How to Create an SMS Sales Funnel to Target the Right Customers & Boost Conversions

SMS funnel? Is that a thing? What does it do and how to create one?

I know, I know! You may be wondering, what is an SMS sales funnel? How to create one? And how do you leverage it to target the right customers and boost conversions?

Every other marketer on the street will say that SMS marketing offers great returns and one must use it to get better sales. While that’s partially true, it comes with the condition that businesses should use it strategically to see higher returns.

Similar to the classic marketing or sales process, a sales funnel can also be implemented for your SMS marketing process. Doing so helps to map out how you interact with your leads throughout the customer journey.

But the question is how do you create and implement an SMS funnel for your business?

Well, that’s what I’m going to answer today. But before I do, let me first explain what a classic marketing or sales funnel entails, and then get on with how to build one for your brand with some useful quick hacks. So, without further ado, let’s get started:

What is a Funnel in SMS Marketing?

Classic sales or marketing funnel involves several stages that a user goes through before making a purchase decision. It primarily has three stages: Top, Middle, and Bottom.

Further, these three stages are divided into Awareness, Educate, Interest, Consideration, Decision, and Action. As per Hubspot, a buyer’s journey is divided into three stages namely Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.

Let’s understand what each stage of the funnel entails:

Awareness Stage

In this stage, buyers are going through a problem or have some pain point in their personal or professional life. They may either be aware of this problem or don’t know it until someone wakes them up.

Here, your sole job is to educate your target audience on the problem they are facing and explain the potential implications with solutions. You can provide them with informational resources to research and understand the roots of their problems and how to resolve them.

Consideration Stage

Now that your buyers have become familiar with the problem, your job here is to interest them to find solutions. In other words, you want to show your product or service as one of the solutions that your target audience should consider for solving the problem.

Since prospects in this stage are yet not ready to buy, your job is to inform them about the pros and cons of your solution. And as they move ahead in the funnel, your job changes to providing them with information on how you compete against the other solutions within your industry to help them reach a decision.

Decision Stage

Once the prospects have moved to the decision stage, they’re ready to make a purchase. They are researching all the possible vendors, studying their cost-effectiveness, and how likely those fit into their needs.

Your job here is to provide ultimate guides, case studies, and other content types that help them reach close to purchase. You need to build trustworthiness and credibility by showcasing how your brand is better than the rest.

How to Build Your Own SMS Funnel To Boost Conversions & Sales

Sending text messages based on the stages of the SMS marketing funnel your prospects belong to can prove to be highly effective. Wondering how?

Let me present a few ideas for building your text SMS sales funnel:

1. Define Your SMS Sales Funnel Stages

SMS funnel creation requires understanding the fundamentals of the marketing funnel and the stages of the buyers’ journey. As explained earlier, you can define stages for your SMS marketing funnel starting with awareness, consideration, and decision.

Moreover, you can further go on to include a retention stage where you target your existing customers and nurture them to increase brand loyalty. Doing so helps you strategically create & deliver text messages that lead to higher conversion & customer retention.

2. Build & Segment Your Customer List

To kickstart your SMS sales funnel, you’d need to first build a list of subscribers and segment them according to different criteria. Once you’ve done so, you can assign them different drip campaigns and send tailored messages to each segmented list.

For instance, Textdrip allows you to create multiple drip campaigns that run on automate. Thus, you can create one drip for customers in the top of the funnel stages, another for the middle stages, and a third for the bottom stages. Similarly, you can create as many drip campaigns as you need to target customers and boost conversions effectively.

3. Crafting Tailored Messages for Each Stage

The success of your SMS marketing funnel depends on crafting compelling and engaging messages. Make sure to use clear, concise, and persuasive language that helps build connections with your audiences.

Here are the type of messages that you can send to your prospects based on the funnel stage they are in:

Messages to send for the top funnel stages:

• Welcome Texts: Welcome texts help you easily kickstart communication with your prospects.
• Engagement Texts: These types of messages include asking questions or sharing information that triggers engagement with your brand.

Messages to send for the middle funnel stages:

• Send sign-up forms: Prospects in the middle stages of the funnel require more information to research, thus, you can send newsletter sign-up forms.
• Offer incentives: This is the perfect time and place to send discount offers, deals, and incentives for purchases.

Messages to send for the bottom funnel stages:

• Drip campaigns: Sending a series of text messages at predetermined intervals will enable you to nurture your leads and guide them through your conversion process.
• Send special offers: Your customers are now well-aware of you and your competitors' products. The only thing you need is to offer them a special offer or deal by sending a tailored message to close the purchase.

Messages to send for the retention stages:

• Cross-sell & Upsell: Once users have made a purchase, you can send them supportive products to send similar products they may like.
• Support, Review, & Survey: You can use the SMS channel to offer customer support, and ask for reviews and feedback by sending survey forms to gather customer insights.

4. Setting Timing & Frequency for Sending Texts

Timing and frequency of sending text messages to your customers are crucial factors to consider when creating an SMS marketing funnel. Sending the right message at the right time to the right customers will increase the likelihood of customers engaging with your messages.

Bombarding your customers with irrelevant messages at odd hours of the day won’t generate any fruitful results. Test out the timings with a trial and error method to find out what days of the week and the time of the day work for you to find the right balance.

5. A/B Testing Your Texting

Once everything is set up, you can start A/B testing your SMS sales funnel to experiment with different variables. Run A/B tests with your message content, call-to-action, and SMS timings to identify what works best for your business.

A/B testing or split testing will enable you with important insights about your customers to further improve and enhance your funnel-based targeting. Doing so allows you to continually iterate and refine your SMS campaigns based on the insights you gained from your SMS campaigns.

Some Quick Hacks for SMS Marketing Funnel to Keep In Mind

Follow the below quick hacks to ensure that you create a high-performing SMS funnel:

• Keep buyer’s journey in mind: The purpose of building an SMS sales funnel is to guide buyers and nurture them through their buying journey. Thus, it’s important to know what stages they go through and tailor your messages accordingly.
• Use branded messaging: SMS has a limit of 160 characters, so you want to establish your brand tone and style of messaging and keep it consistent to ensure customers trust and engage with your brand.
• Provide value: Your messages should focus on providing value to your customers with each message you send and not spam them with multiple SMSs.
• Understand boundaries: Respect the rules of privacy and decency and never cross the same to bug your customers with unnecessary texts. Keep it to minimal and tailor messages according to the stages your customers belong to.
• Automate funnel: With the help of SMS automation tools like Textdrip, you can streamline your SMS marketing campaigns to send messages based on events or actions.
• Add personalization: Personalize your messages to make them sound relevant to your users and enhance the chances of conversion.
• Include visual elements: Adding images, GIFs, or other visual elements can positively impact your customers, which further boosts chances of conversion.

Funnel Your Way to Increase Revenue

Creating an SMS marketing funnel can prove to be a game-changer for your business. By strategically leveraging the funnel stages, you can increase the chances of targeting the right customers and boosting conversions.

Further, including the quick hacks listed above, you can increase user engagement with your messages and improve the click ratio for your CTA. Making your SMS relevant and targeted according to the buyer’s journey would ensure fruitful results.

Also, using automation tools like Textdrip, you can automate user targeting with relevant messages and harness the power of the SMS sales funnel for your business. Want to try Textdrip? We offer a free trial, so you can experience the benefits firsthand.

Book a demo now or talk to our sales team for more information about how Textdrip can help you generate more leads and conversions.