Personalized SMS marketing automation can help your marketing efforts stand out from the crowd. Texting is the quickest, most direct, and – importantly – the most welcome type of contact your customers can receive. It is highly effective for connecting with loyal, engaged consumers, which is why it’s such a good platform for personalizing your message, either to an individual or a small group of individuals with common interests.

Adding targeted, personalized mobile SMS marketing to your arsenal will ultimately make your entire mobile text marketing campaign more effective. So how do you create personalized mobile SMS marketing strategies that work? Adopt these four maxims and you won’t go wrong:

Tips For Personalized SMS Marketing Campaigns

1. Judge it right

As such a personal form of communication, brands have to be careful about using mobile SMS marketing in a way that is annoying or overbearing. You want to send only information that’s appropriate, relevant, and timely (unlike the infamous 3 am text sent by Barack Obama’s 2008 election team to announce his vice-presidential pick). Respect time zones and plan your mobile text marketing campaign to be a ripple across the oceans rather than a blast that hits the world all at once.

2. Accuracy breeds responsiveness

There’s no point coming up with a personalized special offer if you get the customer’s name wrong. Make sure you provide enough fields on the signup form for people to leave their full names and their nickname or abbreviation. Getting small details right – like an unusual spelling of a common name – is the kind of thing that will set you apart from brands that make the same old mistakes. Never assume, always double-check, and offer consumers an easy way to update your records if their details change.

3. Spend time building preference profiles

From the outset, you should dive off the proverbial deep end when it comes to finding out personal preferences. Collecting interests can be done in several ways, including Keyword-based opt-in Surveys Leveraging existing data Surveys should include questions that may not seem immediately relevant. Favorite sports teams or bands, for example, may one day become useful if you have a promotional tie-in with a local baseball team or concert promoter. Having these details on file could pay dividends, so play the long game when it comes to mining your customers for information. Also, be sure to divide your lists into various criteria, like area, zip code, and age.

4. Chuck them a freebie

Free content is one of the surest ways to get a response. If you have a video that relates to customers in a specific area (and is relevant to your brand) then send it along with a special offer. One of the benefits of a mobile SMS marketing campaign is you can include links to rich content that smartphone owners can view while stuck on a train or otherwise in need of a useful distraction. You might just make someone’s day.

SMS campaigns continue to be a dominant force in the digital marketing world. And with the industry set to reach more than $70 billion by 2020, that momentum is unlikely to fade anytime soon. The low costs and minimal barriers to entry make it an attractive option for all marketers, regardless of their preferred niche or specific experience.

That said, you can’t start an SMS campaign out of nowhere and expect to be successful; there’s significant competition for your target demographics, and if you fail to stand out or build your campaign on a poor foundation, you might not get the strong ROI you’re hoping for.

Thankfully, there are some easily accessible ideas that can get you started—even if you’re new to the game.

General Sources of Ideas

First, let’s take a look at some general places where you can do research and explore new tactics, to generate new ideas on your own:

• Your industry. Take a look at your own industry, and some of the competition within it. How are companies like yours using SMS marketing? If you need help here, Slick Text has a fantastic guide on SMS marketing ideas for several industries, from restaurants to schools to marketing agencies.
• Historically successful campaigns. You should also look outside your industry to some of the most successful SMS campaigns of all time. Tatango has a number of case studies from some of the top brands in SMS to review here.
• Customer feedback. You can also get ideas for your SMS offers by listening to your customers. Are they providing you feedback on your current efforts, or are they requesting more functionality in a specific area, like better discounts or a more thorough confirmation system?

