Hear firsthand how ABH uses text message marketing in an authentic way to engage subscribers and drive incremental revenue.

During Glossy’s recent Modern Commerce Forum LIVE, Attentive’s VP of Client Strategy Elizabeth Ray sat down virtually with Vivian Weng, SVP of Digital & E-Commerce at Anastasia Beverly Hills (“ABH”) to learn how the brand uses its text message marketing channel to connect with its loyal customers and drive more online revenue.

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Using Email and SMS Simultaneously

Email has traditionally been one of the most effective ways for brands to communicate with their audiences, ranging from new product alerts and special limited-time deals to mission-driven philanthropy and general brand marketing. However, over the past few years, email has faced engagement challenges—with click-through rates decreasing by more than 50%—causing marketers to consider adding other communications channels to drive action.

Adding text messaging to an existing email marketing strategy allows brands to efficiently reach their target audiences with text messages seeing an average 99% open rate. Ray agrees, stating that, “On mobile, there really is no channel more immediate and direct for brands to communicate with their audience than text messaging.”

ABH saw the value of SMS marketing as a complement to their email, too. “Growing SMS doesn’t mean you need to de-emphasize email,” said Weng. “We have found that consumers will sign up to both lists because they actually do want to hear from you on both channels.”

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Leveraging Social Channels

When it comes to increasing your subscriber lists and building an overall audience, brands should lean into every possible channel they have, including their social channels. ABH currently has over 20 million followers on Instagram. With Attentive’s Instagram Stories swipe-up feature—which allows followers to swipe-up on an Instagram Story that leads a pre-populated text message to opt-in, using our signature “two-tap” sign-up technology—they are turning social media followers into text messaging subscribers.

This functionality, paired with mobile website sign-up creatives, has helped ABH grow its SMS subscriber list by more than 250% in just 9 months. “We tripled our text messaging list over the past 9 months,” said Weng. “When we started this journey a year ago, our list was no more than 20,000 phone numbers. Now, it’s a sizable list that rivals our email list, and we’ve seen tremendous engagement with our subscribers.”

However, using social to build a list of subscribers is just one effective method. Attentive offers many other sign-up strategies to reach consumers where they spend their time, such as desktop website creatives, Text-to-Join, in-store signage, and more.

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Communicating frequently

Whether you’re new to text messaging as a marketer, or you’ve been using it for some time now, it’s important to consider that consumers who sign up for texts from your brand want to hear from you! Share offers and deals regularly with your subscribers, especially ones catered to their specific regions or behavior.

“It’s been incredible to see how responsive our customers are to SMS, even as we’ve increased frequency,” Weng shared. “Consumers want to hear from you—even multiple times a week—if you have something interesting and new to say.” For ABH, this approach has driven an overall ROI of 42x from their text messaging channel alone. For more of ABH’s text messaging results, view their case study!

“As more consumers communicate with their favorite brands via text vs. channels like email and phone calls, catering to their preferences is really critical,” shares Ray. “It drives authentic conversation and engagement. It’s important for brands to meet shoppers where they are, and where they are right now is mobile.”

Discover how your brand could use text messaging to drive engagement and revenue—request a demo!