In this media-savvy era, it’s hard to hold people’s attention, particularly through SMS marketing.  With a simple flick of a finger, your txt can be deleted in an instant. Below we have highlighted the top six ways you may be sabotaging your own efforts by making some or all of these mistakes in your campaigns:

1.     Forgetting a call to action

Forgetting to tell customers what they must do next is a common mistake by many. It comes as no surprise that a fault by a lot of users is the easy slip-up of leaving out relevant contact details. Make your SMS as clear and concise as possible. With over 75% of people preferring to receive offers over any other form of call to action, it’s important to make your own call to action strong from the outset. Be sure to add either a reply option, address to visit, website to visit, coupon to present in store and/or number to call.  

2.     Forgetting to test and check

In the haste to send a message, don’t forget to test and check your SMS for errors first. One way of testing this effectively is by pretending that you are the customer receiving the txt message at hand. In doing this, you can easily see if the message makes sense, whether the details are correct, and if it needs further improvement. Remembering to check simple details such as web addresses, spelling and grammar, phone numbers etc. may be the deciding factor between the recipient’s decision to press ‘delete’ or ‘subscribe’.

3.     Having no option to unsubscribe

By neglecting to include an unsubscribe option, you are not only irritating your clients, you are also breaking the law. You must give them an opportunity to opt out of receiving further marketing messages each time. If any SMS recipient wishes to leave the list, you must let them do so at any given time. After all, what’s the point in having people on your list who don’t want to receive notifications from your brand?

4.     Treating everyone the same

Not segmenting your database is a rookie mistake. Ensure you create targeted campaigns based on your subscriber preferences by creating specific txts for specific target audiences.

5.     Overloading customers

By their very nature, marketing SMS messages are considered intrusive. So don’t overwhelm customers by sending them lots of txt messages at once.  Although it is every brand’s intention to ‘get their message across’, there are multiple rules one must follow to ensure they don’t overload customers. The rules are as follows:

–       Don’t repeat a message exactly

–       Don’t include a call to action that has been completed

–       Make sure you wait 2-3 weeks before sending more txts

6.     Focusing only on selling

Try to avoid letting your txt focus purely on persuading an individual to buy your product. Instead, add value to what you are saying by using local information relevant to your recipient, as well as useful information about your niche (this can also be achieved through the likes of videos).

At the end of the day, stopping these 6 mistakes will  not only enhance your brand name but also your brand performance. By taking extra precautions to ensure you stop making these mistakes, you are fostering the relationship between yourself and your customers allowing for an effect SMS marketing system.