SMS Marketing: 10 Things You Shouldn’t Do in Your Marketing Strategy

SMS marketing has become one of the most popular forms of marketing in recent years and according to a survey carried out in September 2016, 81% of mobile phone users send or receive text messages on a daily basis. Due to this finding, sending SMS messages has become a highly effective marketing technique over the years. In order to gain success with this form of marketing, certain strategies need to be put in place.
Here are a few top tips on what not to do when marketing your business through SMS messaging:
1. Don't forget to identify yourself
Before you send out your first SMS message to a customer or client, always ensure you inform your customer of your identity. This is essential for both brand recognition and also common courtesy towards your customer. Customers can then engage with you and can expect your texts if you decide to send SMS messages at certain times throughout the day.
2. Don't spam your contacts
In order to get the best responses from your customers and clients, ensure that you don’t spam them with irrelevant offers and deals that may not be suited their individual needs. Try not to send your SMS messages out in bulk, as this type of text is often too general to gain a great deal of interest. Personal texts which are more important will end up getting lost amongst the general messages, therefore your SMS marketing strategy won’t be as effective. Using words such as ‘free’ and ‘win’ are often read as spam, therefore limit these wording choices to a minimal amount.
3. Don't explain everything
Many marketers try and squeeze too much information within their SMS messages, however, this could be a real mistake. Texts should average at around 160 characters in order to grab attention instantly. Short, snappy SMS messages are much more likely to grab the attention of clients than having to read through lengthy paragraphs of information. Mobile users have an extremely short attention span, therefore are only likely to read the first line of your text before contemplating whether to continue. Don’t beat about the bush – get to the point. Despite this, it is never a good idea to abbreviate words within business communication. Abbreviations may not be understood by some clients and won’t portray a professional image of the company.
4. Don't send at unreasonable times
In some cases, text messaging is a less formal approach to marketing, therefore it is essential to get the balance in sending messages at the appropriate times. Your business may have a policy to respect your customers’ privacy, therefore a consideration of timings should be included within these policies. Always aim to maintain a certain distance between your business and your clients in order to remain professional. 90% of texts are read within six minutes of being received, consequently sending your texts at suitable timings will also boost your success rate.
5. Don't harass your customers
Although it is tempting to update your customer with every offer and deal that your business has going, don’t harass your customers by sending texts more than a few times per week. You may have differing relationships between individual customers, so tailor the number of texts you send to each individual on that basis. Aim for less frequency and higher quality with each text that is sent.
6. Don't forget to give customers an instruction
Sending a customer an SMS message without a clear instruction would be an extremely pointless act. You need to use a call to action within every message you send so that your customer is led to make an action. These actions don’t always have to be sales-related but may guide your customer to read a blog post rather than directly to a product. It is all about keeping the balance right, rather than constantly opting for the hard sell. Despite this, ensure you keep your marketing campaign as simple as possible and don’t give your customers too many choices on which action to take. Consider your main objective and aim to achieve a target.
7. Don't forget to measure your success
Ensure you set yourself goals so that you are able to see whether your SMS campaigns are proving successful. When estimating your success, consider the delivery and conversion rates. By recording your success, you can change up your strategies when things don’t work out the first time around.
8. Don't send the same message
When sending SMS messages to your customers, try not to send the same message or offer twice in close proximity. One of the real negatives is that your SMS marketing campaign may lose impact over time. If customers are already aware of what to expect, your customers may not act upon the action. Provide value in each and every text so that your customers feel they will benefit from the information provided.
9. Don't use SMS marketing only once
Many businesses sign up to SMS marketing to promote one single campaign, for example a deal or competition, but later forget about this fundamental business marketing strategy and decide to leave it to one side. Businesses should use SMS marketing as a form of loyalty to their customers, by building relationships and engagement through using this unique platform. Customers may expect regular texts from your business to find out key information and failure to do so may damage long-term customer engagement.
10. Don't focus on the hard sell
Sending constant sales-based messages too regularly won’t help build your client relationships. Allow your customers to feel valued by your company by sending more personal messages, which are tailored to their specific interests and desires. Once you build up client relationships, you may wish to ask questions and queries to gain insight into what the individual customer is looking for.
To gain more information on business SMS or how to use business text messaging within your company, please contact www.fastsms.co.uk today. Or, to read more posts on SMS marketing, check out our blog.
Related Articles
Small Businesses Can Succeed with SMS Marketing
Is SMS marketing a viable strategy for SMEs to grow their businesses? A recent article by a US SMS provider suggests not but we debunk that view. Read how and why Fastsms can help small businesses can succeed with SMS marketing without breaking the bank.
9 SMS Marketing Power Words
With its 456 character limit, SMS Marketing challenges us to be succinct, ensuring we pack the most into our punch and deliver powerful and effective calls to action in a minimum of words. With some research and planning, it is still possible to craft great messages that get results and still stay well within the limits. In this article, we share 9 power words and phrases to help to you do just that.
10 Super Successful SMS Marketing Phrases
How a Text Marketer can Learn Valuable Lessons from Long-Form Copywriters
In terms of storytelling, SMS text messaging is probably as far removed from long-form, direct-action copywriting as you could be. However, the SMS marketing writer can still learn a lot of lessons here with regard to overall approach, content and composition.
6 Psychological Tips for SMS Marketing Success
Getting to grips with the underlying psychology of how audiences react both consciously and subconsciously to your message is key to achieving the maximum effect in any type of marketing. All kinds of things come into play with different media, from colours and shapes to images and videos. Even the way things move can have a powerful effect on a viewer. Unlike many other forms of marketing, however, SMS marketing is unique in that the only tool you have is words - and not many of them. But armed with a basic knowledge of consumer psychology, 456 characters is more than enough to get the desired effect. In this article, we present our six top tips to take advantage of the psychology of SMS messaging.
3 Common Errors That Will Ruin Your SMS Marketing
You worked hard to get those customers on your SMS marketing list. But now they are unsubscribing like crazy, or maybe just no longer responding to your messages. What happened? Maybe you’ve committed one of the following common, but easy to fix, errors that can completely drive your customers away.
What are the Worst SMS Marketing Messages You’ve Received?
Just for fun, I asked people in a marketing focused Facebook group to share the worst SMS marketing messages they’ve ever received. I was expecting a deluge of responses, but actually only a few trickled in. But those horrible SMS marketing messages are out there…the comments on my post proved it even if no one wanted to share (I guess they’re all shy).
SMS Marketing Ideas To Celebrate Wimbledon
To Txt Speak, or NTTS. TITQ.
Is it a good idea to cram more information into your precious 160 characters by using "txtspk" acronyms and abbreviations? Yes and no! It depends on the audience and the message. In this post you can pick up some insights into this question and join us in dissecting a real life example.
Should You Tease Your SMS Marketing List?
Teasing is a tried and true marketing technique. But there’s a lot you can learn from some recent examples in the video game industry. In particular, how you can create the same kind of frenzy in your SMS list – but only if you do it right.