3 Steps To Improve Your SMS Text Messaging

Same Subscribers, Better Results

Once you’ve begun running an SMS marketing campaign it feels logical to increase your results by getting more subscribers, but it’s not always the best course of action.  If you currently get a 5% response rate (5% of people who get your text message are turning up for the promotion), rather than look for more subscribers, let’s think about the 95% who didn’t turn up.

If, for example, you send 1,000 text messages saying you have a new range of designer sunglasses, then a 1% response rate is equivalent to 10 sales.  And given a pair of designer sunglasses can cost over £100, your 10 sales could be worth £1,000.  What I’m saying is, let’s think about increasing that 1% to 2% and getting another £1,000 from the same set of subscribers.

Divide up Your Database

First up, stop sending to all 1,000 people in one batch.  Split the database into smaller units of 250.  It doesn’t matter which numbers you choose, do it completely at random, but split it down into smaller chunks.  If you’re sending via textburst make 4 groups of contacts.  By using smaller chunks of data you can test more variables and see what has the greatest effect.

Send at Different Times

Now we have smaller chunks of data you can start testing with.  Test 1 — send at different times while using the same message.  This depends a little on what you’re promoting but instead of sending 1,000 messages once a month, send 250 once a week.  Already sending once a week?  Send once a day instead.  Look at the results, do you get better results if you send on a particular day, or perhaps during a particular week of the month?  Maybe the best week is the first week of the month, just after most of us get paid, for example.

If you get really poor results at certain times, stop sending at those times.  If you’ve worked out the perfect week then start testing with the best day.  Have you already worked out the best day? Test different times of the day.  It’s important to never stop testing.

Tweak the Copy

I’ll assume you’re beginning to get the feel for the best time to send a message.  Now let’s tweak the copy.  Let’s assume the original copy is: “The new designer range of sunglasses is now in stock, get down to Sunglasses world and check em out.”  Variants could include: “Check out our new Designer Sunglasses range at Sunglasses World,” or  “Come to Sunglasses world this weekend and see our new Designer Sunglasses range,” or even “Just in, New Designer Sunglasses at Sunglasses World, get em before the sun goes down!”

Your objective is not to keep the ones with the best response, it’s to drop the ones that get the worst response.  You should always be tweaking the best ones, trying to improve them again and again.  It’s an iterative process that doesn’t stop, just keep dropping the ones that do the worst.

Finally…

Once you’ve established the best times to send and some optimal copy, don’t stop tweaking. Go back and test different times again, and try entirely new copy.  Things change, people change, and so should your SMS Marketing.

Article from Mobile Marketing Watch - A guest post from Gary Berry Managing Director at Mediaburst Limited - A UK based mobile marketing provider.