Hey Pony Express Riders 🐎
We have explained the cost-effectiveness of text marketing for small businesses and communities lots of times. SMS marketing is one of the most powerful, direct, and easy ways to reach customers and community members. However, there are a few things to keep in mind when using mass text messaging for healthier communication.
Here are dos and don'ts for mass text messaging to improve your SMS marketing processes.
Let’s roll! 🤘
7 Dos and don’ts for mass text messaging
1- Don’t text customers without opt-ins ❌
The first thing to consider in SMS marketing is collecting user permissions to send text messages. Otherwise, there will be stiff penalties for spam messages, like between $500-1000 for each violation.
▪️ Discover more: TCPA compliance checklist guidance for text marketing 👩⚖️
1- Do: Provide an opt-out option to subscribers ✅
Let it go if someone does not want to receive your text marketing messages! They will not purchase from you anyway. You should spend your time, energy, and budget on your loyal customers. So, don’t be afraid to provide an opt-out option to subscribers frequently. For this, you can add “Reply STOP to opt out” at the end of all your messages.
2- Don’t jump into promotions ❌
Okay, mass text messaging is a marketing method, but marketing does not mean overwhelming customers with promotional messages. Instead, you should send different types of text messages to your subscribers. To illustrate, you can celebrate birthdays, holidays, or special occasions of customers with the help of mass text messaging. SMS marketing is a perfect way to tap customers' emotions and increase their loyalty with simple sweet text messages.
💡Discover examples: Special Day/Holiday text message templates
Also, when someone opts in to your message list, don’t send a promotional message directly to them. Instead 👇
2- Do: Start with a warm welcome message ✅
Yup! Warm customers’ hearts with your sweet welcome message. ☺️ Tell them how happy you are and how welcomed they are. Let them feel valued and smile at your warm welcome message. 🤍
3- Don’t use boring & long text ❌
Being brief is the key to attracting subscribers’ attention. So, don’t use unnecessarily long texts within your messages. Trust your creative side, and don’t let subscribers be bored.
3- Do: Use humorous language ✅
You don’t have to be deadly serious with your text marketing messages. Having humorous language can help to create an emotional bond with your customers. Actually, language was always important for brand identity, but nowadays, it is the foremost factor for hooking an audience, thanks to social media. You can follow the trends and integrate them into your text marketing messages.
Bonus: You can benefit from the power of emojis relevant to your content. 💬
4- Don’t forget to use effective CTA ❌
CTA’s (Call to Actions) are crucial in mass text messaging as well as every marketing method to motivate the audience. Even though your message is pretty clear, people sometimes need to be triggered a little bit with effective CTAs. So, don’t forget to use CTA in your mass text messages to enhance the success of your text marketing campaigns.
💡Discover more: Definition of CTA, most effective CTA examples
4- Do: Include key information ✅
All text marketing messages have an aim, and you should include the key information about these aims in your text messages. For example, if you send an appointment reminder text message, you should mention the appointment's time, date, and location.
In addition, identifying yourself is a must in SMS marketing messages. So, please add your brand name to your text marketing messages. Otherwise, your audience will get confused, and your marketing message credits will be wasted even though you deliver the best offer. Moreover, including the website link can be beneficial, especially for e-commerce businesses.
5- Don’t send messages to unsubscribed customers ❌ ⛔️
Sometimes people opt out of your mass text messaging campaigns because they aren't interested. You need to accept their preference at such times because forcing customers will not bring them back.
Sending bulk SMS to unsubscribed customers & community members can harm your brand reputation. Furthermore, you will face legal sanctions under US laws and regulations (TCPA and CTIA) if you send text messages to people who have opted out.
5- Do: Segmentize your subscribers ✅
You should segmentize your audiences according to their interests to be more effective with your mass text messaging campaigns. For instance, if you have a bookstore, you can segmentize your customers based on customers' favorite genres. Thus, you will not waste your budget delivering irrelevant text messages to uninterested subscribers.
6- Don’t send messages between 9 pm - 9 am ❌
One thing to remember in mass text messaging is that you are sending text messages to the most personal devices of audiences: their mobiles. So, you should always keep that in mind, respect the time, and don’t send text marketing messages between 9 pm - 9 am.
Bonus: You can schedule your bulk SMS for when people check their mobiles most, like lunch or dinner.
6- Do: Personalize your text marketing messages ✅
Personalized mass text messaging is the easiest way to improve customer engagement. You already have the names of your subscribers. Now, you just need to add their name to your message template with a simple trick.
Learn more: Why and how to send personalized text messages
7- Don’t send too few or too many messages ❌
SMS marketing is an excellent opportunity for small businesses and communities to reach their audiences instantly. If you have user permissions, you can text them whenever you want, right? Even though the answer is yes, technically, you should not! 🙅🏻
Unfortunately, this is one of the biggest and most common mistakes in mass text messaging. Sending more messages does not mean success or increased conversion rates for your business. Similarly, sending inadequate messages is not a correct marketing strategy either. Balance is essential! But how can you find the best times and amounts for SMS marketing messages? 👇
7- Do: Measure your mass text messaging campaigns ✅
Yup! You should measure your mass text messaging campaigns. For this, you can compare the results of your text marketing campaigns. Let’s assume that you have two SMS marketing campaigns with discount coupons. Send them on different days & times. Then after your campaigns finish, check which coupon was used more to measure the success of your text marketing campaigns. Then, use the day and time of the more successful campaigns in your next mass text messaging campaigns.
Bonus: You can ask your subscribers for their opinions on the frequency of receiving messages.
💡Discover: Top 13 SMS marketing statistics
Final remarks for mass text messaging
This article explained the 7 dos and don’ts in mass text messaging. You can see all these dos & don'ts of SMS marketing in the table below:
| Don't ❌ | Do ✅ |
|---|---|---|
1 | Don't text customers without opt-ins | Provide an opt-out option to subscribers |
2 | Don't jump into promotions | Start with a warm welcome message |
3 | Don’t use boring & long text | Use humorous language |
4 | Don't forget to use effective CTA | Include key information |
5 | Don't send messages to unsubscribed customers | Segmentize your subscribers |
6 | Don't send messages between 9 pm - 9 am | Personalize your text marketing messages |
7 | Don't send too few or too many messages | Measure your mass text messaging campaigns |
Hope you can efficiently run your SMS marketing campaigns.🤍
Got questions? Leave us a comment below 👇 ☺️
The Pony Express HQ Team
💡 Discover: Directory for business software recognizes Pony Express HQ as the rising star in mobile marketing so
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