Insane SMS Marketing Case Studies - Matt Markoff I Sinch MessageMedia

Unlock the secrets to skyrocketing your e-commerce success with SMS marketing as Ryan Martin (Founder - Remarkable Digital) speaks with Matt Markoff from Sinch MessageMedia

Learn why SMS boasts a 98% open rate within the first 90 seconds and how it outperforms email marketing. 

Matt dives into the common hurdles that brands face, such as cost, database limitations, and fears of intrusiveness, and reveals how Sinch MessageMedia's seamless integration and competitive pricing can make all the difference.

Explore the essential criteria for selecting a reliable SMS provider and the importance of deep integration with platforms like Shopify for better analytics and ROI tracking. 

We also shed light on the untapped potential of MMS messaging, showcasing successful campaigns from luxury brands like Dish and Adairs. Get practical tips on creating engaging MMS content using tools like Canva to enhance your marketing efforts and boost ROI.

Peek into the future of SMS marketing with Rich Communication Services (RCS), which promises a richer, more interactive experience. 

Discover innovative use cases from retailers like Picard and get up to speed on the upcoming approval of RCS on iOS. We also delve into the legal aspects and offer practical advice for implementing SMS strategies for major sales events. 

Plus, learn about the integration with existing marketing systems and the emerging potential of WhatsApp campaigns to transform your customer interactions. 

Don't miss this episode packed with actionable insights to elevate your SMS marketing game!

Check out Remarkable Digital here. 

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Join 'A Remarkable Newsletter' for weekly high performance marketing and content actionable tips.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

These days, e-commerce and marketing is becoming quite sophisticated, so the depth of integration is really important. If you're using Shopify, you want a vendor that can integrate into Shopify so that you can get ROI metrics, you can get deliverability metrics, you can understand the cost of the campaign, the click-through rate, the unsubscribes and have that information. You can use a separate SMS platform that doesn't integrate, but then you're not getting that depth of reporting and analytics.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Mate, welcome to the eCommerce Australia podcast. I don't know what episode this will be by the time we publish it, but Matt Markoff.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Thanks, mate. No, really happy to be here. I've listened to a number of your episodes. When I went on my Spotify today, you were the number one recommended podcast in the corner, so I've been listening a fair bit lately. Oh, perfect, mate.

Speaker 2: 1:35

You're saying all the right things. No, it's good to have you on the podcast, mate. We're here to talk about SMS marketing today, and Matt is a close mate of mine but also does a terrific job speaking with a lot of e-commerce brands about their SMS strategy and through Cinch Media. Now, now, cinch Media. When did it become Cinch from Message Media?

Speaker 1: 1:56

So it was Message Media. It was founded in 2000 in Melbourne by a gentleman by the name of Grant Rule, large Swedish communications platform, as a service company that offers SMS, but also things like email verification, calling systems, chatbots, ai purchased us in I think it was June of 2021, which, at the time, was the fourth largest tech exit in Australian history Fantastic, yeah. So now it is Cinch Message Media, oh right, okay, so there's a hyphen.

Speaker 2: 2:27

There's a hyphen there.

Speaker 1: 2:29

No hyphen Cinch and then Message Media. Oh right, Okay.

Speaker 2: 2:32

So there's, a hyphen.

Speaker 1: 2:32

There's a hyphen there, no hyphen Cinch. And then Message Media. We're going through the absorption now and looking into how we're going to brand that. Yeah, who started Message Media Grant Rule did he founded in 2000. He's a very happy founder, as you can imagine.

Speaker 2: 2:46

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Business got sold for 1.8 billion australian.

Speaker 2: 2:49

Um 1.8 billion australian, yeah 1.8 billion australian wow for 20 years. 20 years building that that's fantastic. Yep, yeah, 100. Hopefully this podcast can get to a similar level.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Let's see what we can do?

Speaker 2: 3:06

yeah, no, it's made um, as I said, you know you speak to e-commerce businesses all the time. I thought it would be a good chat to get on. Obviously, I think it's well known the statistics around SMS, the 90-odd percent open rates within 90 seconds. Is that still current?

Speaker 1: 3:22

Yeah, it hasn't changed very much Up to a 98% open rate, a 90% within the first 90 seconds. So it's still. There's a lot of different channels and mediums to connect with people, but it still is the most direct way to get in touch.

Speaker 2: 3:41

So with that that's I mean when I first heard that statistic. It blows me away because we throw so much at email marketing, right Energy getting 20 to 25% open rates and less than 6% click-throughs. So SMS clearly outperforms email. Yet I still feel like there's a lot of brands that are a bit hesitant to use it. Um, you know, in your day-to-day um role like why do you think that is? Why are brands still hesitant to use it? Is it they don't understand it? They don't know how to implement it in? Is it? Is it an expense thing? Like what? What are some of the reasons that you get for, you know, e-com businesses not implementing SMS?

Speaker 1: 4:14

Yeah, it's a good question. There's a lot of common objections we do get. One is that if businesses don't actually have an SMS database, they might have only collected emails and don't have mobile numbers, so they literally can't because they don't have anyone to send to. There is the cost element. There is a perception that email is free and SMS costs money, which to an extent it does. But they are very different mediums and serve different purposes, and both should be important parts of a marketing mix.

