SMS marketing best practices

SMS marketing is a very personal way to engage customers, get your message out, and to market to a wide audience. It is a great form of marketing to integrate with your overall marketing mix. When using SMS marketing, keep the best practices in mind in order to achieve the optimal results.
The marketing best practices for SMS to consider are as follows:

1. Stay relevant- Make sure your message belongs where you are putting the content. Because you are marketing to a very personal device, you want to make sure that you are not marketing dog food on a clothing page, or sending incontinence product ads to cell phones of teenagers. Basically, like with all marketing, make sure what you are saying and doing is relevant to the audience you are trying to engage. You will have better results, and won't end up alienating anyone in the process.

2. Get permission from users- It is important in SMS marketing that you get permission or consent through an opt-in before you message users. It is important because SMS messages cost money, and the recipient needs to know they are signed up, and the implications that go with it. You can get in legal trouble, as well as alienate users if you do not have an opt-in list. It is always a good idea to have a double opt-in, as this means you won't get any accidental opt-ins that are unhappy with getting your texts or other SMS messages when all is said and done. You can include opt-in buttons on apps and on your website as well, which is a great way to integrate your mobile marketing campaign with your other forms of marketing.

3. Provide some value- Do not spam people. Instead give them something they care about (coupon codes, etc.), in exchange for contacting them in a personal way. You have to know your audience and what they will consider to be of value. A ticket company (like Stubhub) might provide value to consumers by reminding them when popular tickets come available. A retail company might provide discount coupons, and alert consumers of sales and events. The idea is to give them a reason to NOT opt out of receiving your messages.

4. Time- One of the best ways to use SMS is for time sensitive events, sales, etc. You do NOT want to use SMS marketing to advertise a sale or an event weeks out, rather day of! In addition, you want to have some time between each message, as you do not want any user to feel as though you are monopolizing their device with your ads, marketing, surveys, etc. Even if you are giving them coupon codes, more than once or so a week may simply be too much.
Following the SMS best practice will help insure that your campaign is successful, and your consumers are happy.