WooCommerce SMS marketing: A guide to boost ecommerce sales

Reading Time: 9 minutes

WooCommerce SMS marketing is an essential channel for online stores. It offers a direct and immediate way to reach customers, complements email marketing, and enhances overall communication strategies.

Integrating SMS into automation workflows alongside email allows personalized messaging at key touchpoints like cart abandonment or order confirmations. 

SMS can also be very cost-effective, with platforms like Omnisend offering flexible pricing and free credits.

In this guide, we cover strategies for implementing WooCommerce SMS marketing, including integration, campaign design, best practices, and using tools for automation.

Let’s get started.

The benefits of WooCommerce SMS marketing

If you’re wondering how to harness the power of SMS messaging, read on. There are a surprising number of benefits to utilizing this marketing strategy. After all, there’s a reason why this channel enjoys 209% higher response rates than channels such as Facebook!

Let’s take a look at some of the key benefits of WooCommerce SMS marketing:

• Readability: SMS messages are short and easy to read — there’s no need for elaborate designs or lengthy content
• Quick accessibility: Customers value SMS for its rapid access, making it perfect for order notifications, time-sensitive promotions, and reminders
• Stand out: SMS marketing differs from the channels customers usually see in marketing, so it can help your brand to stand out
• Cost-effective: Using WooCommerce SMS marketing can be economical, with lower costs per message compared to some other marketing channels

The effectiveness of WooCommerce SMS messages

According to a report from Omnisend, SMS marketing saw substantial growth in 2023, with brands sending 50 million more SMS campaigns and doubling automated sends.

This resulted in over $33 million in sales, representing a twofold increase in orders, with automated SMS generating 26% of all orders from just 13% of sends.

The critical component here is their consent. So, make sure your customers actively opt into receiving SMS messages from your business, and you’ll be good to go!

How to add an SMS marketing plugin for Woocommerce?

It’s easy to add Omnisend to your WooCommerce store. After a few steps, you can start configuring your campaigns right away. 

Here’s how to add the Omnisend plugin to your WooCommerce store:

Install Omnisend for WooCommerce

If you haven’t already done so, create an Omnisend account. Head to the home page and select Start Free.

You’ll then need to follow the steps below to install Omnisend for WooCommerce:

1. Navigate to your WordPress Admin Dashboard

2. Go to the Plugins page and click Add New

3. Search for the “Omnisend for WooCommerce” plugin

4. Click Install Now next to the “Email Marketing for WooCommerce by Omnisend” plugin

5. After installation, click Activate to activate the plugin

6. Click Connect your store to Omnisend at the top of the page to connect your Omnisend store to WooCommerce

7. On the next page, choose one of two options:

a.) If you have an existing Omnisend account, click Connect your account

b.) If you’re new to Omnisend, click Create new account

8. If connecting an existing account, click the Approve popup to allow the connection

9. If you’re creating a new account, complete the Account Registration process first, then approve the connection

10. The plugin will send a Verification request to Omnisend, and your store will be connected

11. You’ll land on the Brand Assets page, indicating a successful connection

Adding permissions

12. Go to the WordPress admin panel and open the Omnisend plugin page

13. Update the Omnisend plugin to the latest version if needed

14. Click the Add permissions button

15. Click Approve in the WooCommerce consent window to grant necessary permissions

Data synchronization and optional feature setup

16. Wait for the initial data synchronization, which may take up to 24 hours

17. Optionally, configure the email opt-in checkbox for the checkout page in the Omnisend Plugin settings

18. Consider setting up Omnisend forms and integrating existing forms from your store

Start sending notifications to customers in WooCommerce

Once that’s done, Omnisend’s SMS API can build upon your WooCommerce automation and add SMS as a new marketing channel. This ensures you’re able to include SMS messaging at whatever stage in your customer journey you deem necessary.

For instance:

• When an order is shipped (“Processing”)
• When an order is completed
• Order updates or changes to their order/shipment/delivery

It’s worth noting that Omnisend isn’t just for SMS! It’ll also enable you to streamline your marketing across other channels such as email, Facebook, and Google.

Collecting mobile numbers

The first step to any WooCommerce SMS messaging campaign is to gather your customers’ mobile numbers. You can do this by adding an extra field to your online signup forms. You don’t have to restrict yourself to just email!

Pro tip: Offer incentives like a discount to encourage people to subscribe to your email and SMS messaging list.

Omnisend provides you with a variety of signup forms to make this process easier. For instance, you can collect phone numbers by adding a wheel of fortune, exit-intent or immediate popup, or a signup box to your website. Or, you can even create a dedicated landing page to capture this information.

Another way to connect with existing customers is to send them an email and invite them to join your SMS list. Let your customers know that SMS notifications are an option. They might want to opt in to stay informed about your time-sensitive sales or promotions.

Designing a WooCommerce SMS campaign

With Omnisend, setting up WooCommerce SMS campaigns is quick and straightforward. But, investing some time in writing a short and compelling message is imperative for hooking the reader and inspiring them to take action.