Speaker 1: 4:42

There is a perception also that it's intrusive. You are forcing someone to read something. Essentially, 98% of the time you don't give the recipient the option not to read it because it gets the cut through which you know can turn some users off. But really most e-commerce businesses worth their salt are doing it in some way, shape or form. Yeah, yeah, I think the conversation a few years ago would have been why you should use SMS. These days it's very much we are using SMS. Why should we use Cinch Message Media? Especially in retail and e-commerce, it's become a really important part of the marketing mix.

Speaker 2: 5:18

Brilliant. Well, why should they? What's the let's say the sell? But if that's a question that you get asked, then what's your response to that?

Speaker 1: 5:27

Well, regardless of what tool you're using, if you are using like a marketing automation platform or something, there's a good chance that we can integrate into that tool. We're Australian first and foremost, but since we can send anywhere in the world and some of the tools don't have the capability to send into certain regions, we can do things above SMS. So things like mms picture messaging, which I think is really underutilized in australia and I really love and quite passionate about um, often, um, it's a pricing discussion. Being the largest commercial provider of sms, we can achieve rates that are lower than a lot of the kind of marketing automation platforms, even other sms vendors, and we're able to pass that on to our customers. And then look, sms, it is a beast.

Speaker 1: 6:14

There is this perception that it's a standard SMS. How much can go into it? But there's something I heard at an event. Someone said SMS is like think of SMS as a steak. Right, you want to use a steak knife when you eat a steak, whereas some of these platforms that offer SMS are like a Swiss army knife. They do a lot of things they do email, they do segmenting, they do socials, but there's a lot that goes into an SMS. I received an SMS the other day from a well-known brand and it was. The opt--out link was about 100 characters. It was a long link with lots of letters and URLs. Their provider must not have offered a URL shortening option or they didn't know they could do it. So it blew out to two characters, two SMS, so it was two credits, rather. Yeah, yeah, two SMS credits. It was around 250 characters, right, so things like that. Now our team I love our team based in Melbourne, we help kind of guarantee the best results and best practice.

Speaker 2: 7:13

So that company that sent that out unknowingly have probably doubled their cost per text. They would have undoubtedly, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Interesting they should did you? Did you give them a call? I did. I reached out to them, I sent them a screenshot, told them about the solution that we have, you know, short trackable links or a custom URL, so you can have the best of both worlds being able to use a business's you know brand name within a short URL. Yeah, right, so it's still got that reputability. Yeah, and it's a shortened link. Yeah, yeah, and have you heard back yet, haven't?

Speaker 2: 7:43

heard back, yet Haven't heard back yet.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Send them the podcast. That's it. Maybe they'll need seo as well. So, yeah, 100 remarkable digital um.

Speaker 2: 7:58

And I was saying before I, before we started, uh, press record that yeah, I had a, I had a, an average. Well, I've, actually I've had two experiences this week alone from sms marketing. Maybe because I'm in the e-commerce game, I, I I've judged them a bit harsher. But I got an SMS from a bike company let's just call them that. I've not been into their store for near on three years. They sent me an SMS at 6.38 pm on a Sunday night.

Speaker 2: 8:25

Last time I went in the store I had really bad customer experience, so I don't think favorably of them anyway, let alone interrupting me on a Sunday night, let alone sending me from just a random mobile number. It wasn't a branded SMS with their brand name on it. Up to 45% seems a little bit tricky to me. And then they obviously had to have an unsubscribe or text stop, so I just text stopped straight away. Yeah, interested to get your thoughts on like best practice. I guess that's why brands sometimes don't do it or don't do it well enough is they're not sure what to do. But me talking about that example is that. Am I right to feel a bit aggrieved that I got a text message from a company that I don't even like haven't dealt with. They haven't spoken to me in three years. I had pretty poor customer experience and they just sent me a random link on a Sunday night at 6.30.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Wow, okay. Well, from a best practice perspective, you mentioned it came from a number, not a business name. Yeah, I reckon for a one-way marketing message. I think business name sending is typically advantageous to that. They personalise it. So they said hi Ryan, yeah, got my name. Yeah, I think that's a tick for them. At least they did that.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Yeah, they seemed compliant in the sense that they offered an opt-out. It seems like they've probably just taken their entire database and sent a campaign instead of doing a particular segment. Or, if you haven't shopped with them for years, maybe they've identified you as a kind of win-back or at-risk or dormant customer. And some brands do that. Some send to their most qualified engaged customers and see really good results, and some use it as a tool to win back dormant customers. Yeah, so they from your perspective. You say, well, I haven't spoken to them or heard from them in three years, but you probably weren't going to go in there anyway after your experience. No, correct? Yeah, there's a good chance that there were some recipients of that SMS who clicked on it, who shopped or who went into the store.

Speaker 2: 10:21

Yeah, yeah, and that's it. Maybe I'm too close, too close to the sun, as they say. And the other one I always have a good experience with is Drum and Golf. Oh yeah, I'm not sure if they're a client of yours or not, but Drum and Golf nail it so for me. They don't send me, you know. They don't send me texts every month. I reckon it's twice, three times a year. It's always relevant. I always click the link. Maybe it's because I'm a bit more engaged in golf now at the minute, but it's always around popular times, so the US Open was just on. There's always a reason for them sending a text. It's always been a good experience and nearly always have I purchased from those SMSs. I don't look at their emails, I don't even think I get their emails, but I think they're a brand that, if you want to look at best practice from an SMS point of view, for me personally, I think Drum and Golf do it well.

