CallFire- SMS Marketing

Essential Best Practices to Optimize a Mobile SMS Marketing Campaign

The mobile marketing platform is an exciting development in the field of advertising that can be

utilized by businesses of all sizes and backgrounds. SMS text messages provide businesses

direct contact with their audiences while at the same time establishes brand loyalty and visibility.

These messages can be developed to be coupons, appointment reminders, customer

satisfaction surveys and much more. While the flexibility and convenience of SMS marketing

may be appealing, there are certain fundamental best practices that need to be in place in order

to have a successful campaign.

Personalize the Communication:

While the majority of all text messages are opened, not all of them are read. Like letters in the

mail, if a text message is addressed without any salutation or specific recipient in mind it is more

likely to be treated like spam mail and disregarded.

There is only a brief time a business has to foster a relationship with a mobile subscriber before

they move on to the next best thing. In order to optimize the time, text message communications

need to be simple, short and most of all personalized. Many mobile marketing services offer text

message senders the ability to personalize mass text messages with automated salutations and

individual names in the text message.

Include Opt-Outs:

Opt-Outs are an easy to understand free way for mobile subscribers to cancel their future

message subscriptions. These notations should be included in every message sent to assure

subscribers that the texts aren’t spam and to maintain compliance with FCC regulations.

Opt-outs also help businesses calculate the success rate of their messages. By reviewing the

data from opt-outs, businesses can reshape their mobile marketing strategy to decrease opt-out

rates in the future.

Do Not Be Intrusive:

When mobile subscribers entrust their contact information to a brand, they are in essence

allowing the entity into their personal space. A person’s mobile phone can be a very intimate

environment and should be respected by the persons contacting them.

That being said, businesses should be mindful of the amount of text messages sent to their

subscribers and the time of day it’s sent. Generally speaking messages should be delivered

between 11am to 8pm to avoid disturbing late sleepers and early risers. When determining the

amount of messages to be sent, businesses should look towards their subscribers for the

answer.

During sign up, businesses should ask subscribers if they prefer daytime or evening messages

and what kind of messages they prefer (i.e., weekly exclusive offers, monthly product updates,

appointment reminders). Not only will the information help maintain a rewarding relationship

between provider and subscriber, but the data gathered can also be used to determine the

profitability of certain text messages over others.

Work With the Medium:

By nature a SMS text message is a “short message” and therefore should be kept simple, easy

to read and to the point. A message with too many characters or frequent usage of shorthand

phrases like “2” (to), “gr8” (great), or “ne”(any), can make the message difficult to decipher and

more likely to be ignored.

A customer becomes a subscriber because they believe a business has something of value to

offer them. In that sense the content of a message should always have an explicit purpose. A

general call to action that reads, “Find great deals on our website today!” has far less purpose

than “Today only, 20% OFF all purchases!” Keeping that in mind, if a business is unable to

provide useful information to their subscribers, than there is less incentive for them to continue

their subscription.

Best practices should always be maintained when creating a mobile marketing strategy. With

these things in mind and the help of diverse tools offered by mobile messaging providers, any

business can run a successful text message campaign.

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