SMS tips for your business to be relevant, compliant & connected

With SMS celebrating its existence 20 years ago (hard to believe!), mobile marketing is at the forefront of everyone’s strategic plans for 2013. Why? SMS is certainly revolutionizing the ways in which we communicate, share and connect with one another. According to the Wall Street Journal, texting is now the preferred mode of communication, surpassing traditional phone calls and face-to-face meetings. To confirm that preference, ExactTarget’s SUBSCRIBERS, FANS, & FOLLOWERS, 2012 Channel Preference Survey, reveals 5% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based promotions via text. Think about your typical day, how many texts do you send/receive?

With SMS being an integral part of cross-channel marketing, we wanted to share some of our knowledge on the topic. We’ve included lessons learned from our customers and industry tips to better prepare you for the future.

Make the most of your content

• Data-Driven: Delivering relevant content that applies to your customer will prove to be of value, not viewed as spam. If you know the audience you’re targeting buys product 1, promote product 1 instead of product 2. This can lead to increased response rates, and happier customers.

• Keywords: Use single keyword call to actions that are easy to spell when creating SMS campaigns. Anything that can be changed by autocorrect will make the keyword invalid. Some examples of words that work:

(auto correct will split these words)

Text MYFOOD, Text JINGLEBELLS

Utilize all aspects of mobile

• Email: Integrate email best practices into your SMS campaigns. The MMA requires that the “opt in” and “opt out” options are easy to understand and available for users. Ensuring you are sending to an audience that has given you permission is critical. In fact, the FCC just recently confirmed once a user has opted-out, a onetime text message to confirm may be sent without legal repercussions. Another benefit to pairing SMS and email is the ability to promote one within the other. For example, you could run an SMS campaign targeted just to your email   subscribers, or gain more subscribers through SMS opt-in efforts.

• Push notifications to Apps: The obvious benefit to push notifications is that they require the user to take immediate action. Even though push notifications can be ignored – it still is an important touch point if positioned correctly and the benefit of accepting it is clear to the user.

• Optimization: Make sure your website is optimized for mobile. According to ExactTarget, HTML5 helps aid in making sure your site has what it needs to survive the mobile world. Everything from interactive content to improved usability. This is an important factor when integrating SMS campaigns, as the user will most likely be visiting your website for more information – especially if your SMS offer takes them there.

So what’s in store for the future of SMS? In an article published by Mobile Marketer, James Citron, CEO and co-founder of Mogreet, shared his insight on the topic: “The biggest change in SMS in 2013 is going to be the shift from short form text-only messaging to multimedia rich MMS messaging. The increase in smartphone adoption and as the advancements of phone camera equipment grows, consumers are more and more comfortable with creating and sharing multimedia content.”

The impact of SMS in the mobile space will continue to be one of the best and most preferred ways of reaching consumers. Just how much of an impact? Consider this: Throughout the world, SMS traffic is growing and stood at 7.4 trillion messages in 2011, up 44% from the year before, according to Informa. If SMS isn’t a part of your 2013 marketing strategy, hopefully this article proved why it needs to be.