Speaker 1: 11:12

That's fantastic. They actually are a client, which is great. They're leveraging a marketing automation tool called HubSpot. As you might know, HubSpot's really great because they can, for example, segment, they can do hyper-personalization and nurture you through the journey. They can piggyback off emails and things like that and we just plug directly into their HubSpot. So I'm glad to hear that you're having a good SMS experience with them.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Yeah, maybe Luke Truill did he set them up for HubSpot, Maybe he did Luke at Modern Visual.

Speaker 1: 11:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven't spoken to Luke for a while. I think I'm not sure how that partnership came about.

Speaker 2: 11:50

He's always a hub spot implementation guy, so I always think if they're doing it, it's up to Luke. Shout out to Luke down in Mount Martha. Yeah, yeah, 100% good saints man. So if you're a marketing manager or a brand manager listening to this podcast, they've got a service provider currently called. What should they be looking for? What's best practice when it comes to an SMS provider?

Speaker 1: 12:16

Make sure they're reliable. Yeah, I would say there's a lot, first and foremost, that don't you know that might send data overseas or not be able to handle SMS at scale. You know our gateway can handle 3,000 SMS per second per customer. I would say, make sure they have the technology to be able to. You know, provision Australian dedicated numbers or send from a business name or send into the regions that you want to send into. These days, e-commerce and marketing is becoming quite sophisticated, so the depth of integration is really important. If you're using Shopify, you want a vendor that can integrate into Shopify so that you can get ROI metrics, you can get deliverability metrics, you can understand the cost of the campaign, the click-through rate, the unsubscribes, and have that information. Yeah Right, you can use a separate SMS platform that doesn't integrate, but then you're not getting that depth of reporting and analytics.

Speaker 2: 13:09

Yeah, and that's super important, isn't it? As the world shifts and it's getting, you know, the privacy updates are becoming more and more and each platform is. You know, I find it harder to attribute because you know we're across so many different platforms and it's hard to know where to attribute the last click or the revenue to, and they're all fighting for attribution, all the different mediums and agencies and whatnot but often these days a customer can be hit three or four times before actually purchasing.

Speaker 1: 13:39

So they might see an email, they might see an SMS, they might have been retargeted on their socials or gone onto their socials and seen it and then they've actually gone out. So it might not be one medium that's captured them. It might be. Sms was just one part of that journey.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Mate. You touched on before. I just want to backtrack a little bit. You said MMS is very underutilized. How would you utilize it? What's the best case scenario for MMS? How do brands use MMS to help drive sales?

Speaker 1: 14:11

Before getting to how they best use it. Just a bit about it. So standard SMS is 160 characters. Right, use it, it's a bit about it. So standard sms is 160 characters? Yep, right, and it's, it's just. It's just standard text. Um, mms, you've got up to 1600 characters. You can include emojis without it, um, interfering with the character count. So, for context, sms, if you include an emoji, uh, the character count per credit reduces to 70. Really, wow, okay, so businesses can sometimes unknowingly send emojis and it blows out their character count and all of a sudden they're getting charged four credits, wow, without knowing. And you know if you're a junior marketing manager and you've just.

Speaker 2: 14:49

Why is that Like? Why is an emoji any different to a character?

Speaker 1: 14:54

It's what we call Unicode. Okay, so it's just a special credit. It's that standard SMS wide. It's not a message media thing or a particular provider thing, it's just a unique code, okay, yeah. So up to 1,600 characters you can include emojis. The actual image itself can be quite powerful. Not just an image, it can be a gif that rotates Yep, right. So another objection you mentioned why businesses don't do it. Some say standard tech doesn't align with their brand, because what they perceive their brand to be, or they want their brand perception to be, something luxurious, something high end. Well, mms is great from that perspective because, especially if what you're selling is visually appealing, you can include those visuals in the SMS yeah.

Speaker 1: 15:41

Right.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Sorry. What's the difference in price between MMS and SMS?

Speaker 1: 15:48

Roughly three times. Okay. For us, mms starts at around 20 cents, yeah, and again, scales depending on volume Okay, so by the time. Scales depending on volume Okay, so by the time, if you need to convey a lot of information, by the time you're sending a three-part SMS, it becomes cheaper to send an MMS. Okay, and all the metrics. We've done A B tests and there's metrics to show it has a higher click-through rate, a lower unsubscribe rate, but also the chances of a recipient sending that and sharing that to someone within their network is higher. So it's almost a lead generation tool. Now.

Speaker 2: 16:19

Wow, okay, have you got an example of, like a luxury brand that does MMS well, or how does that sort of fit in? Yeah, is what I'm trying to get at.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Yeah, one that does it is Dish. Do you know Dish? I don't. What do they do? They are a fashion retailer. Okay, adairs, the furniture retailer For high-end furniture. It's really really good because it's again, it's visually a Motive product. It's typically a higher ticket and you know there was another furniture retailer mentioned. They spent $12,000 on a campaign and made over a million dollars. So for every dollar they spent on MMS, I think it was $83 back, wow, which is insane, yeah, yeah Too ridiculous to even report on or do a case study on.

