SMS marketing is one of the fastest-selling marketing strategies these days. People who are not comfortable doing cold calling may find this an excellent way to reach out to potential clients and customers. You can send SMS messages quickly and efficiently, reaching a large audience within minutes. Its immediate impact makes it very effective in brand awareness, customer loyalty, and building trust with your business.
However, you cannot use any old text message provider for SMS marketing. It would help to ensure that their list management capabilities were up-to-date. Otherwise, you could end up with duplicate numbers in your database, which will create terrible experiences for your prospects when they get multiple texts from different people asking them for their rights after another. Even worse, they may block all your messages, and you’ll lose their trust without them ever knowing what your company is about.
1. Not Following Up After Sending a Message
One of the biggest mistakes businesses make with SMS marketing is not following up after sending a message. Some messages could go undelivered. So, it’s important to know the delivered vs failed SMS ratio for your specific campaign. You should also follow up with people who didn’t open your message or, even better, those that have opened it but haven’t taken any action. This will show them that you’re interested in their well-being and that you value their time. Don’t let the chance to show how professional and personable you are slip through the cracks of your fingers.
2. Not Decoding Your Text Message Provider
There are a lot of SMS providers out there. The question is, how do you know which one has the right list management capabilities to deliver your message most efficiently? You should pick a provider that can ensure that all of your numbers processed by their system are accurately stored for future use and reference. Duplicate numbers will slow down your process and cost you a ton in opt-out fees. Plus, it’s just plain unethical. All of the top SMS providers on the market today have powerful list management features, so there shouldn’t be any excuse for why you didn’t choose them over their competitors.
3. Not Using Encoding Just Because You Can
When it comes to text message marketing, there are two encoding methods. One is called Plain text, and the other is HTML encoding. With plain text, you can only put limited characters in your message, which means some symbols or emojis may not be available. This shouldn’t affect you too much as long as you keep it simple with your texts anyway. So this shouldn’t be a problem at all. However, if you plan to use slightly more complex messages, HTML will allow you to choose font colors, font sizes, and backgrounds.
4. Not Testing Your Messages Before You Start Sending Them
It’s really important to test your messages before sending them out to ensure that everything looks and works the way you want. This includes the layout, the design, the color, and even the tone of your message. You don’t want to come across as unprofessional or pushy, so make sure that everything is just right before hitting that send button. The last thing you want is for people to think that you’re just another spammer trying to hawk their product or service.
5. Not Tracking Your Messages for Success
Using an SMS marketing service is not enough; you also need to track your messages to get accurate numbers on which ones are working best for your company and which ones aren’t worth sending out anymore. So what kind of things should you be looking at? The first thing is open rates. If someone has opened your message, then it means that they’re somewhat interested in what you have to say. If they haven’t opened it, then there may be something wrong with the subject line or how you’ve presented your offer. Click-through rates are also important to track, as this will tell you how many people are clicking on the links you’ve provided in your messages.
6. Not segmenting Your List Properly
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to SMS marketing is not segmenting your list properly. This means that you should divide your list into different groups depending on their interests, demographics, and even their buying habits. This will allow you to send out more targeted messages relevant to each group and increase your chances of getting a positive response from them. Not doing this is a big waste of time and effort since you’ll be sending out messages that won’t interest most of your recipients.
SMS marketing can be a great way to connect with customers and increase sales, but only if correctly. Avoid these common mistakes, and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a text messaging pro, as you can increase your profits and improve your relationships with customers.
