{"id":1426,"date":"2022-07-08T15:40:55","date_gmt":"2022-07-08T15:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2024-04-24T08:51:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T08:51:50","slug":"5-sms-marketing-blunders-avoid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/5-sms-marketing-blunders-avoid\/","title":{"rendered":"5 SMS marketing blunders to avoid"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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5 SMS marketing blunders that will almost guarantee unsubscribes<\/h1>\n\n

SMS marketing is more popular now than it\u2019s ever been.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Whether your using an\u00a0SMS API<\/a>\u00a0or a piece of software to send texts, more and more companies are using SMS as a low cost, responsive way of contacting their customers and colleagues.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

But SMS is so amazingly basic, it\u2019s bizarre that it\u2019s still popular. When you compare it with the numerous messaging apps, it\u2019s frankly downright lousy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Despite industry pundits predicting the slow decline of\u00a0business SMS<\/a><\/strong>, the evidence appears to show that the reverse is the case.<\/p>\n\n

Market research company Zion, valued the global SMS market at around\u00a0$55 billion<\/strong>\u00a0and expects it to reach\u00a0$70 billion dollars<\/strong>\u00a0by 2020, growing at about 4% a year.<\/p>\n\n

With SMS continuing to flourish, how can you make sure that as many people remain on your opted in list as possible?<\/p>\n\n

We\u2019ve identified\u00a05 common blunders<\/strong>\u00a0that will have people\u00a0unsubscribing<\/a>\u00a0in their droves.<\/p>\n\n

Blunder 1
Send too frequently<\/h2>\n\n

SMS fatigue<\/strong>\u00a0is one of the commonest reasons why your contacts will unsubscribe.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

There\u2019s nothing more infuriating than a company that keeps on and on at you; disturbing you with their shrill texts, repeatedly offering you something that you would have bought if you were interested.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s an obvious point but don\u2019t just keep sending the same type of text repeatedly, hoping that you\u2019ll beat people into submission.<\/p>\n\n

You won\u2019t, you\u2019ll just annoy them to the point that they\u2019ll decide enough is enough and subscribe.<\/p>\n\n

Sending too frequently is a sure-fire way of losing hard won good will. Worse still, there\u2019s a good chance they might spread the word and encourage others not to sign up.<\/p>\n\n

EE Opens\u00a0SMS Floodgates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

I recently received a tsunami of texts from EE, who were encouraging me to buy more data as my monthly allowance had run out. (I know, I\u2019ve no idea why I\u2019m on such a ridiculous tariff, I need to sort it.)<\/p>\n\n

\"EE<\/figure>\n\n

This is the text I received. Seems reasonable. I\u2019d run out of data, so here\u2019s a helpful alert to let me know and a link to click so that I can top up.<\/p>\n\n

What\u2019s not so great is that between 23rd October and 2nd November I received a further 16 identical texts.<\/p>\n\n

On one day, I received 3 texts. After 1 week of this brutal SMS bombardment I think I hated EE more than any other company.<\/p>\n\n

Why no unsubscribe option?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

You\u2019ll notice that EE haven\u2019t included an unsubscribe option here. As this is an account alert and isn\u2019t strictly marketing, they\u2019re not required to include opt out instructions.<\/p>\n\n

Under GDPR this is a slightly grey area as when you click through to the data top up area you are marketed to, with offerings of different data packages.<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n

Blunder 2
Cram in too much<\/h2>\n\n

160 is a feeble character allowance<\/strong>\u00a0but we\u2019re stuck with it. The temptation is overwork your text so that you can get all your points across.<\/p>\n\n

This always ends in a muddle. Your end up having to resort to text speak which people dislike or the offer itself is confused.<\/p>\n\n

\"Perfect<\/figure>\n\n

There\u2019s much we can learn from this excellent text offer I received from Photobox.<\/p>\n\n

In terms of clarity and brevity of offer it\u2019s pretty perfect and I wrote a blog post giving a\u00a0full analysis of the text<\/u>\u00a0<\/a>detailing the reasons\u00a0we felt it was so good.
\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

You\u2019re far better off keeping your offer simple with a clear call to action. Less is most definitely more.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n

Blunder 3
Send stuff that\u2019s not relevant<\/h2>\n\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

If you\u2019re sending a customer or prospect a marketing text then you\u2019ve obviously captured their mobile number.<\/p>\n\n

Along with their number you\u2019ll have undoubtedly taken a whole host of other details that will allow you to send a message that\u2019s relevant to the individual customer\u00a0and not just a\u00a0bulk SMS<\/a>\u00a0blast sent to everyone on the database.<\/p>\n\n

Be as specific and relevant as possible to minimise the number of unsubscribes.<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n

Blunder 4
Just sell<\/h2>\n\n

SMS is one the most responsive<\/strong>\u00a0direct marketing channels available and there\u2019s no doubt that it\u2019s very effective for generating sales.<\/p>\n\n

But you can have too much of a good thing. If every text that you send is just trying to flog stuff, your customers and prospects will soon become bored and are likely to unsubscribe.<\/p>\n\n

Mix up your sales texts with other useful information. Try and add some value to what you\u2019re sending rather than overwhelming your contacts with sales offers.<\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n

Blunder 5
Get the timing wrong<\/h2>\n\n

The timing of your SMS campaign is vital<\/strong>. Get it right and your customers will love you for it and you\u2019ll build loyalty and trust.<\/p>\n\n

Get is wrong and you\u2019ll be seen at best as uncaring and at worst incompetent.<\/p>\n\n

I recently received an MOT reminder from Kwik Fit, just a few days after my car had been MOT\u2019d\u2026 by them. Not their finest hour as they\u2019re usually spot on with their text alerts and reminders.<\/p>\n\n

Make sure that what you’re sending your customers make sense from a timing point of view.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Can we help?<\/h2>\n\n

The digital and\u00a0social marketing<\/a>\u00a0worlds are changing so fast and there’s\u00a0plenty of expert advice<\/a>\u00a0to steer you in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n

But If you’d like some help with your SMS marketing, feel free to get in touch.<\/p>\n\n

Another set of eyes looking over\u00a0what you’re sending can sometimes be useful in highlighting issues that might not be immediately obvious.<\/p>\n\n

No charge of course, we’d be delighted to help. You’ll find our details on our\u00a0contacts page.<\/a><\/p>\n\n

You might also want to put our\u00a0SMS API<\/a>\u00a0through its paces.<\/p>\n\n

Help yourself to a\u00a0free SMS API account<\/a>. It comes with 50 free text credits for testing.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 SMS marketing blunders that will almost guarantee unsubscribes SMS marketing is more popular now than it\u2019s ever been. Whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesmsworks.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}