Marketing SMS Best Practice: Three factors that influence the success of your campaign

SMS marketing can be the key to success for your company – but only if you know exactly how to send awesome messages to your recipients. In this article, we uncover the real SMS marketing success factors that can make all the difference. From recipient consent to perfect timing and customised messages, we’ll show you what you need to consider to make your campaign a success with your target audience and set you apart from the competition.

What really matters in SMS marketing?

It’s easy to get lost in the details when planning an SMS marketing campaign. In order not to lose track, especially when you have just started with SMS marketing, it helps to focus on the essentials.

Our first question at this point should be: When is an SMS successful?
In most cases, the answer is: when it strengthens loyalty to your brand or encourages a purchase.

So let’s ask ourselves: What does a message have to look like for a recipient to value it?
The simple answer is: the message must be desirable and relevant.

We can come to the same conclusion if we ask ourselves the question: What do we want to avoid?
Under no circumstances do we want recipients and customers to be annoyed by your messages.

When are recipients annoyed?
When messages come too often and/or have no relevant content.

Below we take a look at the three key SMS marketing success factors, the first of which determines the other two.

Consent and the associated preferences

If you want to send text messages, in most cases you need the consent of the recipient.

However, this point is not as obvious as you might think. It’s not just about legal protection on your part. Put yourself in your recipients’ shoes. What do they expect when they give you their consent?

They expect messages that offer them added value.

Best practice: Ask for consent and preferences at the same time. This is also important with regard to the following points.To be able to send your customers suitable messages, ask the following questions, for example:

• At what frequency would your recipients like to receive messages?
• At what times do your recipients want to be contacted? At what times do they not want to be contacted under any circumstances?
• Which topics or product groups are they most interested in?

Of course, you can also ask other questions. Make sure that they are specific enough that you can do something with the answer, but general enough that you have some room for manoeuvre in the design of your SMS campaign.

The perfect timing

One factor that is often neglected is the right time to send an SMS, possibly because companies find it complicated to find the right time.

Of course, it is an option to carry out A/B tests for each target group. In many cases, this even makes sense. But you also always have the option of letting your customers decide when they want to receive a message.

Above all, ask for preferred:

• times of day
• days of the week

You can then divide your recipient groups according to preference and know that your messages will arrive at a good time in most cases.

Real relevance through real personalisation

Let’s be honest: Of course, a simple mass SMS with a coupon code can also lead to the desired success. However, success is much more likely with successful personalisation. In our opinion, this is even the most important of the SMS marketing success factors – if it is applied correctly.

But what exactly is successful personalisation?

Addressing recipients by name is a very good start, but true personalisation goes far beyond that.

Ask questions:

• What topics or products your recipient is interested in
• What kind of messages your recipient would like to receive (offers, new releases, refill reminders and so on)
• Whether the recipient would like to receive messages relating to purchases already made (apart from transactional SMS. It is good practice to separate consent for marketing SMS and transactional SMS).

Really give your recipients the chance to tell you what they want. Be as transparent as possible. This will give you a much better chance of sending truly relevant messages and improve your ROI at the same time.

Conclusion: The most important SMS marketing success factors

Overall, the decisive SMS marketing success factors are the consent and preferences of the recipients. These aspects can result in the optimal timing for sending and authentic personalisation of the messages. By understanding and responding to the expectations of their target group, companies can send meaningful and relevant SMS messages. This not only strengthens brand loyalty, but also improves ROI in the long term.

Want to share your experience? Do you have any questions or ideas? We look forward to your comment or message.

Header picture by JLco – Julia Amaral via iStock