Speaker 2: 17:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:07

Right, but again it comes down to your brand. They don't. You know, some brands don't believe standard SMS aligns.

Speaker 2: 17:14

So how do you like what's involved in an MMS? Then Do you have to create the GIF yourself? Do you guys sort of help out with that? Is there a design element to that? How do they actually create that MMS?

Speaker 1: 17:28

When I've created examples of that on Canva. To be straightforward, I think a rotating GIF is often better than a standard image, but that's up to the user, it's not. If you're a marketer, if you're an agency, it's not that challenging.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Yeah, okay, but again you've got to ask yourself about the time commitment. What's great about SMS is there's very little time commitment involved with getting a campaign out. It SMS is there's very little time commitment involved with getting a campaign out. It's not like emails, where you have to build out a blog post or build out images or different links. You can send an SMS campaign in a few minutes because all you need is 160 characters and a list to send to and a sender ID, whereas MMS, then, you are creating a little bit more work.

Speaker 2: 18:08

Yeah, yeah, perfect. But if you get the returns like that furniture retailer, yeah, it's probably a pretty good one for an e-com manager to go into the CEO's office or the board meeting and say, hey, you know, we've just got 83 times ROAS on that campaign, so it's worth it For sure. Yeah, let's stay on that return on investment. Obviously, marketing budgets are getting allocated now for next financial year. Things are becoming tight. We're trying to get as much efficiency of our marketing budget as possible. What is an ROI? What's the ROI generally for SMS marketing?

Speaker 1: 18:46

It's the magic question. It varies considerably on a number of factors. Sms will get you to the website. Often it will action. Something. It has a high link click. It depends on the website's ability to convert. It depends on the nature of the promotion that you're sending out. So flows typically perform better than marketing campaigns. I've seen again what you mentioned 83 to 1. Without cherry picking, I'll just think of recent clients that we bought on on the back of Retail Global. We bought on some new clients and there was one that sent a campaign the other day and spent $600 and made back close to $12,000.

Speaker 2: 19:27

Wow, so almost 20. To 1.

Speaker 1: 19:28

Yeah, and then we've seen someone else do a campaign that was around 4 to 1, which is a bit lower.

Speaker 2: 19:34

Yeah, and what size databases were they Like for context, for people listening? Were they massive databases that smashed it out, or were they, you know, small to medium businesses that are growing and still doing that?

Speaker 1: 19:47

Those two probably a bit smaller. I think they did campaigns of between 5,000 to 10,000 throughout the month. But the actual effectiveness of an SMS campaign doesn't necessarily change with scale. Every SMS has, again, a 90% open rate, 90% within the first 90 seconds, whether you're sending to a million or whether you're sending to five. Where you can increase that ROI is picking particular segments, sending to them at the right time with the right message. Sms because you're forcing someone to read something it needs to provide value yeah, right. So the most common use case in e-commerce would be marketing promotions. Yeah, right. So if it's a good promotion that captures a good segment at the right time, you're going to get a good ROI. Yeah, and then that's for a campaign. So I don't like an abandoned cart recovery message. Again, not to cherry pick, we just set someone up with abandoned cart SMS. Yep, right, they spent about $16.50. Actually, let me I took a photo of this they spent about $16.50 on abandoned cart SMS A day or overall Over the last 20 days $16.50?

Speaker 2: 20:54

Yeah, that's not a lot $16.50.

Speaker 1: 20:56

Yeah, revenue $8,230. Wow, they've sent 346 SMS, recovered 108 sales. Whoa ROI. So you're talking. It's too ridiculous to report. For every dollar they got $1,070 back. Jeez, and that's the best performance. What was the average?

Speaker 2: 21:19

order value for that, then what was it?

Speaker 1: 21:22

$100?. Well, if you look at $18,000 and then $108 sales, so that's $100 and something, isn't it? Yeah, $180?, yeah, something like that. I can pull out my calculator and find out, if we go, 18,230 divided by the sales, which is 108, 168.

Speaker 2: 21:44

168. Okay, that's the average order value and did that all right. So how much do you know about that campaign Like, did that go to a? Do you know what sort of segmentation that went to? Was that? Oh, that was just an abandoned cart. Anyone who abandoned their checkout? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 21:56

And I've got the message here right and the message here they sent. You've left something in your business name cart Claim free shipping with code on orders over $75. Reply stop opt out link.

Speaker 2: 22:11

So were they offering free shipping on the website, or was that free shipping just for an sms to get them back? Is that the the incentive to get them?

Speaker 1: 22:20

back. It seems like that was the incentive if you spent over a certain amount. Yeah, that might have been that offer might have been on the website, I think, because there was a, a code. Perhaps it was just an sms only incentive. But, yeah, do you know what the number one reason listed as when research was conducted on abandoned carts? What is the number one listed reason that carts go abandoned is?

Speaker 2: 22:40

For me it's probably trying to check out on mobile and then I've got a phone call.

