Recent data from Statistics South Africa found that retail sales for January fell by 1% compared to the previous year.

This fall in sales is in line with data from McKinsey, which last year found that nearly two-thirds (61%) of South African consumers planned to cut back on their spending.

Clearly, shoppers tightening their purse strings is bad news for retailers.

In the face of such challenges, gaining and retaining customers becomes a top priority for retailers. By reducing customer churn, retailers can solidify and grow their customer base, increasing resilience to the economic slowdown.

Yet gaining and retaining customers has become increasingly problematic.

Email marketing plateaus

When it comes to reaching out to shoppers and promoting products and deals, consumers will no longer accept generic, outdated messages that are not delivered via their preferred messaging channel.

Fail to provide personalised, timely messages by the right channel and not only will you not engage a new customer, but worse can happen with existing shoppers who may strongly feel the need to look elsewhere.

This challenge becomes especially problematic for retailers that rely solely on email marketing. Often the starting point for most customer engagement campaigns, email marketing commonly starts strong, with good consumer engagement.

However, as the business matures and shoppers become accustomed to email messages, engagement plateaus and the ROI of an email marketing campaign stalls and emails go unchecked and unread in the inboxes.

For African retailers looking to increase their resilience during an economic downturn and use their budgets wisely, breaking through this customer engagement plateau is crucial.

One of the most obvious ways to break through is by adding more email addresses to contact databases. However, while sounding good on paper, in practice, adding more addresses barely improves a business's revenue. Instead, retailers must look at other channels to engage and reach consumers.

Mobile marketing to the rescue

Enter mobile marketing. Mobile marketing campaigns combining SMS, Rich Communication Services, WhatsApp and Viber have been proven to have much higher performance rates compared to email.

Data from Gartner has found that while email has an open and response rate of 20% and 6%, respectively, SMS has a staggering 98% open rate and a 45% response rate.

We've seen this too with our own real-world customers as well. In fact, SMS can deliver revenue 40x higher per subscriber than email, with click-through rates and conversion rates four and six times better than email, respectively.

Mobile marketing's advantage over email jumps even more when combined with automated retargeting, with on average, one SMS generating the same revenue as 140 emails!

Across Africa, mobile marketing is growing in importance. The latest data from GSMA has put mobile penetration in the region at 46% and will reach 50% by 2025. At the same time, 4G connections are exploding, jumping from 17% of all connections (excluding licensed cellular IoT) to 33% in 2025. This is good news for retailers, who can use this growth in mobile connectivity to better engage with customers.

The good news for retailers doesn't stop there either. Establishing a mobile marketing campaign has never been easier. The latest mobile marketing platforms offer the tools today's marketers need to engage consumers.

From automated triggered messages, data analytics and campaign automation to content creation and audience insights, the new wave of mobile marketing platforms delivers a first-class customer experience and journey by customising interactions according to a user's preferences and needs.

Using these tools, marketers can engage customers with tailored, personalised messages at the right time and to their preferred communication channel. Once set up, mobile marketing delivers highly engaging messages that support:
  • welcome flows
  • cart recovery
  • post-purchase messaging, and
  • customer win-back campaigns.

As retailers look to grow their customer base and increase their resilience in an economic slowdown, it's time to embrace mobile messaging. While email marketing will continue to have a place in retail marketing campaigns, multichannel campaigns incorporating mobile marketing can ensure brands break through the engagement plateau.

For more information, visit www.upstreamsystems.com. You can also follow Upstream on Facebook or on Twitter.