Reduce churn with SMS. It has 8 times the open rate of email.
Bird
Dec 18, 2018
SMS
1 min read
Key Takeaways
Premise: SMS marketing dramatically outperforms email when it comes to open and response rates — making it one of the most effective tools for reducing customer churn and re-engaging post-purchase audiences.
Goal: Show retailers how to leverage SMS to retain customers, boost repeat sales, and personalize engagement after the holiday rush.
Highlights:
High engagement channel:
SMS has 8× higher open rates than email and 7× higher response rates (45% vs. 6%).
It’s fast, affordable, and highly personal — perfect for post-purchase retention campaigns.
Six proven SMS tactics:
Loyalty programs: Send exclusive text-only coupons to top customers for perceived exclusivity.
Back-in-stock alerts: Remind shoppers when desired products return; optionally allow quick SMS-based reservation.
Follow-up surveys: Request brief feedback after a purchase — higher response likelihood due to brevity.
Product promotions: Use texts to announce sales and limited offers; build your mobile opt-in base (can grow up to 41%).
Store & site visits: Incentivize return visits with seasonal SMS promos redeemable online or in-store.
Transactional updates: Send personalized “thank you” messages, delivery updates, and confirmations to strengthen trust.
Outcome: Combining SMS with personalization and timely outreach helps lower churn, reignite inactive customers, and drive repeat conversions.
CTA: Explore how to implement SMS and CPaaS tools via MessageBird for omnichannel communication.
Q&A Highlights
Why is SMS better than email for retention?
SMS boasts 8× higher open rates and faster engagement — making it ideal for time-sensitive or transactional updates.
What kind of messages work best over SMS?
Personalized, concise, and value-driven texts — such as back-in-stock alerts, coupon codes, or delivery confirmations.
How can SMS help reduce churn?
By maintaining proactive, two-way communication that keeps customers informed, valued, and returning after purchase cycles.
Should SMS replace email marketing?
Not entirely — SMS should complement email by handling immediacy and transactional engagement, while email remains better for long-form content.
How can I grow my SMS subscriber list?
Offer opt-in incentives (exclusive discounts or early access) — brands can expand mobile databases by up to 41% this way.
What’s the next step to get started?
Integrate SMS into your omnichannel platform — MessageBird offers APIs and CPaaS tools for unified email, chat, and SMS automation.
Make the most of your SMS marketing with these best practices.
If you’re like most retailers, you’re probably always worrying about churn. No matter how dazzling your product is, research shows that consumers are constantly looking for alternatives. And really soon, right after the holidays, customers are more likely than ever to stop interacting with your brand. Maybe they’ll just be worn out from all the holiday shopping and eggnog.
But, don’t be discouraged. With a few adjustments to your marketing strategy, you can get customers re-engaged with your product in no time.
Using SMS is a great place to start. Text message marketing actually has the best open rate of all marketing channels. It’s low-cost, fast, and has a much higher response rate than email (45% vs. 6% respectively).
Here are some best practices:
1. SMS loyalty programs
Offer SMS discount coupons to your most frequent customers. Make sure that the deal is only available through text messaging to give the coupon added value.
2. Send back-in-stock alerts
3. Follow up with SMS surveys
Send a simple text survey to your customers after a purchase — to figure out the positives and negatives of their experience. Also, because SMS messages are brief and to-the-point, you have a better chance of getting your customers’ attention.
4. Promote your products
One of the easiest ways to fight churn is to give customers a reason to come back to your store. Think about texting them special offers or informing them about a sale. Plus, once customers opt in to receive messages from you, you have the potential to build your mobile database, by as much as 41 percent.
5. Increase store and website visits
With an SMS message, you can suggest special, seasonal promotions that can only be redeemed in your store or website. These can be especially effective in drawing users back to your brand.
6. Purchase and delivery notifications
However, if you want to keep more customers with you in the first place (and of course you do), start personalizing your service with SMS. You can improve your buyers’ experience by sending them ‘thank you’ texts after purchases, or by keeping them informed with delivery notifications.
In short, SMS is the way to go. If you start sending SMS messages instead of email, you can fight churn and really power your marketing campaigns.
Find out more about how you can use SMS, and other CPaaS solutions, through MessageBird today.
