Buyagift.com, the UK’s leading gift experience provider, has successfully run a seasonal SMS trial campaign with OpenMarket, the global leader in enterprise mobile engagement. The campaign provided an additional channel of consumer engagement beyond the retailer’s existing marketing activities, boasting a 5% website conversion rate with a 6% increase in average transaction value.
“In today’s competitive retail environment, it’s important to stand out from other businesses and engage with your customers across the channels they want,” said Claire Gostling, Group CRM Manager, Buyagift. “We’ve seen how mobile is becoming the central component of many people’s shopping habits, so we wanted to incorporate SMS to a greater degree in our customer experience. Working with a mobile messaging expert like OpenMarket has made running the campaign a very smooth process with huge success. We’re looking forward to developing more mobile messaging programmes in the future.”
Buyagift.com used OpenMarket’s Mobile Engagement Platform to support the mobile marketing campaign. In the past, the retailer had used traditional email outreach for its marketing activities, so adding the element of mobile was a new practice for the company. Buyagift.com was able to leverage OpenMarket’s mobile messaging expertise to better incentivise and encourage repeat purchases with its customers.
Buyagift.com’s programme ran over Black Friday weekend (26-30 November 2015) with two SMS messaging campaigns running one week apart. Customers received one of two text messages, based on their past purchases: the first message offered a discount at checkout, and the second one advertised a promotion on a specific product. The SMS messages included shortlinks directly to the Buyagift.com website for quick conversion.
The addition of a dedicated mobile element to its traditional outreach efforts in the shape of the SMS marketing campaign generated real results for Buyagift.com, with a 5% conversion rate to purchase from those visiting the site after receiving an SMS. In addition, out of those who made a purchase after receiving a text message, the average value of each purchase was 6% greater than those contacted via email.
“Many retailers naturally default to email in their marketing communications, but the reality is, it’s not always the most effective method,” said Paul Murphy, EMEA Commercial Director for OpenMarket. “In terms of reach, SMS can’t be beat. It also boasts far superior open rates than email with over 95%[1] compared to around 21%[2] for email. By implementing mobile messaging in its marketing strategy, Buyagift.com is moving closer to the omni-channel approach of convenience and ease of use, which is so popular with the modern consumer.”
Following this initial campaign, Buyagift.com is expanding its mobile database with a view to increase the reach of future SMS programmes.
[1] According to Frost & Sullivan.
[2]“Email Marketing Benchmarks”, MailChimp, March 2016.
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