Don’t Let Text Messages Look Shady-4 Texting Practices to Avoid at All Costs 

Though businesses are inundated with several communication channels, texts have successfully managed to be favorite of all. Owing to the fact that it is prompt and more likely to be read within the first three minutes of being received. In the concern of massive outreach within seconds and personalized messaging, marketers only have SMS in their bucket to count on. 

Whether it is about building relationships with customers, driving engagement, loyalty, or sales, there’s no means where SMSes fail to bring out the desired outcome. Thus, text messages have become a vital ingredient for marketers to give a head-start to marketing pursuits.

Texting Practices to keep at bay

But like any other marketing activity, even text marketing campaigns can fail on account of bombarding too many texts to one customer, compelling them for any specific actions through messages, and many others.

These kinds of trivial mistakes while text marketing severely hampers marketing returns and may lead to failure of campaigns too.

So, let’s find out what kind of practices to avoid to derive maximum results out of your marketing campaigns.

#1 Text Without Consent-A Road To Penalty

Just buying a list of customers and then starting sending out messages is not how a text campaign needs to begin. Instead, it is the fastest way to put any sender into spammers’ lists. Compliance like TCPA can prove to be a spoilsport and ruin all your text marketing campaigns. 

Any text sent against a customer’s wish may end up with a penalty of $500 or more. Thus, confirming opt-in is a way to stay in compliance. You can derive written confirmation from users through web forms, keyword text responses, or a document. So, before you send your first message, ensure you have customers’ consent to avoid any negative repercussions in the future.

#2 Forced Sign-ups-A Big-Time ‘No’

Attracting sign-ups through misleading forms or compelling prospects to sign-up for a particular kind of information and then delivering information on another topic is a practice to avoid at any cost. Customers who sign-up proactively tend to be more reliable and stay longer than customers accumulated out of forced sign-ups. Try to grow your text messaging list organically through opt-in programs. Entice them to opt-in with offers, discounts, or any other reward. Further, promote your opt-in programs on your website and other platforms like social media to outreach a massive crowd.

With a reliable list, it is much easier to anticipate, get results as envisaged and stay away from mass opt-outs.

#3 Incessant Texting- An Invitation to Customer Annoyance

The frequency of sending out messages is what should be taken care of to consistently deliver value to your subscribers through texts.

Sending out just anything through texts for sake of sending messages may end you up with customers’ annoyance and heavy opt-outs.

Until there’s something important to convey, abstain from sending messages. Even if you are getting good responses from customers, don’t bombard them with messages, and set a reasonable frequency.

This way, you can deliver more value and real-time benefits of text marketing to your customers without letting them regret their opt-in decision.

#4 Messages sans CTA- Take You Nowhere

What’s the use of sending messages out if your customers don’t know what to do next. Text without any CTA washes away the effectiveness that comes along with text marketing campaigns.

Capture insights on customers’ preferences, likes, dislikes, etc. and then design your CTA with relevant offers projecting that you care about them. Without CTA, it is just like leaving clients halfway with no destination.

So never forget to add a compelling call-to-action apprising users about their next step.

Some Other Unspoken Rules Of Customer Interaction

1. Communicate Mandatory Disclosures, not SPAM.

DO- Send messages and elaborate clearly whether your business or your customers can expect to be impacted.

Let them know if services could be affected by the current situation directly or through preventative measures put in place by local and national governments for safety.

DON’T- Send overly generic recommendations that clutter customer inboxes and news feed. 

This is especially dangerous and could end up contributing to inbox message volumes, drowning out important public service announcements.

2.State Your Terms Clearly

DO- Disseminate any prerequisites and conditions for transactions clearly.

DON’T- Offer vague reassurances or messages. They’re off-putting and irresponsible.

3. Use Simpler, Comprehensible Text For Opt-In’s.

DO: Be sure to make it simpler for people to opt-in with a keyword response to a shortcode as well as lay out the kind of communique they can expect in human-friendly conditions.

It pays to write comprehensively, as opposed to shooting out illegible Terms & Conditions documents we know agree no on reads.

DON’T: Use misleading terms or uncontextualized content to interact with customers. It hurts client confidence and mars good-faith engagements needed to build on relationships for repeat business.

4. Schedule Messages For Appropriate Hours

DO: Find the best times for interacting with your customers in their specific country or region, while keeping in mind work-cultural quirks of that demographic. 

DON’T: Schedule messages at tiresome times, like late at night, dining hours, or early in the morning. 

5. Arrive at a  Reasonable Texting Frequency 

DO: Factor in texting frequency and assign messaging schedules by urgency, audience segments, and interest levels.

DON’T: Dismiss frequency as immaterial solely based on initial recipient responses, lest you’re okay being blacklisted. Stay in the clear and don’t ruin a good thing.

6. Stay relevant

DO: Use messages as an opportunity to probe and learn about prospects, their perceptions, and what matters to them through surveys. 

DON’T: Push out everything on your checklist. It betrays entitlement and impatience and means more uninvited work for your prospects. 

Don’t let your campaigns fall prey to suspicion, Send on-brand consented text with 360 SMS

One wrong move is enough to ruin all efforts invested in designing a text marketing campaign. Even the tiniest mistake while running a campaign is potent enough to turn the tables and show your users the way for opt-outs instead of opt-ins. Considering  the right strategies and every aspect of texting, businesses can turn towards a heads-up text marketing that is competent enough to drive loyal customers, more prospects in the pipeline and quick conversions.