How to write high-conversion SMS marketing messages

Best SMS marketing messages

SMS marketing not only delivers impressive conversion and response rates, but around 98% of your recipients will open your SMS, therefore you need to ensure that your content is relevant and engaging.

Clickatell’s active support is an easy-to-use solution for your mobile SMS marketing campaigns, but you need to consider that you are ultimately asking people to stop and read your SMS during their busy day. Following some of our useful tips can help you convey a compelling message within a very limited character count.

Golden Rules of SMS marketing

Keep it short. You only have 160 characters to work with so get to the point quickly and remember that the recipient wants to know ‘what’s in it for me’. By using shorter, more attention-grabbing sentences you will engage your reader and encourage a high click-through on your call-to-action.

Watch your language. Remember the aim of an SMS marketing campaign is to add value to the reader’s life and build a meaningful relationship with your clients, so don’t spam them! E-mail marketing campaigns not only allow for more text in the body of the message but you can add more links and company branding. When composing your SMS you need to be concise and to the point by grabbing your recipient’s attention. Don’t use abbreviations like ‘l8’, ‘LOL’ or ‘gr8’ which can come across as spam. Highlighting certain key words with capitals e.g. ‘FREE’ or ‘SALE’ is perfectly acceptable but do so sparingly otherwise it will seem like you’re shouting. Always use language that promotes a professional image and that is in line with your brand.

Who, what and when. Always add who the message is from, otherwise customers won’t know it’s your brand and your campaign won’t deliver results. Explain your campaign clearly and succinctly and create a sense of urgency by giving your offer an expiration date e.g. ‘Offer ends Sunday’.

Personal touch. Using the recipient’s name at the beginning of the SMS is a powerful way to engage your customer and make them feel valued. Be careful of your character count as long names can occasionally send you over the single SMS limit.

One size does not fit all. The more customized the message is for a specific group of customers, the better the conversion. Rather than send one message to all your customers, send relevant messages to customers who might find the message useful.  It could be very valuable to your campaigns to integrate SMS into your CRM system, which means you can segment and target your customers from there.

Exit gracefully. Add a powerful call-to-action (CTA) at the end of the SMS message e.g. ‘Call us now’. Even though it takes up a lot of characters, remember to always add an opt-out option as it will save you in unnecessary fines. Finally, make sure you test, revise and test again before you send out your campaign and measure the results of each campaign for some valuable insights into your business-customer relationship.

Now that you know how to fine-tune your SMS campaigns, start using Clickatell Platform to create high conversion SMS marketing campaigns.