Increase Conversion in Your SMS Marketing by Doing This One Thing

Good copywriting is something marketers really need to understand. But it’s easy to forget the basic principles and best practice when running SMS marketing campaigns. You only have 160 characters after all (or up to 456 characters if you’re using fastsms).

While there are many elements to successful copywriting, there’s one element that is often either overlooked or over-used. What is it? Urgency.

You’ve seen what I’m talking about in adverts:

• Only 20 spots left
• Sale ends today
• Get yours before it’s too late

All these phrases (and many more), make the reader feel a sense of urgency. If they don’t hurry then they’ll miss out. It’s this sense they feel that helps drive the call to action, whatever that may be.

But since SMS marketing messages are short, you have limited space to describe the entire offer, let alone create urgency. It’s also important though, to make sure the urgency doesn’t come across as fake. For example, if you send a message with a discount code good “today only”, then you send a similar offer a few days later, then another, your customers will certainly become jaded. They will no longer believe the urgency in your messages.

This can also happen if you send a limited offer to your “exclusive” text messaging club, but then run the same offer for everyone who comes into your store. In today’s world of social media, you’ll lose credibility once word gets around. Running multiple campaigns is fine, just be sure the urgency you describe is real. If you say the special discount ends today, it should end today. If the offer is exclusive or limited, keep it that way.

And speaking of limited offers, examinations of the copy in successful campaigns have shown that a limited time urgency works better than saying there are limited quantities available. So if you have the choice, limit your offers to a defined time frame – preferably short. A day or weekend can work well, but when the time gets much longer the conversion rates drop.

Here’s one more titbit to help build your urgency: don’t use  the word “ends”. Apparently people don’t respond well to terms like “ends today”. They much prefer (and by that I mean they act on the offer more often) terms like “until Friday” or “today only”. Small changes like these can have a surprising impact on your conversion rates.

And the best news is that those types of terms are short, create urgency and are perfect for SMS marketing.

For more help and advice on download our free Mobile Marketing Guide.