Mass SMS marketing is fast-becoming the go-to option for business owners and marketers who want to reach consumers where they are and that’s on their mobile device.
The reason why text messaging has become popular again is due to its ability to seize attention and attention is the new form of currency in 2019.
When a person receives a text message it’s incredibly difficult not to look at who sent it, in fact, 82% of text messages are opened and read and 90% of people will read their SMS within 3 minutes (compared to 20% for email).
I addition to that SMS message receive a staggering 19% response rate! Compared this to email marketing which only pulls a tiny 4%.
These open and response rates are what you get just for using SMS without any fancy marketing knowledge so it’s great for business owners to level the playing field with savvy marketers.
But even with all of these positive upsides your SMS campaign can still go horribly wrong and so in this article I’ll share the top 5 mistakes to avoid when using text message advertising.
Mistake #1: Not Getting Permission
Like email marketing SMS is permission-based which means you will first need to gain consent before you can start texting your leads and customers.
While it’s possible to buy a list of mobile numbers the penalties for spamming people are far too great.
Mistake #2: Not Segmenting
Segmenting basically means placing your customers and sales leads into similar groupings which could something as basic as men and women.
You can create as many segmentation groups as you like which can be based on demographics, interests, purchase behaviour, goals etc.
The main reason why this is critical is because mobile users have an incredibly low tolerance for irrelevant information and offers.
For example, sending male muscle building product offers women who wish to lose weight will dramatically increase your unsubscribe rates.
Mistake #3: Ho-Hum Offers
The fastest way to generate a lot of leads fast is to have an amazing offer that is only available for people who join your SMS list.
While it may mean breaking even on the front end, you’ll have a massive list of people who you can now continuously send promotions to which will more than make up for the upfront cost of your offer.
Mistake #4: No Opt-Out
A lot of businesses are aware of this now but it’s worth mentioning. You MUST have an opt-out keyword that people can back to you if they no longer wish to be on your list.
In some states and countries having a clear way to opt-out of future communications is a requirement by law.
Each SMS service has a different keyword format but it’s always obvious to the subscriber.
Mistake #5: Not Making SMS Exclusive
What I commonly see is marketers treating their SMS subscribers like they would if those same people were on their email list – don’t get me wrong, it still works in terms of driving sales volume.
But a smarter way to use SMS is to send them offers that are slightly different like maybe SMS subscribers get free shipping or a maybe receive 1-5% more of a discount.
This gives them an extra reason to stay on the list.
