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The successful customer segmentation for your SMS campaign

Mobile Marketing
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Why is customer segmentation so important and how do you do it right?

We always like to stress the importance of assigning your customers and recipients to meaningful groups before you launch your SMS campaign. Customer segmentation is one of the basic requirements for the success of marketing campaigns of all kinds – whether they include sending out SMS or not. In this blog post we would like to show you why you should pay attention to a meaningful customer segmentation and how you go about this task.

In this article:

Why is customer segmentation so important?

The finer and more detailed your customer segmentation, the more appropriate and relevant messages you can send to your customers. This not only strengthens customer loyalty towards your products and your company, but also leads to a higher CTR. In a way, you create a win-win situation for you and your customers – your customers receive appropriate and desired information, and you yourself benefit from more effective marketing campaigns.

Customer segmentation and personalization go hand in hand. It is only possible to create personalized experiences for customers if you know your target groups well and have thoroughly subdivided them.
The effort is rewarded: 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences (source: Epsilon).

Especially when you send SMS campaigns, this personalized experience is particularly important – because SMS create a very personal approach to your customers to begin with. Use the resulting potential and offer your customers the best possible experience.

How to succeed in customer segmentation

You can go about your classification in various ways – there are different methods for customer segmentation. However, the important thing to remember with all variations is: Base your decisions on data from your market and/or customer analysis, and be prepared to adjust the classification if experience shows that there is room for improvement. Adjustments are the nuts and bolts of your customer segmentation, because your customers change in their needs and wants.

Let’s look at one way to meaningfully assign your customers to specific groups.

The classification

In addition to age and gender, other demographic aspects also play a role in your customer segmentation. Preferences, hobbies, interests and specific information on purchase intentions are crucial details that really complete a customer profile.
It is often a good idea to first classify customers according to general information, such as age, gender or languages, and then to divide the respective groups according to more individual information. Here too, however, it must be clear: If a classification makes sense differs, depending on the company and the product.

Rough classification

  • Demographics

    Based on the products or services you want to market, divide your customers into specific groups.
    Let’s say you run an online store for fashion. Depending on your customers’ preferences, you might want to inform them about women’s, men’s or children’s fashion and divide your customers accordingly. Alternatively, your first approach could be age groups, for example.

  • Closeness or discretion?

    With a personalized message in your SMS campaign, you establish a personal connection. If your target group is rather youthful and modern, choose a personal address, preferably including the first name. This conveys close customer proximity. An SMS with the introduction “Dear Mr…” is more suitable for older generations and for companies that prioritize seriousness, for example in the fintech sector.

Detailed classification

  • User activity

    What stage of the customer journey can customers be in when you send them a text message? The message “Hi Tim, we haven’t seen you in a while!” looks unprofessional if said Tim placed an order with you only yesterday. However, you can certainly attract people who have actually not been active in your store for a long time with “re-entry” discounts.
    So, as an example, you could differentiate between interested parties, customers who are ready to buy, and contacts who are to be reactivated.

  • Preferences & Interests

    Does a customer group prefer a certain product category? Are there items or product groups that certain groups of people frequently save on their wish lists? How can you help these different groups make a decision? What specific offers can you make to them?

  • Timing

    In many cases, it makes sense to also pay attention to the ideal shipping time. When are your customers active? Are there regional restrictions for SMS sent by companies? Adjust the time of sending so that your message does not disturb in any case.

Actually sending SMS

If you want to send SMS automatically or have them sent via an SMS gateway, you usually have numerous options to choose from in order to configure certain parameters individually. For example, you can select one or more preset groups that will receive an SMS with specific content at a certain time.

This can be newsletters, special offers, sweepstakes as well as surveys. You also have the option of sending personalized and time-delayed bulk SMS.

After your customer segmentation you can start your SMS campaign

It is advisable to keep your SMS campaign dynamic. To do this, check the timeliness of your customer information at regular intervals. Have they recently become interested in baby fashion? Have their access times changed (due to a job change, for example) or has their shopping behavior been completely restructured and do they need to be placed in a different group altogether? Adjust your customer segmentation results as necessary.

Plan your sending times so that the SMS actually reaches your customer at the right moment. Unlike emails or letters, SMS are almost always opened and read immediately – but they are also more quickly perceived as a nuisance if they arrive at the wrong time.

Evaluating feedback

Especially via two-way messaging you have a wonderful feedback option. In the case of surveys, voting, competitions or similar that you organize via SMS, you can receive a direct response from the customer via inbound SMS. Based on this, you can in turn better assess the activity of the customer.

Also, track how often and when your target groups redeem discounts that you had previously announced via SMS and analyze how customers interact with your content.

You can use tools from your SMS service provider to statistically analyze SMS campaigns. Learn more about the reachability of your customers – but also about your own cost allocation. After all, every marketing budget needs to be planned adequately.

All this data, whether direct feedback or information on user behavior, can be used to further improve communication with your customers.

All the best
Your sms77 team

Header picture by AndreyPopov via iStock.com

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