You can either customize your own SMS from scratch or use Omnisend’s ready-made templates. These lay the perfect foundation for your marketing copy.

You’ll also want to consider how SMS will work alongside your other marketing channels. For example, you could combine them with your email campaigns. Perhaps you could use SMS to boost engagement with your abandoned cart email campaigns. The possibilities are endless.

To incorporate SMS into your existing workflow, consider reviewing your WooCommerce marketing funnel. Identify stages in your pipeline that could be enhanced or substituted with WooCommerce SMS.

For example, you could:

• Send SMS WooCommerce order status notifications to keep them updated about any order status changes
• Send an SMS message as a checkout reminder when a user abandons their purchase, either instead of or in addition to a cart-abandonment email
• Send bulk SMS messages informing subscribers about your upcoming promotions and sales

You can also use WooCommerce SMS to share crucial updates. Observe how Once Upon A Child alerted its SMS subscribers about limited availability caused by staffing shortages:

Track your results

As with any marketing approach, it’s important to track the profitability and engagement of your SMS campaigns. Please note that reporting may differ slightly from other channels.

For instance, unlike with email, you cannot view the open rate of SMS messages. But with Omnisend, you’ll still be able to track click rates. So, make sure you incorporate a clickable link in your SMS campaign to track the engagement it generates.

Omnisend’s SMS analytics also lets you track conversion and sales metrics right from your admin panel.

When setting up WooCommerce SMS campaigns, consider including opt-out instructions. This is mandatory for US customers but optional elsewhere. The dashboard tracks opt-out options, providing a clear view of your campaign’s unsubscribe rate.

WooCommerce SMS marketing best practices

Some merchants are cautious about using WooCommerce SMS for fear of annoying their customers. But, by following these best practices, you’ll ensure your audience welcomes these messages.

Get permission first

Allow customers to actively opt-in to receive text messages. With Omnisend’s plugin, you can include an email opt-in checkbox during the checkout process:

Be clear at signup

You shouldn’t be sending customers anything they haven’t expected to receive. Be transparent about your marketing right from the beginning.

Take a look at how this brand clearly explains to customers what opting-in involves:

Pay attention to the frequency of your messages

Too often or too many bulk SMS, and your customers might indeed find your brand bothersome. But, fail to message regularly enough, and you risk subscribers forgetting who you are — it’s a fine line to walk.

Text during regular hours of the day

Nobody wants to be woken up by an order reminder, which is why Omnisend can automate your messages based on the recipient’s location. This ensures your customers won’t receive texts at 3 a.m. unless you specifically intend for them to.

Ideally, specify a time frame for sending SMS messages to your customers, as in the image below:

Keep it concise

Your subscribers are busy people, so respect their time by keeping it brief. Here’s an example from FATHERSONS to offer inspiration. Observe how the SMS is under 160 characters:

Always include an unsubscribe link or keyword

Allow customers to unsubscribe to WooCommerce SMS by responding to your text messages with a one-word keyword reply. Such as STOP. Check out how this brand provides clear instructions for opting out:

Send a test message

Before launching a WooCommerce SMS campaign, it’s crucial to send a test message. This helps ensure that the message appears as intended, there are no errors, and the timing is appropriate. Testing also allows you to experience the customer’s perspective and verify that any links or call-to-action buttons work correctly.

Personalize your messages

Personalized messages are more engaging and can lead to higher conversion rates. Address customers by their first name whenever possible and ensure your messages are relevant to the recipient, whether order updates, promotions, or product recommendations.

Here’s an example of a personalized message. Notice how it adopts a conversational and friendly tone:

Provide value

Use SMS to keep customers informed of things that benefit them. This includes updates on their order’s progress, arranging delivery slots, offering coupons and pricing discounts, or reminding them of expiring promotions. Anything less time-sensitive (or relevant) can be said via email.

Take a look at the way Baking Steel uses SMS marketing to share shipping and order updates:

Respond in real-time to have a conversation

SMS feels like a more personal way to get in touch with your customers. Namely, because most of us only give out our phone numbers to brands and people we trust.

To nurture this relationship, respond to feedback and encourage interaction using auto-responses through Omnisend. This ensures the subscriber receives an automatic response, which you can then follow up on with a personalized message.

By using automated messages, you can effectively address cart abandonment, as in the image below:

Summary

In this article, we’ve taken a look at why SMS marketing could be a great way to boost customer engagement for your ecommerce store. SMS offers quick visibility, high engagement, and an extended reach, so it’s an excellent addition to your multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Omnisend makes it easy to integrate SMS into your WooCommerce marketing plan. Simply install the Omnisend WordPress plugin today. Replace WooCommerce’s marketing automation with Omnisend’s multi-channel solution.

You’ll be sending high-converting WooCommerce SMS messages to your subscribers in no time!

So, what are you waiting for? Start with Omnisend and launch your first-ever WooCommerce SMS campaign. You can also combine email and SMS campaigns to further boost your marketing ROI.