Best Practices for SMS Marketing: How to Get Results the Right Way
Best Practices for SMS Marketing: How to Get Results the Right Way
SMS may appear to be a simple marketing method. However, sending improper text messages to your audience can result in a large number of unsubscribes. In addition, not messaging your contacts frequently enough can have a negative impact on your outcomes.
SMS marketing, like any other effective marketing effort, is strategic. To stand out among the onslaught of communications that today’s savvy customers get on a daily basis, it must be smart, well-executed, and deliver value.
Restaurant Example of SMS Marketing Best Practices
Fortunately, there are several SMS marketing best practices that can aid in the development of your text communication plan and help you achieve better outcomes.
SMS Marketing’s Advantages
Before getting into SMS marketing best practices, it’s important to understand why SMS is such an important marketing tool.
The following are some of the most significant advantages of SMS marketing:
1. Availability
With 92 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds owning a smartphone and 80 percent of millennials checking their phone first thing in the morning, SMS marketing has a huge potential audience.
2. Immediacy
People respond fast to text texts. The average text response time is 90 seconds (compared to a 90-minute email response time), so your message will reach your audience in minutes. SMS marketing outperforms email marketing by a wide margin, with an average open rate of 98 percent.
Texting is a personal and preferred method of communication (it’s the most prevalent cell phone activity). People send texts to friends, family, and coworkers on a daily basis. SMS marketing allows you to combine customized, direct communications with larger, more traditional media initiatives.
3. Reliability
With a delivery rate of nearly 98 percent, SMS is far more reliable than email in terms of reaching your target audience.
Best Practices in SMS Marketing
If done correctly, SMS marketing is an excellent approach to contact your target audience.
Immediacy also entails a higher level of risk. Customers are more inclined to unsubscribe from persistent, unpleasant text messages than they are to ignore a bothersome email.
To avoid potential fines, you must evaluate compliance issues before initiating an SMS marketing campaign.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is a good place to start when it comes to understanding SMS marketing compliance.
Let’s begin with the legal guidelines that govern SMS marketing best practices.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) governs how businesses communicate with their customers. It initially only applied to telemarketing calls, auto-dialed calls, prerecorded calls, and unsolicited faxes, but in 2013 it was expanded to include text messages.
What are the legalities behind SMS marketing?
The TCPA, like best practices for email marketing, requires businesses and organizations to obtain express authorization to send text messages.
Before text marketers can send any SMS marketing messages, they must first convince consumers to opt-in. Getting someone’s phone number or making a purchase isn’t the same as getting their permission to contact them.
Text marketers and brands, for example, frequently employ branded shortcodes at events, in-store, and in traditional marketing campaigns. By texting the branded short code, customers can opt-in to receive SMS messages.
Retail SMS Marketing Best Practices
What are the ramifications of not adhering to the TCPA guidelines?
Individuals can bring lawsuits and collect damages under the TCPA, which means you could be held financially liable.
In 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (which supervises the Telephone Consumer Protection Act) received over four billion complaints about unsolicited calls. Customers who were still receiving texts or calls after unsubscribing made the majority of the complaints.
Violations of SMS marketing best practices and TCPA standards can result in significant fines as well as damage to client relationships and your brand.
The Eight Crucial Elements of SMS Marketing Best Practices
It’s not just about following the letter of the law when it comes to SMS marketing best practices. It’s all about designing a campaign that gets results while also providing a clear, direct advantage to your target demographic.
Here are eight SMS marketing best practices that assist you in running successful text messaging campaigns.
Customers must opt-in to receive SMS messages, as indicated previously. It’s both a legal necessity and an excellent practice in SMS marketing.
There are a few options for doing so
Persuade clients to join your mailing list. A shortcode can be used to do this. They consent to receive SMS messages by texting the shortcode.
If you’re manually importing contacts, you’ll need written or verbal consent.
Here are some amazing SMS marketing campaign examples.
Unsubscribing is a crucial compliance problem that many firms overlook. Any service must allow customers to opt out by texting the word “STOP.” The Telecommunications Industry Association recommends bolding words like “STOP” and “HELP” in texting calls-to-action. You must also state that ordinary data and messaging rates will apply.
Hours
According to the TCPA, you must only send messages during business hours. Remember to factor in time zones.
Even if your audience has agreed to receive text messages from you, you don’t want to annoy them. It’s best to send two to four texts per month. If you send any more emails, you risk annoying your consumers and increasing your unsubscribe rate.
Language
With the limited number of characters available, it can be tempting to use catchphrases, nicknames, or slang, such as “GR8!” “Look at you, L8ER.” While it may be tempting, using such informal language can make your company appear unprofessional and alienate your young audience. Short, direct, and to-the-point texts are best.
Value
This is something that is sometimes ignored, especially by beginning text marketers. Don’t bombard your clients with meaningless messages. Make the value obvious. They use text messages to send time-sensitive, urgent communications that they can’t send via email or other means of communication. What is important to them? Make your statement as clear, specific, and concise as possible.
Text communication is instantaneous. Make a point of responding to consumer texts as soon as possible. You can send customised follow-up text messages right away using an auto-responder.
Measure
To understand which messages and language resonate with your audience, you have to measure the results of your SMS marketing campaigns.
SimpSocial can help you get started with SMS marketing.
Businesses must adapt as users’ preferences change toward mobile.
SMS marketing is a great method to boost mobile engagement and reach out to your audience in new ways.
Text marketing allows you to contact thousands of people instantaneously, whether you’re sending out appointment reminders, discounts, updates, or SMS campaigns.
SimpSocial also blends text messaging, voice broadcasting, and interactive voice response (IVR) technology, allowing you to create high-quality multichannel campaigns that better reach your target demographic.
Consider providing your audience with the choice of receiving information such as your location or hours through phone or text.
Customers get more immediate value and opportunities to interact with your brand when you combine SMS marketing best practices with voice components. When you give your audience the option to interact on their own terms, they are more inclined to participate.
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