10 Dos and Don’ts of SMS Marketing

Whether you’re sending a booking reminder, delivery confirmation or a seasonal offer, remember to keep it short and crisp. You could also use Textlocal Attachments to attach files and create a small, succint message to convey more in just 160 characters.

Every message goes out with a clear intention behind it. A clear, immediate call to action is typically a line of text prompting your customer’s next move. Typically, this line would ask the recipients to use a coupon code for their next purchase, urge them to share something with friends and more. Whatever the purpose, make your CTA the focal point of your message.

Customers may have given consent to receive marketing communications before, but sometimes they change their mind. Act responsibly and give them an option to opt out at the end of the text. It benefits your business too, so you’re not wasting money targeting a cold prospect. Keep your mobile list warm and you’ll see better results.

Tracking your campaign performance to test, measure, modify and optimize campaigns helps in getting better returns from your campaigns. Utilize Textlocal click reports to identify the right CTA, the right time to send messages to ensure high open rates as well as other insights including time of the click and device characteristics – browser, resolution, OS.

Engage, persuade and inspire your customers with your texts. Bring a personal touch to your bulk SMS campaigns by inserting recipients’ names and other custom details using our advanced mail-merge feature.

SMS marketing lets you reach out to customers in real time. 90% of the messages are read less than five minutes after they are received. This is why you should send messages around the time you want recipients to read them and take action. Sending a message 5 days in advance for a job walk-in might not be as effective as sending it the previous day.

If you want to include a link to an article, your youtube channel or your website, don’t forget to shorten it. A longer link not only uses up valuable characters, but it looks extremely unprofessional and could be mistaken for spam by the receiver. Use Textlocal shortlinks to shorten your URL and save some real estate in your text.

Given the extremely low attention span of readers, it is important to highlight your business, product or service name as early as possible. Ensure you identify your company clearly in the text message. This is important to ensure brand recall and that your marketing message is as clear as possible.

Although, character and personality is key to creating a successful SMS campaign, using the latest SMS lingo, going overboard with abbreviations or using incorrect grammar or spelling is an absolute no-no. It looks unprofessional and your message could easily be misinterpreted by the receiver.

Texting a wall is pointless, so make sure your texting is not one-sided. Encourage your customers to respond to you. You can make use of long codes, short codes and dual VMNS to recieve SMS. You can ask them to text back to avail a special offer or send surveys for them to fill out. This also gives you a chance to build your opt-in database.