SMS Marketing Ideas

If you’re struggling to come up with something on your own, try one of these prompts to get started:

1. Announce your best offer. One of the simplest starter ideas is to broadcast your best product or service offered to your customers; this is ideal if you’re just starting out since it will prime people for what to expect from your brand. Use a single sentence and a single price to entice customers, and make sure to link back to your site.
2. Gauge customer interest. If you’re using a platform that allows you to monitor and measure your customer response rate, you can use an SMS campaign to gauge customer interest (and segment your audience). Send an engaging conversational message and see who responses—those who do will be more valuable audience members than those who don’t.
3. Advertise a special promotion. One common strategy is to send a text with new and/or temporary promotions, such as sitewide free shipping. Mention an expiration date to add a sense of urgency to the message.
4. Integrate a social campaign. By embedding links in your messages, you can link your SMS campaign to specific tweets, posts, or even your basic profile pages. Tying together these two campaigns can be a powerful way to get more eyes on your best content.
5. Integrate a direct mail campaign. Direct mail may seem obsolete, but it’s reasonable to expect a 35 percent ROI or more—especially when you combine it with a digital marketing channel. Send customers a text that they have a special offer waiting for them in the mail, or use a direct mail piece to have customers sign up for your SMS campaign.
6. Provide reminders. If your business sets appointments or otherwise integrates some calendaring functionality, use SMS to provide reminders to your audience.
7. Relay confirmation texts. You can also set up SMS texts as automated confirmations for specific customer actions; for example, you can notify customers that their monthly payment for your service has gone through.
8. Send periodic tips. You can also send regular tips (such as weekly or monthly) to your customers, especially if your industry is information-hungry. For example, if you run a health-conscious restaurant or a gym, you could text your patrons’ weight loss and fitness tips regularly—and integrate the messages with your blog.
9. Run a short customer survey. As long as you keep them short and easy to respond to, you can also use SMS to launch customer surveys. These are valuable opportunities to get feedback on your business and your marketing strategies—even your SMS campaign itself!

These ideas aren’t meant to guarantee your campaign a positive ROI, nor are they intended to be used as the sole basis for your SMS marketing strategy. Instead, they’re meant as a jumping-off point for novice SMS marketers who need something to start, or a refresher course for experienced SMS marketers who need to inject new life into their campaigns.

SMS marketing initially got a bad rep because of its spammy origin story. As long as you had a mobile number, you could count on that being included in several spam lists that businesses used to indiscriminately blast unsolicited promotional messages. That led to negative feelings towards the medium, with marketing messages commonly ignored or deleted straightaway.

Those changes allowed text messaging to evolve into what is arguably the most effective marketing medium today. But it doesn’t just take a good SMS automation platform for a business to succeed in this channel. It requires a thorough understanding of what the medium is and the best ways it can be used.

What is SMS Marketing?

SMS marketing is the practice of sending business communications or promotional messages via text messages. It differs from text spam mainly because it requires people to opt into the service. So rather than being averse to promotional SMS, recipients expect the texts and tend to welcome them.

Marketing messages sent via SMS are subject to a 160-character limit. Although you can technically send multiple messages to increase that limit, doing so is both costly and contrary to SMS marketing best practices. Additionally, the brevity of text messages is what makes this medium so valuable.

The Value of SMS Marketing in Ecommerce

1) SMS is fast in every way

Text messages sent by businesses are received almost instantly. The customers, who typically have their phones within their arm’s reach at all times, read those messages just as quickly. That’s because they expect the texts to be concise and easy to consume. In fact, 90% of text messages are opened within the first 3 minutes of receiving them.

2) SMS boasts unbeatable open rates

While an email campaign with a 15% to 25% open rate is generally considered successful, that’s a monumental difference from what SMS campaigns typically enjoy. In fact, open rates are as high as 98% for promotional text messages. It seems too good to be true, right? But it actually makes sense once you consider how SMS is consumed.

3) SMS has incredible engagement rates

Text messages aren’t just opened, they’re actually consumed. In fact, SMS marketing boasts engagement rates that are six to eight times higher than email. Additionally, customers are ten times more likely to redeem coupons delivered via SMS than any other medium. That makes it an excellent platform to boost engagement for exclusive sales and promos.

How to Implement a Successful SMS Campaign for Ecommerce

When you engage in SMS marketing, you need to value the fact that your customers trusted you enough to let you access them through the medium closest to them. Show that you value that trust by getting your SMS campaign right at the onset.

Follow these tips to get it right the first time and minimize the risk of upsetting your SMS subscribers:

1) Get explicit permission

Sending text messages only to the customers who have opted in is not only a good sign of respect. It’s actually the law. Thankfully, getting permission is easily done through subscription forms that most platforms already have templates for.
Once you’ve been granted permission to access your customers through SMS, you need to earn the right to keep them on your subscriber list. Don’t abuse the medium and make sure you respect their right to opt-out.

