SMS Marketing Tips – Our Top 10

Follow our top 10 SMS marketing tips below to ensure you get the most out of your mobile marketing campaigns;

• Compare service providers – free trials

If you’ve never sent bulk SMS messages before it can be difficult to choose a service provider. Many of the leading SMS platforms will offer free trials for 30 days so that you can assess their systems to see if they’re quick and easy to use.

• Test your messages first

When you’re uploading your SMS lists it’s wise to create a separate test list with a few in-house mobile numbers and send your message here first. This gives you the opportunity to check what your message is going to look like as well as looking for any obvious errors within the text.

• Don’t abbreviate everything

While you may only have a maximum of 160 characters to use for your SMS message you shouldn’t go crazy and abbreviate every second word so that it makes no sense to the recipient.

• Link to an HTML version

More and more people have web enabled mobile phones nowadays so it’s a good idea to include a hyperlink to an HTML version of your email that they can access via their handsets.

• Use a URL shortener

Since space is at a premium it’s beneficial to use a URL shortener such as www.bit.ly if you’re including any links to specific web pages within your SMS text.

• Offer the chance to opt out

As with email marketing you should always provide the opportunity for people to opt out of receiving your SMS messages. In many cases this can be done by texting STOP to your dedicated number.

• Don’t spam people

A mobile phone is a very personal thing which most people have with them or near them at all times of the day and night. With this in mind it’s important not to spam your intended recipients with too many texts or those that are just blatant sales pitches which offer no benefit.

• Keep your messages relevant

If someone has given you permission to send them promotional text messages then you should respect that by making them as relevant as possible.

For example, if you run a small women’s shoe shop, then people will expect to receive texts about women’s shoes. Don’t ever be tempted to do another small business owner a favour by giving them access to your lists, even if they are in a complementary industry.

• Timing is everything

An SMS message sent out at the right time can be a marketing masterstroke. However, if you consistently get this wrong you could annoy the recipients or your message could simply be forgotten about completely.

For example, if you’re a small restaurant and have a special offer running this coming Friday, it makes no sense to text people about it on Monday morning as they’ll have a whole week’s worth of other things to think about.

• Pay attention to any feedback you get

SMS marketing can be a two way street, people will have your number so you can reasonably expect some of them to reply when you send them an offer or promotion.

It can be worthwhile reading all the replies you receive as you may find some helpful feedback which will help you improve future messages or give you an idea for another promotion.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 25th, 2010 at 1:00 pm and is filed under SMS Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.