggest challenges in online shopping: cart abandonment. Most of the time, carts are abandoned because of a less than optimal mobile shopping experience. 25% of shoppers who abandon their carts don’t mean to. Simply texting customers, a reminder that their cart is there – and maybe sweetening the deal by offering a discount – gives customers a personalized experience and reason to stay. In the beauty industry alone, businesses that sent texts like these made customers 13% more likely to complete their purchase.
Drenik: Thanks for taking the time to discuss this emerging part of the marketing ecosystem for brands. It’s clear that SMS marketing is going to play a growing role in how brands differentiate themselves and compete. I look forward to seeing how Postscript fits into the equation.