2) Use a capable SMS platform

Using an SMS platform is really the only way to use this marketing platform efficiently. When selecting software to use for your company, don’t make your decision based on price alone. The cost of accessing the software as well as sending the messages themselves are definitely significant deciding factors. But, see to it that you also compare the value that each platform offers.

One of the most useful features you should look for in an SMS platform is its ability to automate text message sending. If you’re using this medium as part of a larger omnichannel marketing campaign, you should probably consider all-in-one solutions that allow you to integrate your other channels and manage them all on one platform.

3) Limit your SMS campaigns

SMS’s limited character count already requires you to keep your messages short and direct. But just because they’re concise, it doesn’t mean you can send them often. In fact, text promotions are most valuable when they’re received infrequently. Not so far between that your customers forget you, but seldom enough that they don’t tire of you.

Generally, you shouldn’t spend more than 4 to 5 text messages a month, but that figure might be different based on the nature of your brand and the relationship you already have with your subscribers. You can always use that as a guideline to start with and test your audience to see if they can tolerate more frequent messages.

4) Always aim to provide value

Providing value in every message should be a fundamental requirement for every marketing medium. However, it is even more crucial for SMS because of its proximity to its recipients. And, because you shouldn’t be sending texts too often anyway, don’t waste your limited opportunities if you have nothing real to offer.

Remember that providing value doesn’t always have to be grand. It’s not always about giving away free stuff or offering discounts (although they do help a lot!). Customers just want to feel like you also have their needs in mind instead of just yours.

5) Keep your messages relevant

Part of providing value to your customers is making sure that every message they receive is relevant to their specific needs and preferences. This is where targeting and personalization come in. One of the most important success factors in SMS marketing is the ability to run a data-driven campaign.

Always use the data you already have to segment your subscribers into groups of similar profiles. That way, you’re able to reach every subscriber with the messages that they find most useful or engaging. The enormity of this task might be overwhelming for the novice marketer. Luckily, most SMS platforms actually have precise targeting and personalization features that make this crucial task much more manageable.

Wrapping Up

It has the potential to produce remarkable results, most especially for eCommerce businesses.

When managed through a capable SMS platform, it can be an even more powerful medium for marketers. Of course, that’s only true if you follow best practices and use it strategically to garner the greatest impact on your bottom-line.

With the advance of technology, mobile phones become an integral part of human life. Thus, it is always considered the best way for business to approach their customers and there is an old-fashioned but effective resolution for merchants to do it easily on their Magento 2 stores. It is an SMS extension for Magento 2. This tool allows users to create and design text messages to clients’ phone numbers according to their needs. With this feature, the eCommerce store can enhance its customer loyalty by providing them the latest news in real-time.

Let’s check out the list of best Magento 2 SMS Notification Extensions to decide the most suitable one for your eCommerce stores!

Magento 2 SMS Notification Extensions 2020

1. Magento 2 SMS Notification | Voodoo SMS

Magento has rolled out the next generation of its hugely popular digital commerce platform: Magento 2.0. This heralds a new era of eCommerce, promising an engaging and personal shopping experience. With Voodoo Magento 2 SMS gateway, you can now amplify this experience.

2. Magento 2 SMS Notification | Magecomp

SMS has a vital part in eCommerce nowadays. People use and prefer more mobile services in order to carry together everything on a tiny smartphone. Ecommerce business owners also developing various services to make mobile friendly and provide the fastest services to provide the best user experience to their customers. We have also come up with a Magento extension to keep up with providing the best user experience and quicker service 24*7. Magento 2 SMS Notification by MageComp allows Magento store owners to configure SMS notification services for various order status activities to acknowledge customers through SMS. Just choose a preferable SMS gateway to integrate SMS service and notify customers round the clock.

3. SMS Notification For Magento 2 | Magedelight

With it, admin can receive notification about numerous actions from customers as new accounts registered, new orders placed, or contact forms submitted right after it happens. They, hence, always keep up with all the activities on the web and manage the eCommerce store more effectively. In addition, this plugin is able to run smoothly even when cooperating with another SMS service such as Twilio and BulkSMS.