Speaker 1: 22:46

I don't know what, would it be? Okay, it's actually. The customer was met with an unexpected cost date that they didn't foresee, of course. Yeah, so shipping cost at checkout?

Speaker 2: 22:53

Yeah, the customer was met with an unexpected cost that they didn't foresee, Of course yeah, so a shipping cost at checkout?

Speaker 1: 22:56

Yeah right, yeah, yeah, it was 47% of checkouts. Listed that as a reason of abandoned checkouts. So if you know that 47% of the time someone's abandoned their checkout because of an unexpected cost. If you can alleviate that, you've got a really good chance of recovering that cart. That was a 30% recovery rate.

Speaker 2: 23:15

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:16

So if you offer them and by sending an email, it's the best performing email. By sending an email, they might only see it, you know, 40% of the time and they might be in the market to purchase what you're selling right now. Yeah, they might go to a competitor.

Speaker 2: 23:30

Yeah, I wonder what was the timeframe that they sent that text message like Canada. Yeah, I wonder what was the timeframe that they sent that text message like how long was that product sitting in the cart for? Was it minutes or was it days?

Speaker 1: 23:40

I think it was about half an hour, Okay, yeah, and that's one that we've done a few A-B tests and research into this and it shows that the best performing is, yeah, 15 minutes, half an hour or an hour Right okay, Hit them straight away. Yeah, and an hour Right Okay.

Speaker 2: 23:51

And were they sending email? Abandoned cart emails as well as text.

Speaker 1: 24:01

This particular brand I'm not too sure. We see strategies vary. So some like to send an email flow out first because they can recover it without having to spend on the SMS, and that works really well, and they use the SMS as a last ditch effort. Some again will send the SMS first because they know that the customer is shopping for it now and they don't want to run the risk of them losing to a competitor. So both work, both work well. It depends on your strategy.

Speaker 2: 24:23

Yeah, yeah, perfect yeah, and I obviously completely agree around that shipping transparency. You know I was just thinking, yeah, what's stopping them once they've kind of tried to click? It's usually, yeah, I get distracted by another notification on the phone or something. But yeah, 100% shipping transparency. You know, I see it across all my clients, the ones that usually the ones aren't on Shopify and it's custom websites and they're trying to do everything, you know, as close to Shopify as they can. But it's just that shipping transparency, it kills conversion.

Speaker 1: 24:58

It does. Yeah, another reason listed was flexible payment options Customers weren't able to if they wanted it.

Speaker 2: 25:04

on Afterpay or something like that.

Speaker 1: 25:07

If you can alleviate that, then it helps a lot. Sometimes someone's shopping on a computer. They don't have their credit card details on them, so they abandon their checkup. They get an SMS. They've got Apple Pay set up, yeah, yeah, the checkout's a lot quicker, yeah, good point. Yeah, I like it. I'm really passionate about abandoned card SMS. If you're not doing abandoned card SMS, you might as well take money out of your pocket and burn it Brilliant, brilliant. I don't want to sound flippant. That's honestly how I feel about it. No one that switched it on has then gone and switched it off. Yeah, and you don't even need to offer a discount necessarily.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Yeah, it's just how you left something in your cart, and it's pretty simple, is that?

Speaker 1: 25:44

right yeah, pretty simple as that. You don't need to reinvent the wheel with this.

Speaker 2: 25:47

Yeah, what about nurture campaigns? Campaigns? So obviously you know we're familiar with the different sort of. You know flows of campaigns around Klaviyo's. You know email. You know different flows within Klaviyo. You know nurture campaigns, win back all of this sort of stuff. Where does SMS fit into kind of that nurturing, can you? Is SMS marketing used purely as a transactional? Is it used just to recover money from abandoned car or get people to sign up? Or like what are some other test cases or uses from SMS that sort of don't involve take action now. Sale, because that's what most of the SMSs that I get from brands is sale, buy now. Hey, you know bang, immediate sale. But what are other test cases or what do you see that works well? That perhaps isn't as kind of salesy as that. Is it competitions, is it? Maybe MMS is a little bit different than that. How do we broaden that?

Speaker 1: 26:49

a little bit. It doesn't have to be a promotional basis, it just has to provide value. Yeah, so a delivery notification, shipping notification, provides value.

Speaker 2: 26:56

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:57

I much prefer receiving shipping notifications via SMS. Okay, generating reviews post-purchase. What's a review worth to your business?

Speaker 2: 27:05

Right.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Most consumers I think up to 80% look at reviews before buying something. I always look at a review before eating at a restaurant or seeing a movie yeah Right, I always look at a review before eating at a restaurant or seeing a movie, yeah Right. So if you spent a couple dollars to generate a good review post experience, that's great. Yeah, yeah, right and consumers are considerably more likely to leave a negative review after a bad experience than a positive review after a good experience. They need to be nudged often.

Speaker 2: 27:29

Yeah, yeah, okay. So SMS as a category, like it's been around for a while now. So I would say 95% of people listening to this if not 100, know about SMS marketing, have utilised it, have tried it to various levels of success. You've given some really good examples of how to use it. Obviously, abandoned cart text is just a no-brainer from this conversation. What's the future of SMS and MMS marketing? Where is it all going, do you think? What are you seeing out there in all the expos and all the trade shows and what are people talking about the next evolution of SMS marketing?

