The single fastest growing and most successful form of marketing today is SMS (or text message marketing). SMS snatched up the most opens, views and forwards from veteran marketing strategies including emails and faxes.
But, sadly, like emails and faxes, SMS marketing isn't immune to deletions or other errant customer behavior. Though the numbers are extremely promising for the success of SMS, text messaging isn't without faults.
Consider this your "booster" shot!
1. Avoid sending huge picture files and graphically dense messages.
If it takes too long for your message to download or if your customer is required to open up their picture reader program (like iPhoto) to see your images, then you're just wasting their time and cell phone memory.
2. Include promotional codes and digital coupons in your messages.
Give your subscribers a quick and easy "take-away" from your promotion. Especially for SMS marketing, if you're not giving something to your customers, then you're just plain wasting their time.
3. Keep your message less than 140-characters to encourage forwarding.
The maximum character length for SMS messages is 160, and anything above that gets broken up into several different messages.
Further, if you keep your message small and tidy, subscribers are more likely to send your message along to their friends.
4. Send your text at the right time of day and day of the week.
Do a little digging through your SMS marketing data and figure out what time and day results in the most conversions, forwards and overall actions.
5. Keep your SMS immaculately clean.
Even accidentally sending a routine text to a customer who's already unsubscribed is poor form, unprofessional and may lead other customers to abandon you.
Sure, it's a pain to clean out your lists daily, but it must be done. Take the time to also delete bad numbers along with the unsubscribes.
6. Don't let the informal nature of texting swallow up your campaign.
There's a tendency among marketers that because texting is "everyday" and universal that they can get away with being a little less professional.
No! For example, write real words instead of made-up text lingo and always, always, include quick links to your customer service team.
