Expert Advice: 6 Promotional SMS Best Practices That Boost Sales

Running an SMS marketing campaign without following the promotional SMS best practices is unwise.

It’s like a pilot flying a plane without going through the preflight checklist. That trip would be a high risk.

If you want your SMS campaigns to deliver the desired results, then you need to follow the prescribed guidelines.

And to help you, we discussed with 4 marketing experts.

As you read this article you will learn tips that will help your business garner more brand loyalty and trust. 

As a result, you’ll easily be able to run campaigns that’ll boost your business sales and revenue.

See KPIs For Promotional SMS: How to Optimise Your Next SMS Campaign

Promotional SMS – the best practices for your business

At SMSCountry, we work with so many different and incredible organisations across various verticals. We have even witnessed more than a thousand use cases where businesses using promotional SMS went from ordinary to extraordinary. 

So, after doing our due diligence by looking at our customers and consulting market leaders, we have come up with these pointers that will make your promotional SMS marketing campaigns more impactful and successful. 

Permissions 

This is one of the most important and often overlooked points of SMS marketing. Before sending your customers promotional SMS, you first have to gain their permission. 

“If you don’t have their explicit consent, you’ll not only be breaking the law but also putting your organisation in harm’s way,” says Ashwin ROW, the product specialist at Route Mobile Limited. 

Ashwin continues, “The good news here is that you can get permission quite easily from your customers. They could simply opt-in by sending in a keyword to your numbers or fill a form or even go the paper route.”

The bottom line is that your customers need to agree to receive the SMS from you or your brand. 

“We consider this to be the most important and the best practice for any promotional SMS marketing program,” adds Ashwin. 

Also Read: 3 Ways to Send Promotional SMS to DND Numbers

Consistency with the number of texts

One of the biggest mistakes a lot of businesses, including the big ones, do is not sending promotional SMS consistently. 

As Ashish Bavishi, the partner at SMSCloud Hub, says, “The reasoning for such behaviour is because they don’t want to spam their customers.” 

“However, if you send too few promotional SMS, your customers would even forget why they signed up in the first place. So when they hear from your business, not only would it be out of the blue, but also potentially unwelcoming to them.” 

Ashish goes on to add that “customers respond well to consistent messaging and just like good social media strategy, successful promotional SMS campaigns maintain a consistent and regular schedule.” 

So as a business owner, you need to build a customer persona and understand what consistency means to your customers and to your business. 

Exclusive elements in your promotional SMS

When deciding on what kind of promotional SMS to send, do well to reflect on what it means when someone subscribes to receive your SMS.

Here’s a hint: Your customer is providing you access to the most direct and personal way to reach them. 

So, successful SMS campaigns offer value to their customers in return. 

Ashish says, “If you include the same promotions in your email, Instagram posts, and your promotional SMS, you are basically giving your customers reasons to opt out.”

“So by all means, avoid recycled content. Your promotional SMS should offer exclusive discounts and sales to your customers. It should be something that’s only exclusive to your SMS list.” 

In simpletexting’s 2020 SMS marketing report, it was noted that SMS subscribers wanted access to flash sales and promotions. 

With that in mind, endeavour to always keep your promotional SMS list exclusive.

Value addition to your customers

Expanding on the earlier idea of exclusivity, another principle that you need to follow for a successful promotional SMS campaign is to make every SMS count.

Mahamood Shahdad, the marketing head at KAPSYSTEM, says, “Instead of blasting your customers with the same vague promotional SMS each week, your strategy should focus on being SMART. With each SMS, ask if it is SMART, i.e. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Timely.“

You could also consider layering in some rich media like photos, videos, links, and ebooks to diversify and engage your audience. 

Memorable KEYWORD

SMS keywords play a huge role in hooking up new customers.

As Shahdad says, “The advice here is to really think of a keyword that is creative and memorable. Customers are more likely to act on it and thereby increase brand retention and your campaign’s reach.”

For example, if you are a dog grooming business, clients will likely remember keywords like HAPPYDOG, instead of GROOMING SALON.

Your keyword confirmation also gives you an excellent opportunity to welcome SMS subscribers and reinforce your brand. 

Time it right

Imagine that it’s 9:00 PM and you’re comfortably snacking and watching Netflix. The last thing you want is your phone ringing with a message about car insurance promotions. 

So you see, your customers wouldn’t like to be contacted at odd times. 

As Shadad puts it, “Align your promotional SMS with your customer’s expectations by keeping them within reasonable business hours.”

He continues, “10:00 AM to 6:00 PM is usually the right window for you to send your promotional SMS to your customers and to avoid disturbing them.”

Also Read: 8 Promotional SMS Templates to Supercharge Your Sales

Run SMS Promotions That Convert

Now you have almost everything you need to create successful promotional SMS campaigns.

But, without a reliable bulk SMS service platform, you’ll be back to zero.

SMSCountry is the simplest and fastest platform that offers 24/7 support.

Since 2003, SMSCountry has helped countless businesses grow with SMS, let’s help yours too.

Sign up for free and get test credits to try out our platform or request a free demo and experience SMSCountry firsthand.

Learn more about us on our website or compare us with the best OTP SMS providers and the best Bulk SMS providers in the market.