For Postscript, the Future of Marketing is AI-Powered and Delivered Via Text | Greylock

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses how Postscript, a text messaging marketing platform for Shopify merchants, has found success by complementing its automated messaging with a team of knowledgeable and friendly sales associates who can have personalized conversations with customers via text. This has led to a significant increase in sales conversion rates for Postscript's customers.

🙋 Q&A

[01] Postscript's Approach to Text Marketing

1. What was the key missing piece that Postscript identified in ecommerce text marketing?

• Postscript found that the normal in-person interactions and questions that consumers could have in a physical store were missing in ecommerce text marketing. This was the "missing piece" that Postscript aimed to address.

2. How did Postscript complement its automated messaging?

• Postscript complemented its automated messaging with a team of 50 trained sales associates who could have personalized conversations with customers via text, answering questions, providing product information, and engaging in other helpful interactions.

3. What has been the impact of Postscript's approach?

• Postscript's approach has led to a dramatic increase in sales conversion rates for its customers, from 25% to 60% for those who interact with the online personal shoppers.

[02] Postscript's Growth and Future Plans

1. What is Postscript's current capacity and future plans for scaling its personalized text interactions?

• Postscript currently has the capacity to offer human sales associates to only a fraction of its 15,000 customers, with the rest using the company's automated text messaging services. Postscript's recently-introduced AI tools have the potential to dramatically accelerate the scaling of its conversational and personalized interactions to thousands of additional brands and millions more consumers.

2. How does Postscript view the future of personalized ecommerce experiences?

• Postscript's co-founder Adam Turner believes that SMS and text messaging will be the foundation for true personalization in ecommerce, in contrast to the "pretend" personalization that has been done through other marketing channels for over a decade.

3. What key lessons did Adam Turner learn from his previous startup experiences?

• From his experience at the mobile gaming startup Wiblits, Adam learned the value of solving problems for business customers rather than selling directly to consumers, and the importance of focusing on large, growing markets.