Let SMS Campaigns Become the Cornerstone of Customer Loyalty Programs

According to one recent study, bringing a new customer into your business is up to five times more expensive than simply retaining one of your existing, satisfied ones. If you needed a single statistic to underline the importance of customer loyalty programs, let it be that one.

By now, most people are familiar with the concept of receiving “points” for spending money at a business that can later be redeemed for discounts and other perks. But many organizations are pushing the envelope in terms of what is possible, and they’re using SMS campaigns to effectively do it.

The Nexus Between SMS Campaigns and Customer Loyalty: Breaking Things Down

One of the reasons why using a provider like Mitto to handle your SMS campaign needs has to do with how they allow for easier and more effective personalization.

Personalization is about much more than just using someone’s name instead of a generic greeting. It’s about understanding their pain points. It’s about providing easy answers to difficult questions or straightforward solutions they can’t seem to overcome on their own. These platforms help you do that with SMS campaigns in general but are especially valuable when putting together a customer loyalty program for your audience’s needs.

Instead of sending the same “exclusive” discount to every person on a business’ contact list, SMS campaigns can up the exclusivity factor by allowing organizational leaders to be more precise than ever. Targeted offers can be sent to niche groups of people whom the author is most likely to resonate with.

Brands are also SMS campaigns to offer members of their customer loyalty programs early access to sales. Most people wait all year for the types of deep discounts that they’re likely to find on Black Friday, for example. Why not give loyal customers an extra thrill by giving them access to the same deals (or at least some of them) a few days early? Plus, when they receive the notification via SMS text message, it truly feels like they’re part of a special club.

Even simply using SMS text messaging to offer personalized product recommendations is a great way to tap into some of the format’s potential. Every purchase that someone makes with a business creates a huge amount of data. Based on those past purchases, you can up-sell other products and services that will help them get the most out of their original purchase and cross-sell those that might be an ideal companion.

Finally, SMS text messaging is an efficient way of issuing loyalty point updates. A decade ago, if someone wanted to check their point balance, they would likely have to log into a website on their computer to do it. Now, they can do so in a slightly more convenient way using a branded app but if a business doesn’t have one of those (or wants to make things even more simple), SMS text messaging is the way to go.

Point updates can be issued automatically after purchase so that people always know exactly where their account stands. The only thing better than providing an effective answer to someone’s question is doing so before having a chance to ask.

SMS text messaging is more than just a real-time communication tool. Using it in any or even all the ways outlined above is the perfect way to increase customer engagement and reward those who are already loyal to a business at the same time.