4. SMS Notification For Magento 2 | Mageplaza 

Besides sending shipment, registration, cancellation, etc. SMS notification to customers, it provides clients with the latest news about their concerning goods as stock status or price status through text message. From these messages, customers can be easily determined the most suitable for purchase the merchandise, which increases the revenue of your store.

5. Magento 2 SMS Notification Extension | Landofcoder

SMS (Short Message Service) or simply texting, is a feature available with practically all mobile phones, allowing people to send and receive short notification messages. Choosing the most effective way to communicate is essential to the business of getting things done.

So we are inundated with messages from all different forms of communication, including email, messaging apps, snail mail, social media, telemarketing, and more. Using SMS is the most optimized and convenient way for you to interact quickly and directly with your customers and administrators as well.

Moreover, this Magento 2 SMS Notification extension is a comprehensive and powerful module that enables you to send SMS Service API with Twilio, BulkSMS to your customers or administrators during various events in your Magento 2 store. Be an intelligent businessman, choose Magento 2 SMS extension with some outstanding features below.

Converting visitors into loyal customers sometimes requires a little push from your side. No matter how good your product is, or how well your online platforms function, you have to turn every marketing channel to your advantage.

Let’s dive into the tips and tricks that make SMS Marketing work. Whichever forms of SMS marketing you start getting involved in, your three core goals will be:

• Increase brand awareness
• Boost engagement
• Generate sales

You may ask – aren’t those the same standard goals you apply to any marketing strategy? Of course, they are. But SMS marketing for eCommerce is unique because the goal acquisition is instant, the effort you put in is minimal and the cost is highly effective for ROI.

There are dozens of reasons for you to send out an SMS campaign (and creativity will always be rewarded) but here are a few of the most common reasons for short messages:

• Coupon offers
• Abandoned cart reminders
• Sales and promotions
• Festive season updates
• New product or inventory update announcements
• Notifications (for example delivery progress)
• Customer feedback

Plenty of strategists are incorporating these same messages into their email campaigns already and might think that’s good enough. It’s not.

The average open rate for email is 20%. The average open rate for SMS is 98%. If reading that wasn’t enough to convince you, then we can add that only about 2% of links within emails actually get clicked, whereas almost 20% of links through SMS get clicked.

We’ll never tell you to stop email marketing. It has its own powerful, somewhat irreplaceable advantages but it definitely doesn’t fulfill all the same objectives as SMS marketing. It’s highly recommended that you incorporate both into your budget and strategy if you want to see a proper impact on your customer engagement.

Now that you understand what sort of communication short messages are used for, we can start looking into where exactly they are used and why, because your strategies and outcomes will most certainly differ across platforms.

SMS marketing for text messages

• Nearly 6 billion people will be able to send and receive text messages by 2025, and a whopping 61% of the world’s population will have access to mobile internet. This means mobile marketing will continue to bring success in the future. So even with web push notification capabilities, standard text marketing will live on strong.
• The average American checks their phone approximately 47 times a day and states that they will open a text message within 15 minutes of receiving it. In fact, 90% of SMS are actually read within 3 minutes. That’s quite a lot faster than an email lingering in the dark depths of a spam folder!
• Just last year there were over 7.9 billion mobile subscriptions across the globe, which helps explain why as many as 23 billion text messages are sent each day worldwide. Yes, each day. That’s insane.
• On average it takes a person about 90 seconds to read and reply to an SMS message but over 90 minutes to respond to an email – when they eventually get to reading it, that is.

If all this sounds too good to be true, it’s because there is a very fine line between successful text marketing and downright annoying spam.

Final Thoughts

Now is the time to start building on and improving your rounded marketing strategy. With so many tools and functions at your fingertips, you can start immediately and grow exponentially.

A successful SMS marketing campaign is one of the best direct marketing solutions. 

But, how to run an SMS marketing campaign that will worth every penny?

If you’re asking why we’ll tell you one more fact about SMS efficiency – more than 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes of being received. Compared to email marketing, with only a 22% open rate, SMS is one of the most powerful marketing tools that can assure your marketing message is reaching your customers for real.

