3 Tips to Help You Time Your SMS Marketing Campaign
Timing is everything. While it’s an axiom everyone can understand and agree on, it’s doubly true when it comes to SMS marketing. If you send your messages at the wrong time, you’ll see your opt out rates jump and your ROI plummet. So when should you send your text marketing messages? Here are three key guidelines to help you schedule your next campaign:
- Don’t send on weekends. Percentages vary, but in just about every kind of business, opt out rates jump when messages are sent on a weekend. Retail businesses have seen as much as a 372% increase in opt outs in messages sent on Saturday or Sunday. Restaurants have a less drastic, but still substantial, increase of opt out rates of around 150%. Either way the trend is very clear: people don’t want to be marketed to via text messages on weekends. There are obviously exceptions dependent on the nature of the messages, but just think – will your audience have made their major decisions for the weekend before Saturday?
- Send Tuesday-Friday. Do your best to skip sending messages on Mondays. The evidence and trend isn’t as strong as for weekends, but Mondays tend to have a lower response rate (meaning people don’t take action on the message). The common sense reason given for this is that people are just too busy on Mondays. They are inundated with emails and work demands that built up over the weekend. Your simple text message is likely to get lost in the noise.
- Pick the right time of day. Unfortunately picking the right time of day is not as simple as avoiding weekends. Some studies suggest avoiding traditional work hours (9-5) and reaching out to people just before and just after. But there are other examples that show just the opposite. Before and after work are “rush hours”. People are busy getting to work or getting home, and don’t have time to look at your message. The only agreement in the data is to not send messages after hours, generally from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. So what is the right time of day? You’ll have to experiment, or take a survey of your list, to find out what will work for your business.
Remember these are guidelines. They won’t apply to every business and really completely depend upon your list and what they want. If these guidelines don’t seem to bring good results, consider surveying your list to find their preferences. And you can get more ideas from our free SMS Marketing Guide.
Related Articles
5 Tips For Super-Powerful SMS Marketing Campaigns
Mobile messaging is the most effective means of direct marketing for a lot of industries. If you really want to capitalise on your SMS marketing campaigns and achieve the best possible results, there are a few things you can do. Here are our top five tips for running super powerful SMS marketing campaigns.
15 fascinating facts about text message marketing
Personalising Your SMS Marketing
Using people’s names in marketing is great. It does provide a certain level of personalisation that can get people more interested in what you’re sending them. Of course in text messaging, you don’t always have the room for a name, your message, and the required opt out information … usually there just isn’t enough room. So how can you make your marketing messages personal?
5 Things To Consider Before Launching Your First Text Marketing Campaign
SMS is well established as a successful marketing channel - however that doesn't mean you should just dive in head first. Here's five things you should consider before launching your first SMS marketing campaign.
6 Top Tips for Successful SMS Marketing
SMS marketing has come a long way since its introduction to mainstream marketing back in the early 2000’s. As well as dramatic changes in technology, there have also been sweeping changes to the laws governing this powerful and popular form of marketing. With its low cost, high ROI and tremendous versatility, it can now benefit almost every sector. But all this aside, the fundamental rules for successful campaigns remain largely unchanged. So just what are the big do’s and dont’s of SMS marketing? Read this article for six top tips from our team that will help you unlock the key to SMS success
The Truth About SMS Opt Out Rates
You’ve read all about getting subscribers, the legal and recommended guidelines, and put great offers out to your list. But people still unsubscribe. Should you be worried? Are you doing something wrong? That depends. As the saying goes, you can’t make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time. You will have opt-outs, but whether you have too many is the question you should be asking.
Essential SMS Marketing Ideas for Toy Retailers
9 Football Phrases to Kick Start Your World Cup SMS Marketing Campaign
Why Your SME Needs a Shared Shortcode
We’re all familiar with shortcodes without actually knowing what they are. Shortcodes are the 5 to 6 digit numbers that businesses use for sending and replying to their text messages. To keep costs low and to get into the mobile space as quickly as possible, your small business needs a shared shortcode, here's why.
3 More Reasons to Use SMS Marketing This Year
If you’re still not sure about why you need SMS marketing, this blog takes you beyond the usual statistics to show three convincing reasons why you do. Find out how it provides value to you, and your, customers a variety of ways.