Getting the right balance with your SMS marketing campaign: how often is too often?

4 January 2013

One question that businesses always like to ask is how often they should send SMS messages to their customers. Unfortunately there is no straightforward answer to this question as there is no set number of text messages that you should be sending to your customers. This is because every business is different and so are their customers.

A lot of businesses worry that their messages are going to irritate their customers. However, keep in mind that is a much more private form of communication. Emails, landlines and the postal service are all areas that are prone to spam whereas mobile phones have a lot more legal protection. For instance it is illegal to acquire the mobile phone number of a customer and send them text messages without them giving you permission. This filters out the customers who do not wish to be contacted by you and leaves the customers who are happy to receive your messages. It also worth noting that customers can opt out of receiving your messages at any time if they do change their minds.

Ways to track whether your SMS marketing is working:

Some companies are naturally better suited to using SMS marketing than others so they can get away with sending texts to their customers more often. This is usually related to the type of content that they are sending.

The best way to tell if you’re sending too many text messages is to experiment with the number of messages you send customers per month. Track how customers are interacting with your messages and how many people are opting out. If you increase the number of text messages you are sending and start receiving a higher volume of opt-outs then this is probably a sign that you are sending too many messages.

Likewise, you also need to ensure that you aren’t sending too few messages either. If your messages are hitting the mark and delivering content that your customers are eager to interact with then the chances are they will be keen to receive more messages from you.

You could try asking customers to fill in a survey or poll about how often they would like to receive messages from you and the type of content they’d be happy to receive. You can then split your customers into separate messaging lists based on their feedback.

When to send SMS messages and how often?

Finally, here are some broad examples of how often you should be sending your customers certain types of content. Remember these are just generalisations so it is best to run your own experiments to decide what suits your company best.

• Texts to send occasionally:

Seasonal promotional offers, specific event related content (e.g. Christmas, Mother’s Day or an annual conference), service reminders (e.g. medical appointments, membership renewals or entertainment bookings).

• Texts to send regularly:

Weekly occurring deals (e.g. curry night at a restaurant or student night at the bowling alley), news and weather bulletins, short term automated notifications (e.g. estate agents adding new house listings).

For more information call our customer service team on 0845 122 1302.

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