This is the reason why some of the world’s most famous brands use SMS marketing as an integral part of their mobile marketing strategy. It’s been quoted so many times that Coca-Cola spends 70% of their mobile budget on SMS marketing. And when asked why, the answer was simple: “Because we invest in what works.”

So, let’s take a look at some of the rules you should follow if you want to create and run a successful SMS marketing campaign.

Tips to Run a Successful SMS Marketing Campaign

1. Define your goal

This is the key thing to start with. As in any other marketing campaign, you must know what you want to achieve with your SMS marketing campaign. More leads, more sales, brand awareness, driving website traffic, etc. So, first, pick your strategic business goal because it will lay a foundation of your SMS marketing campaign and help you to structure it and execute it easily.

2. If selling is your main goal, go for BOGO

BOGO deal, better known as Buy-One-Get-One, is the best price-based offer you can use if your main goal is to sell more products or services. Why? Because some studies have shown that even 66% of consumers are ready for action if they receive a price-based offer in an SMS. And even 68% of those interested in price-based offers will not only positively react but will act if you offer them your products as a BOGO deal. The reason behind this number is the fact that people consider such deals as the most valuable. The point is you’re offering your customers to buy one product to get another one, similar or with a similar price, etc. And options are limitless because ‘buy something – get something’ strategy allows you to mix & match products to get the best possible results and positive ROI, of course. But, pay attention to this – people don’t like free things so much as you might think. So if you structure your offer like: “Free product if you buy…” your customers might not react very well. Why? Because people consider free products as items that probably have little value and you’re giving them for free because of that. But you’re asking them to spend a specific amount of money in return? Nope, this will not work well, believe us.

3. Never, ever send messages early in the morning or late at night

It sounds so logical, but you might be surprised to find out that some marketers still make such mistakes. Trying to be different, to create an exceptional service experience, or to stand out from the rest at all costs, some make such crucial mistakes that have serious consequences. First and foremost, people don’t like to be harassed. Especially after they’ve finally finished their work and went home. The point is to put yourself into your customers’ shoes and answer this simple question – would you like too weak up early in the morning or late at night with a text message offering you some special discount? No, of course not. So if you wouldn’t like to experience something like that why you would want to make your clients go through that? The point is to make them fall in love with your brand, not the opposite. In this case, a direct consequence is opting out of your SMS marketing campaign. In other words, you’re losing clients (read money).

4. Avoid SMS O’clock time

So, the next logical question is: When to send SMS marketing messages? You should not send your SMS marketing messages at an inappropriate time because this would be considered a very rude interruption. The rule when to send promotional messages has already been defined: don’t send SMS marketing messages before 8 A.M. and after 9 P.M. (referring to the subscriber’s time zone). But, there is one interesting thing that happens regularly, and you can notice it if you subscribe to a lot of SMS marketing campaigns. Some call it an SMS marketing rush hour, but we’ll call it ‘SMS O’clock’ time. When creating an SMS marketing campaign, many tend to schedule their messages to be sent at certain o’clock times, for example at 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock, noon, etc. It’s easier to schedule your campaign this way, but if your clients have subscribed to receive promotional messages from other brands or services, your SMS marketing message will likely be lost among other messages, and you’ll miss your business opportunity. Because everyone else is sending their messages at the top of the hour. So, if you want to achieve the best results and stand out from the rest, avoid these o’clock moments. Schedule your messages 15 minutes after or 21 minutes after or… You get the point.

5. Create effective call-to-action

And, in the end, there is another mistake you should avoid. Don’t assume people will know what to do after you tell them how great is your product. People want precise instructions on what to do next and how to do it. The best way is, of course, the clear call-to-action. So, if you’re giving them a special discount coupon, make sure to put redemption instructions. Or, if you’re promoting your mobile-optimized website and want to drive more traffic through this channel, make sure to tell customers why they should click on the link you sent them in your promotional SMS message. Also, if you’re using the keyword and shortcode to trigger some action, the best practice is to capitalize both of them to make them stand out within your call-to-action. Avoid using quotations around the keyword because people might send keyword with quotations which will not trigger the campaign.

