SMS marketing message response rates range between 10% and 30%. To put that into perspective, email marketing response rates only average 6%. 

Statistics like these are precisely why SMS marketing is gaining traction, but there is still room for improvement. 

Blasting one-way messages can only get you so far for so long. But if you can enable purchasing and customer service via texting, you can take your ecommerce to the next level. 

SMS Is Great, But Conversational Commerce Is Better

Today, ecommerce brands typically use SMS to send one-way messages. And so far, SMS has been an effective marketing tool. 

The United States is the third-largest smartphone user in the world, with 273.74 million in use. And even basic (non-smart) mobile devices can receive SMS messages. 

But there are risks with the current SMS marketing approach. If you simply send texts with no personalization or individual relevance, you run the risk of being ignored or blocked. That will hurt your relationship with your customer, and could cost you their business. 

Another challenge with SMS commerce has been the lack of payment integration to enable purchasing. 

Without this, customers need to leave the messaging platform to complete the purchase via the website, for example, and that gives them time to abandon their cart or change their minds. 

The good news is that there is a way to uplevel your text message marketing and that’s with conversational commerce.  

Conversational commerce allows you to have two-way conversations with your target audience, and enables commerce and customer support all via SMS through chatbots or live agents.

Research here at Radiance Commerce shows that:

• 90% of customer support queries are typically answered by chatbots.
• Conversational checkout amplifies your marketing efforts and can increase the conversion rate of your conversational marketing campaigns by more than 2X.

Let’s look closer at what you can do with conversational commerce via SMS.

What Are the Benefits of Conversational Commerce via SMS?

Conversational commerce is about building relationships with customers and offering a destination for commerce that they find convenient and easy to use. 

Conversational commerce allows businesses to use the unique superpowers of text messaging as a channel such as:

• Interactivity: Unlike websites and basic apps, for example, text messaging easily enables conversation with consumers. In addition, conversational commerce is more than just a “buy our product” message; it allows brands to interact on a personal level with customers, make recommendations, solicit feedback and build a customer profile that will enhance the next interaction. 
• Personalization: A conversation with an existing customer over messaging is inherently “logged in,” which enables a frictionless experience for interacting and transacting. For instance, knowing the user (based on their phone number) makes it possible to ask them about their orders, look at products they have purchased before and place an order using the payment methods they have used before, all via SMS. 

These benefits are good for business and customer loyalty. In fact, a survey by Simple Texting found 60.8% wanted to be able to text a business about a customer support issue. 

And, according to a 2017 study by Microsoft , “68% of customers have a more favourable view of brands that offer or contact them with proactive customer service notifications” while 72% expected “agents to already know who they are, what they've purchased and have insight into their previous engagements.” 

So are you convinced yet? Need more proof? 

Empowering your consumers to text with your brand allows them to do things like:

• Quick transactions (such as making reorders or buying a product on promotion) conveniently in a channel that they already like using. 
• Receive useful refill reminders that they can act on right within SMS.
• Find out about special time-sensitive sales, new product launches and personalized recommendations with the ability to make a purchase from the SMS message, receive order confirmation and track their shipment without leaving their SMS messaging app. 
• Get live agent assistance when needed so the consumer can ask questions or reach out with any issues or needs. And once they have product questions resolved, they can make a purchase right there. You can read more about the role of live agents in conversational commerce. 

Uplevel Your Ecommerce Revenue

With the emerging technology available today, conversational commerce is the next logical step in SMS marketing. 

Conversational commerce supercharges the effectiveness of SMS by driving easy purchases right in the messaging app, while allowing you to track and manage the orders the same way you manage orders placed on your website. 

Best of all, you can not only grow short-term revenue through thoughtful marketing over messaging, but also go beyond that to build true customer loyalty and drive long-term value.