With the right technology and approach by your side, SMS campaigns can be a perfect opportunity to connect with an audience in a new, meaningful way. It lets you harness the full power of personalization, for example — sending out personalized messages or exclusive offers that people can't find anywhere else.
SMS can give people the convenience of being able to pay for purchases in any way they'd like, be it PayPal, Apple Pay, or a credit or debit card. These are just a few examples; there are many more.
At the same time, SMS campaigns are not a silver bullet in terms of marketing; they're a tool, the same as anything else. If you don't know how to properly use the tool, you're not going to get the results you need. Therefore, if you're taking advantage of SMS campaigns but aren't getting the responses you hoped for, it's likely you're making one of a few key mistakes that you should avoid in the future.
Avoiding the potential pitfalls of SMS: An overview
Even if you're using a powerful SMS API or platform such as Mitto, it's still possible to commit what is maybe the cardinal sin of SMS campaigns: sending messages at the wrong time.
SMS is effective in part because it is immediate. Unlike emails, which people tend to check only a few times a day, text messages alert people instantly. But people tend to get a lot of them, so if you send a message in the middle of the night, by the time the recipient wakes up, it could easily be buried among a lot of other messages that have arrived in the meantime.
The same is true if you send messages on the weekend when people are trying to relax. They're not checking their phones quite as often, so even if your message is time-sensitive, you're still increasing the chances that someone might miss it.
Another common mistake that brands make when it comes to SMS campaigns is that they send generic content without any type of personalization whatsoever. Yes, recipients will instantly get any message you send. But they're also going to be able to quickly identify when it is boilerplate content, clearly sent out to countless other people at the same time.
Based on the information you already know about people, send out personalized product recommendations. Let them know about sales or promotions that they're likely to be interested in based on their past behaviors. SMS makes it easy to personalize, so lean into that whenever possible.
Even more best practices for SMS campaigns
It would also be a mistake to abuse the immediacy that SMS campaigns have to offer. If you send out multiple messages per day, many of which are generic and/or irrelevant to the people receiving them, they'll quickly start to tune you out. At best, your messages will get ignored. At worst, not only will this hurt your overall response rate, but it will lead to a lot of people unsubscribing as well.
SMS campaigns are meaningful because they give shoppers what they need, when they need it, no matter what. Does someone want to make a purchase? Ask a question. Inquire about a delivery status update. They can do all this and more right from a powerful communications platform they already feel comfortable using.
When leveraged properly, SMS campaigns can be a perfect way to not only boost response rates for messages but also to empower the engagement rate of your entire campaign. The brands that understand this will do well in this fast-paced digital era. Those that don't will soon find themselves left behind by their savvier competitors.
Comments