Your business needs lead to constantly pour in so you can grow. But how do you generate those leads in a way that is affordable and doesn’t take up too much of your team’s time?

We recommend text messages because a) it’s the #1 consumer-preferred channel, and b) the ROI speaks for itself.

You just need the right tactics to help you harness the power of SMS lead generation. That’s why we put together six of the best ones to help you grow your business.

SMS Lead Generation Tactics

1. Tell leads to text you in your call-to-actions.

People have to know to text you is an option before they can actually do it, so your SMS needs to be advertised everywhere, including on your:

• Website
• Social media pages
• Emails
• Landing pages
• Adwords
• Any print materials

All you need to add is a simple call-to-action (CTA) on each of these, like:

You can text us your order!

Or.

Text us to get a quote.

You want to tell people to text your business, which is what CTAs can do.

90% of leads who read the other copy on a marketing material will also read your CTA, and the effects of that can be enormous. For example, emails with CTAs can increase click-through rates by 371% and sales by 1617%, while CTAs on social media pages can increase click-through rates by 285%!

CTAs can particularly stand out on your website if you add one to an SMS Chat widget.

2. Fastest to answer leads’ questions with auto-responses.

You’re going to have an influx of leads messaging you once you advertise they can text your business. That means you need a way to respond to them in a timely manner, so leads stick with you instead of moving on to a competitor.

50% of sales go to the first person to respond to the consumer. So that first responder needs to be you if your SMS lead generation strategy is going to be successful. Otherwise, what’s the point of all that texting speed?

Setting up an autoresponder can ensure that your leads always know you’re going to get back to them. You can even start them down the sales funnel while they wait for your response by formatting your autoresponses to include a message like:

Thanks for contacting Pondside Pet Clinic! Text us your pet’s name, species, breed, and reason for appointment, and our techs will get back with you shortly.

Or.

Thanks for choosing Ridge Rentals as your mountain getaway! Tell us your vacation dates and number of expected occupants, and we’ll get back to you with available cabins soon.

Leads love instant gratification like this. It makes them feel like they’re making progress on the need they’re trying to satisfy, plus keeps their hands from being idle and reaching out to other competitors while they wait for your response.

Autoresponse texts are a great tool for new leads from form submissions, too.

3. Create a keyword to capture interest.

80% of marketers say interactive marketing is more effective than static marketing. Keywords can be just that when you use them in fun and creative ways to engage leads.

A keyword is a word people text you to receive information or a deal related to that word.

For example, Little Nan’s, a pop-up cocktail bar in London, got more than 200 new contacts during its opening weekend by advertising a free shot for people who texted the keyword “Nan.”

Your own keyword can be a way for leads to opt-in for content, learn more about a specific product or service, or receive updates on your latest deals. But they’re best utilized when they’re advertised in ways that spark interest and excitement.

Starbucks did a great job of capturing that energy with the bright colors and peppy copy used in its “Frappuccino fun all summer long” keyword campaign.

4. Convert your email subscribers into SMS subscribers

You most likely already have an email subscriber list you use to gather leads. And whether it’s for your blog or industry news, you still have a ton of contacts that are begging to be converted on that list.

Why not start doubling down and engaging them with texts too? You’ll likely get more engagement through text, plus it’s a great way to take a group of contacts you already have (instead of searching for new ones) and further convert them into qualified leads.

All you need to do is ask your email subscribers if they’re interested in opting in for additional perks by joining your SMS subscriber list.

75% of emails are read on smartphones, so between your texts and the emails, your audience will see your business’s message on their phone. And the more times someone sees something, the more likely they are to go from a lead to a customer.

5. Offer perks in exchange for your leads’ numbers.

Perks are not just limited to discounts and VIP clubs (although those are awesome too). They can also include access to free demos, training, tailored blog posts, eBooks, and other educational content that will further qualify your lead. And all your lead has to do to gain access to them is provide their number!

It benefits both of you, moves the lead further down the sales funnel, and gives you their number for future follow-ups if they like what they saw.

Here are some more examples:

• Provide seminar attendees with a copy of the presentation in exchange for their number
• Allow people to schedule a demo after they provide their number
• Offer exclusive eBook series releases when a lead subscribes to them with their number

Just make sure the content you provide is tailored to the audience you’re trying to attract. 66% of people say encountering content that isn’t personalized would stop them from making a purchase.

