Do’s and Dont’s to be Cared for while Planning SMS Marketing Campaigns

SMS marketing is still a perfect choice for business marketers those who want to communicate with their prospective audience. It is a faster and efficiency mode or communication when compared to many other alternative options alongside being inexpensive. There are an estimated 6 billion mobile phones used across the globe now, and by default, SMS reach to all whereas mail or social media access may be limited to only half of it or less. This clearly shows that SMS is still ruling the market and irrespective of the phone being smart or not, SMS is easy to access and get engaged with.

Some stats to support the above claim go as follows:

  • The recipients read about 98% of the SMS messages received.
  • More than 80% of all the text messages received are read in 3 minutes itself.
  • Compared to print coupons, SMS coupons tend to about ten times more redemption rates.

Considering all these factors, it seems to be much easier and effective to use SMS marketing for promotional and informative campaigns. However, it takes a bit of planning and effort to share your messages through SMS effectively. As like any other promotional or marketing campaigns, SMS marketing to has its own fair and unfair practices. In this article, we will discuss the top 10 do’s and don’ts you need to bother about for SMS marketing.

SMS marketing do’s

1. Add call-to-action

As we know, the scope of SMS is up to 160 characters. The best approach to craft a good message is to effectively use the ‘5 W’s & 1 H’ of communication whereas:

  • The 5 W’s are: Who, What, When, Where, and
  • 1 H is: How

When it comes to incorporating a call-to-action, Why and How can be the best choice to make. You have to tell the recipients what action next after reading the SMS. For example:

  • Why get the discount coupon, and
  • How to redeem it by texting back the code or showing the SMS at an outlet.

2. Make it brief

SMS is short messaging. So, you must craft intelligent short, but attractive messages to be shared through this mode. It should grab the customer attention with precise and crisp text which tells them what to do next.

3. Start smart

When it comes to any market content, the key to grab the user attention is starting smart. In SMS, you have 160 characters, and each of it should be chosen smartly. At the first point, you need the grab their attention by giving a make feel of it being beneficial to them. Typical SimpleTexting SMS marketing text will be starting with a catchy tag like ‘Special Offer,’ ‘Hot News,’ ‘Discount Sale’ or so.

4. Make them feel special

As SMS marketing is mostly permission-based, you may not be contacting people who haven’t given permissions. So, when you get a pool of audience who’ve permitted you to contact them for marketing purposes, they expect to get some valuable information or offers from you. It is your responsibility to make them feel special and gifted by opting in. Business SMS marketing campaigns needed to be made a part of the automated marketing funnel and should be designed in such a model that you take the initiative to reward their loyalty by offering real value, seasonal offers, exclusive premium discounts, etc., which are not available to others.

5. Choose the right timing

SMS marketing is a mode of personal marketing. As it ends up directly in the hands of the customers, you may consider the right time of the day for them to go through it. As the majority of the recipients tend to read an SMS within 3 minutes of receipt, try to walk in the shoes of your customers to plan the delivery time. There is no point in one receiving a promotional message late at night or during the rush hours.

SMS Marketing Dont’s

1. Bombard the recipients with SMS’s

Not only timing, but the frequency is also important. Don’t send a message just for the sake of doing it. If there is nothing useful to special to offer, it is better not to attempt. Ensure that your SMS messages don’t irate the opted-in recipients without offering any real-time benefit to them. If you start annoying them with frequent no-value messages, you may ultimately lose subscribers.

2. Use slang or abbreviations

Texting local slang or abbreviations may not be ideal in terms of business communications. Even when you use the most known abbreviations, there may be someone who doesn’t understand the meaning of it. Slang may be taken in various meaning by different cultures, which may sometimes even create a negative impact. Professionalism is a prime concern in SMS marketing too as in case of any other business communication modes.

3. Always try to sell

Many of your prospects may be exposed to a large number of marketing messages every single day. Most of them may be of a sales pitch. In such a scenario, you are not valued by simply following suit. It is needed that you try to sell products and services, but you must do it in a balanced way. When you are speaking to people, don’t be a pure marketer, but take a more personal approach and be human and friendly.

4. Forget to introduce yourself

It is not mandatory that all the recipients will immediately recognize you as soon as they see a plain text from you. Make sure that that the subscribers come to know from who they get the text. This is where brand recognition becomes important, and once if you are able to identify yourself clearly to the audience, they tend to engage with your message. Otherwise, they consider it strange and anonymous.

5. Forget to monitor

As like any other digital marketing campaign, you need to monitor the performance of your SMS marketing campaigns too to streamline your future marketing strategies further. Each SMS you prepare and sent needed to be considered as a unique campaign and stats needed to be prepared in order to see the responses and effectiveness.

Considering the above facts, it is obviously beneficial to invest in SMS marketing and also taking additional service support if needed by marketing experts to devise your SMS marketing strategies.

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