Speaker 1: 28:07

Ryan, the next evolution of SMS marketing is a thing called RCS, rcs, rcs Rich Communication Services. The best way I can describe it is it's like an in-app experience, but fully supported in the SMS app in your phone, right? So think SMS and MMS. It's text, it's a sender ID so you can send from a business name and reasonably low-resolution images and GIFs. Rcs, you're talking about at its most basic level from a business name and reasonably low resolution images and GIFs. Rcs you're talking about at its most basic level. The business can send from a logo with a verified tick so you know it's not spam.

Speaker 1: 28:42

Okay, they can include higher resolution images, high resolution GIFs, videos, voice notes, files, etc yeah, well, voice notes is a good one, voice notes is a good one, but think interactive carousels, think your uber eats app, but fully supported by sms, with buttons, with carousels, with options. So, from an e-commerce perspective, imagine not having to click on the link to the website to check out. Imagine being able to do it there because you press a few buttons yeah, yeah, right, that's powerful that's powerful that's powerful.

Speaker 1: 29:14

There's a um as a case that if you're sitting at your home computer type in Picard RCS P-I-C-A-R-D RCS. It's a French business. They're a food retailer based in France. Any of your French listeners will know Picard and they specialise in like frozen meals and during the holiday season they try and get as much through the door as they can, so as much of their food product as possible. And if you look at this, they're now. They used to send standard text, they now send carousels with images. They nurture the customers through the journey. What kind of food plan do you want? What kind? Do you want to do a lot of cooking? Do you want to do a little bit of cooking plan? Do you want to do a lot of cooking? Do you want to do a little bit of cooking? Do you want it? More expensive, more budget friendly? And you don't have to go to the Picard website to check out. You just press buttons like you would on Uber, eats or DoorDash.

Speaker 2: 30:03

Okay. So is it much like a live chat, two-way conversation, in terms of they're asking the SM or the sorry, the RCS, he's asking questions and then you type a response and then it continues to personalise that, or is it just like yeah, what's the mechanics of it?

Speaker 1: 30:19

It can. So it can be AI driven and chatbot driven or you can. Similar to standard SMS, you can have an agent who's conversing.

Speaker 2: 30:26

Okay, Each time do you get charged for a? What's the pricing of that then?

Speaker 1: 30:34

So this isn't available yet in Australia. Okay, we're kind of going through the business models now, but the biggest barrier to this has been it wasn't available on iOS. Apple was blocking it. Apple have recently said that they're going to approve it and it's going to be available.

Speaker 2: 30:49

Okay, which is pretty cool. Apple get a cut out of that. Surely there's been some commercial reasons why that potentially Very possibly.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Perhaps I'd be speculating, but maybe they saw it as conflicting with their app store? Maybe, but it was always available on Android. Or since the technology has become available, okay, it's been approved on Android, but yeah, rcs.

Speaker 2: 31:09

Right, okay. So what sort of brands? So you mentioned food brand, but do you think like luxury clothing apparel retailers? How do you see that playing out with those guys?

Speaker 1: 31:18

Absolutely. Imagine sending an SMS and it's got carousels that you can swipe For sure you know that it's coming from a verified sender because it's going to have a blue tick, it's going to have their logo there, away from Retailer Ecommerce. For a second, my girlfriend, she is American. When she deals with the American Airlines or Delta, they've already got that logo and that verified tick. Okay, right, so they've already got it to a basic level. But the next evolution, when you've got interactive buttons and you've got, you know, two-way conversations, even though it's not actually coming from a number, it's typically what we call alpha tag sender ideas, a one-way message. Well, now it's a two-way message.

Speaker 2: 32:02

Okay, yeah. So it's kind of like DMing people on social, I guess.

Speaker 1: 32:06

And from an e-commerce perspective, you can get analysis on which buttons were pressed, how the engagement, the response rates, things like that, okay, brilliant.

Speaker 2: 32:17

When do you think that's going to get rolled out then? Obviously, pricing's not sorted. What are we still six, 12 months away, or?

Speaker 1: 32:24

Probably in between the two. Yeah, Probably by the start of 2025, I would think. Yeah okay, I might be wrong, though. Yeah, might be wrong.

Speaker 2: 32:32

I'm wrong all the time, Mate. One more question before we let you go. It's been really interesting to kind of hear some of those stats and some of those business cases and I think people get a lot of value just out of that abandoned cart text. I know, obviously abandoned cart emails are, you know, plentiful, but it would be interesting to know how many use that text option. But it'd be interesting to know how many use that text option. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Singles Day, Christmas, that's all coming up. If people opted in to receive a confirmation text message for their product being delivered, does that mean you can market to them or they've got to actually opt in specifically for marketing for SMS?

Speaker 1: 33:16

Yeah, so the consent laws vary depending on which jurisdiction you're in. Australian consent laws are very different to US consent laws. Someone needs to have opted in to receive marketing needs to have given you their number willingly. You kind of gone and purchased it somewhere.

Speaker 2: 33:31

Yeah, yeah, okay, Right, and make sure you've collected their number. So if you've collected their number, right, they put an order in. You've got their mobile number through the order. Are you then allowed to market to them if they've given you their number?