You can use our Custom Buyer Personas guide to ensure your perks fit the leads you want to target.

Conclusion

The best part about each of the tactics we covered is they keep you compliant since the lead always provides you with their number.

You can only message a lead when they opt-in for your message, and they should always have an ability to opt-out if they decide they no longer want to receive your texts.

Here are 5 essential SMS tips and marketing examples to help you create a high-quality, high-return mobile marketing strategy. Combined with SMS, rich media messaging (RMM) can take marketing campaigns to the next level.

5 SMS Marketing Tips

1. Ask for Permission

Asking for permission isn’t mandatory, but it’s better for you. Instead of creating campaigns that recipients never read, you’ll spend time nurturing relationships with customers who want to receive notifications.

As the first and last thing many people look at during their waking hours, smartphones are seen as personal space. You should take care to get explicit permission before marketing to customers via your SMS marketing efforts.

You can get this permission two main ways:

1. Create campaign collateral by asking customers to text an opt-in keyword to a short code, for example, “Text YES to 12345 to receive exclusive promotions!”
2. Ask customers to check an opt-in box — similar to opting in to receive an e-newsletter — when they check out, request information, or sign up for another service on your website.

Include the following three sections when you send messages:

• Expectations. Tell customers upfront about how frequently you plan to send messages and what kind of content recipients will receive.
• Opt-out option. Make sure that it’s always clear how your customers can stop receiving SMS marketing messages from you.
• Call to action (CTA). Each message should include a brief message and a CTA that encourages customers to act. For example, “Click here to confirm enrollment.”

2. Identify Optimal Delivery Times

After you let recipients know how many messages to expect from you when they sign up, be thoughtful with your delivery. It’s important to message customers regularly so that you remain top of mind, but you don’t want to send at times when you’ll be ignored or, worse, at times when you’ll annoy them.

Start small with four to five messages per month for the first month or two. Send your strongest content first so that, with this strategy, recipients look forward to seeing more of your messages. Then ramp up to 10 messages a month.

Timing your messages also gives you an opportunity to test different messaging types for future campaign improvements, for example, test if it’s beneficial to send surveys early in the customer lifecycle or later.

VoiceSage users can set up drip campaigns that deliver a series of messages at specific times. You don’t have to manually schedule messages; instead, you can create all of the messages at once and schedule them to send automatically. The campaign is triggered when a customer completes a specific action. Create a drip campaign for when new customers buy something or sign up for a new service. Make sure each message delivers value to avoid customers unsubscribing from your list.

3. Experiment with Timed Delivery

Even though your customers have their phones next to them nearly 24/7, they don’t want to receive disruptive messages during meals, holidays, or in the middle of the night. Sending messages at the right time ensures customers open and read them. Timing also creates a positive customer experience since messages are sent at convenient times.

Additionally, test your campaign success using metrics, such as open rates and click-through rates, to identify your top customers and regions. Use your market, location, and user data to tailor message delivery times. Send messages based on the specific area or time zone your customers live in, so your offers get to them when they’re most receptive. The best time to send mobile messages is generally between the hours of noon and 3 p.m.

4. Personalize Your Messages

SMS marketing gives your company a unique opportunity to truly personalize messaging and connect with customers one-on-one via text. Take advantage of this by ensuring your recipients feel like a special contact, not just another line on a mailing list. Customers prefer to receive personalized SMS messages and are more likely to move through the sales funnel when they do.

Take personalization further and segment your customer list so that only certain customers receive relevant messages. For example, you could send promos exclusively to customers who purchased from a group of products, like shoes. Or to customers who bought a specific product, like purple-striped shoes.

5. Make the Value Clear

Just sending a message isn’t enough. Recipients must see value in your message — either in the information, you present or in the offer they receive — if you expect them to act on the promotion.

To create campaigns that your customers will interact with beyond the open, try:

• Creating coupons and offers unique to your SMS marketing subscribers list
• Targeting offers based on customer segments and behaviors (in turn, making the campaign more personal)
• Switching up your offers to add variety and avoid stagnation or boredom with your campaign