Speaker 1: 33:47

If they've opted in to receive marketing. In Australia we have a thing called inferred consent Okay. So if they've opted in to receive marketing and they've given you their number, then yes, provided you have it on your t's, and c's what I recommend every retailer do is in their t's and c's, in their privacy policy on their website, mention sms. Okay, there's a few things you need to do legally when you send an sms, identify who you are is one of them and offer an opt-out. Okay, and then you're pretty good. Yeah, okay. So often you consent to more recipients than you think you can because of inferred consent.

Speaker 2: 34:21

Okay, that's good to know. So yeah, let's get back to Black Friday. You know, how do brands now that don't have an SMS strategy where in sort of you know tail end of June, how do they get themselves set up so that they can actually utilise SMS for Black Friday?

Speaker 1: 34:39

Firstly, collect mobile numbers. There's a few ways you can do this. You can do this at checkout. You can do this via a pop-up. Okay, you can. I recommend, when you send out your emails, at the footer of your emails, always have a template join our VIP only SMS list. Join our SMS mailing list. Or you can send an email campaign saying to join our mailing list On your socials, on your Instagram. Always have it in your highlights Join our SMS list. Swipe up and type it in so you should always be on collecting numbers. Yeah, how you do it. Well, one of your guests who was listening to your podcast, a big fan of the show, long-time listener who does email automation spoke about who, what and when.

Speaker 1: 35:23

Who are you sending to? What are you sending and when are you sending? You don't need to reinvent the wheel with this. Okay, so make sure you're sending to. You know active database or you know. It can vary considerably depending on who you're sending. To Make sure the content is punchy, make sure if you have a Black Friday sale, send that via SMS, because that's a good enough reason to send someone an SMS. And then, when? Please send? During social hours. Don't send it at 5am. Don't send it at 10 am. Don't send it at 10 pm. Even if it's a card abandonment message. Always send it between the hours of 8 am and 8 pm 8 am and 8 pm.

Speaker 2: 36:02

Yes, monday to Friday. Not necessarily, okay, not necessarily.

Speaker 1: 36:08

It doesn't. As long as it's during social hours, the results aren't that different. Yeah, social hours, the results aren't that different. Some like to hit it first thing in the morning, as soon as the sale goes live. Some say 3pm, 3.30pm the customer gets a bit of 3.30-itis. They've gone to grab their second cup of coffee for the day and that's a good time to hit them. And then we see a spike of digital traffic and you know this from SEO around 7 or 8pm, once the kids have gone to sleep or people have time to to shop yeah, okay.

Speaker 2: 36:38

So so just between kind of social hours, um, and yeah, you're not as hard and fast on weekdays versus weekends, which is good. Um, and yeah, obviously make sure the offer is is relevant. You know, I think that's the example that I take anyway from Drum and Golf as an example, like every time I click on that link and then it builds trust. Every time that Drum and Golf sends me an SMS, I know that I'm going to click on the link because I know it's valuable, whereas you know some of the other brands maybe not.

Speaker 1: 37:07

That's right. Yeah, Make sure it's valuable and even if you don't have a big database, have a big database that you can still switch on those automations yeah, something like an abandoned car, something like a back in stock notification?

Speaker 2: 37:18

yeah, or a welcome series yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:19

Um, anything else you want to touch on yeah, you know, in terms of best practice, there's a few more things, I think. For a one-way message, uh, definitely send. For a business name, yeah, okay, hyper personalization. So you, hi, ryan, is better than nothing, in my opinion. Don't send from a long link because they're not trustworthy. Use a short, condensed link. That looks good. These are easy things to do.

Speaker 2: 37:44

Really. Why Singe then? So let's get back to you. Know you're obviously a partner and you're really passionate about what you do. Why should people consider moving to you if they're using another provider?

Speaker 1: 37:57

It's a good question. So we plug into whatever system you're already using. If you're already using like a marketing automation system that offers SMS, I think there's a good chance we can plug into it and we don't look to replace that. We complement the offering as it pertains to the SMS component by being able to offer things like MMS, branded links, potentially being able to send to more of your database by leveraging Australian law, often at a lower cost, given that we are Australia's largest commercial provider and can get it at scale In terms of if you're not using like a marketing automation tool and you are using a separate SMS provider, typically it's the depth of integration that we have with some of those tools and being able to offer really in-depth reporting.

Speaker 1: 38:47

The best thing about us is our team. We've got a really good team who work with e-commerce and business and retailers daily to try and get the best results. We kind of have a little bit of an agency style offering in our onboarding and strategy sessions to make sure that you're getting the best results possible and if it doesn't work well, we shake hands and say we tried.

Speaker 2: 39:08

Yeah, yeah, perfect. No, that sounds good, mate. So it sounds like you know service all um, yes, service and pricing, uh, you know a cup, just a couple of the things. What? Um? That was my question. Uh, what level of brands do you typically find most successful with cinch, is it? You know? Small brands? Is it enterprise level? Uh, it sounds like you've got a lot of enterprise clients if you're dealing with drum and golf. But, um, equally, for the store just starting out doing 1010,000 a month in revenue, are they suitable for you guys?

Speaker 1: 39:40

They are. We've got businesses of all sizes and retailers of all sizes, from the local one-man band startup all the way through to enterprise retailers, using our master's integration and sending in the millions per month. So everyone.

Speaker 2: 39:56

Yeah, okay, you know. Obviously you know e-commerce right, klaviyo is one of the biggest sort of email and they're now doing SMS. So is that a competition? Is that a competitor to you? How do you guys sort of work with Klaviyo? If brands are, you know, loving what Klaviyo do and don't want to leave, how would you sort of integrate and plug in with that?

Speaker 1: 40:18

Firstly, we love Klaviyo. It's a fantastic tool and Klaviyo has actually been great for us because when, as I mentioned before, a few years ago, when I was speaking to retailers in you know, 2019, 2020, they're like why should we use SMS? This is a little bit uncommon or unknown. Klaviyo has bought SMS and similar tools too. Klaviyo has bought SMS from the unknown to the basic, everyday, commonly used. So now so many more businesses are using SMS. What we can do is we can leverage what Klaviyo is really good at, ie their segmenting, leverage those segments and send highly targeted campaigns by using those segments. So you know complementing that process at a more affordable cost than Klaviyo on a per SMS basis. And you know just certain other things, like MMS, like being able to send into the regions that Klaviyo can't yet, and being able to set up branded domains. And you know things like WhatsApp and, in the future, rcs.

Speaker 2: 41:17

Yeah, yeah, whatsapp's a great one actually, so how does SMS go in relation to like a WhatsApp? Can you set up a WhatsApp campaign or what's the? Do you use WhatsApp? Can you utilize WhatsApp for your text?

Speaker 1: 41:28

Yeah, so it's WhatsApp campaigns have just been released.

Speaker 2: 41:31

Okay, it's different it sounds like a setup here, but I was just genuinely curious because WhatsApp, you know you can see that they've been read and you know you can kind of, yeah, be more real-time.

Speaker 1: 41:42

It's just a different way to get in touch with someone, isn't it? It obviously uses data instead of using, you know, sms credits. Yeah, it's more conversational, yeah, and it gets charged on a per conversations basis over a certain period instead of a per message basis. It's just a different way to get in touch with people, and something I learned recently is, for example, in South America, they're obsessed with WhatsApp.

Speaker 2: 42:03

Okay.

Speaker 1: 42:04

They don't send as many messages, but people love WhatsApp. They get WhatsApp from businesses and they do voice notes on their WhatsApp into their phone, right, and they essentially talk to their phone like it's a walkie-talkie, right, when they send voice notes Interesting. Yeah, we don't see it as much in retail and e-commerce yet, because it is quite new.

Speaker 2: 42:24

Yeah, I think voice notes are powerful. Yeah, it's just another way to stand out, especially if you're that small or medium brand that's trying to you trying to lead with those sort of founder-led stories and purpose-driven places. I think we had Welco on here a few episodes ago. Daniela Cohen was chatting around that. I can imagine if you got a voice note from Elle McPherson telling you about the latest meal replacement or the latest whatever it is, I don't know, bloody milkshake or the latest drink is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, that would be pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 43:05

Yeah, I actually received a call last year and I answered it From Elle Macpherson, Not from Elle Macpherson unfortunately. I'm yet to receive her call, but it was Michael Voss, coach at the Carlton Football Club.

Speaker 2: 43:17

Okay.

Speaker 1: 43:18

It was a recorded message, Matty. We've made the finals. Secure your tickets here. It's pretty amazing.

Speaker 2: 43:24

Really yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:25

From a voice note. Well, it was a call and I answered it and then it was a pre-recorded message. Okay, yeah, message, okay, Nice. Did you actually think it was Michael Voss? I didn't think it was him. I did get a bit excited. I wouldn't say I thought it was him, but I did get a bit excited.

Speaker 2: 43:42

Wow, mate, the way you guys are tracking this year, you won't get a phone call.

Speaker 1: 43:45

Yeah, speaking of actually something I wanted to mention Grilled yes.

Speaker 2: 43:50

The burger chain.

Speaker 1: 43:50

Oh yeah, yeah, the burger chain. Oh yeah, here's a great use of SMS. Whenever Carlton wins, they send me a text message Carlton won, get two-for-one burgers this Monday. Two-for-one burgers on a Monday. Two-for-one burgers on a Monday. And it's a great message because, firstly, I opted in to receive it. Okay, so you go onto their website or their app, input your favorite AFL team or NRL team. Whenever they win, they'll send you a two-for-one for the Monday. Fantastic. And for me it's a great message to receive because it's emotional, because I love Carlton. I'm a real Carlton Nuffie and you know I try not to eat as many burgers these days, but the day that I want, one.

Speaker 2: 44:29

I know it's there 100% Two-for-, 100%, two for one. You got kids like why not Monday night solves that problem? That's it. Are they a client of yours as well?

Speaker 1: 44:37

that's a good question. I actually don't know if we're all a client of ours okay, we'll find out.

Speaker 2: 44:41

Yeah, yeah, 100%, mate, sounds good. Thank you again for your time. Yeah, some really good takeaways. Yeah, around SMS and if you're looking for an SMS partner or solution provider.