Chances are when you were a child, your parents sat you down and talked about the “golden rule” – treat others the way you want to be treated. As far as your daily interactions go, there’s plenty of merit to subscribing to this concept as you meet new people and connect with established friends and family. What might not be so obvious is that this, and some of life’s other tried and true staples for successfully navigating your social scene, also has a spot in your next great SMS campaign. To learn a little more about being polite, courteous, and effective with mobile marketing, let’s break down the five golden rules of texting with customers and what your brand can do to make sure it always stays in the audience’s good graces.
Make Your Message Clear
First up on the list of golden rules is leaving the text-speak behind. While it might seem hip and cool, chances are you have a better shot at offending your target demographic by using things like “ur” instead of “your” and not the other way around, according to Stuart Marburg of Australian newspaper The Age. To make your message clear and easy to read, write your texts in a simple, straightforward manner. A good way to test these texts is by asking whether you would take it seriously if it wound up in your inbox. If the answer’s anything less than a solid yes, it’s time to start revising the message and switching out the slang for plain English.
Be Considerate with Your Timing
Once your content is in good shape, the next step is not stepping on any toes as you start to plan when these text messages fire off. Again, an easy way to understand the importance of timing is to put yourself in the audience’s shoes. If you wouldn’t want messages popping up during the middle of the night or first thing in the morning as you try and wake up, they probably don’t want this either. If you’re dealing with a local audience, it’s easy enough to figure out appropriate timing. However, if you’re targeted consumers span several time zones, you’ll have to place an even greater premium on adjusting and staging automated messages to ensure that you avoid the faux pas of untimely and intrusive SMS marketing.
Skip the Fluff
Some brands try to turn marketed texts into novels as a way of artificially adding value for the audience. The truth is that customers aren’t interested in all of this fluff, as Susan Gunelius of Entrepreneur Magazine explains. Instead of long-winded and rambling messages, these shoppers want value in the form of straightforward and brief text offers. This doesn’t mean you have to completely cut out any of the friendly banter, just don’t let it interfere with the actual point of firing off these texts in the first place; to offer deals and discounts that not only entice the consumer to stop by your store, but also enhances the relationship between these shoppers and your brand.
Be Friendly
It’s important to note that skipping the fluff doesn’t mean you can’t take a moment to stop and say hi before diving into the meat and potatoes of your SMS pitch. Much like connecting with people face to face, there’s nothing wrong with being friendly and inviting to help kick a conversation off. If you have names attached to your contact list, adding these into your SMS messages with a salutation is a good start. For the brands that don’t have this info on hand or feel like this isn’t the right approach, simply starting off with a salutation at the top of the message is also an acceptable way to cut down the formality and make things more comfortable for your audience as your texts start to hit consumer inboxes.
Don’t Be Afraid to Take a Little Criticism Every Little While
Finally, like plenty of life’s other endeavors, the odds of getting everything right with your first SMS campaign are pretty slim. With this in mind, it’s important to be open to criticism from your audience, according to Bob Bentz of iMedia Connection. While it might not be the most pleasant thing you do during your text campaign, listening to feedback and running A/B testing on your stable of messages is a powerful way to improve and refine your message. The benefit of keeping this form of communication open between you and your audience is that the more you connect with one another and work toward hitting all of the golden rules of SMS marketing, the better off both sides of this relationship will be moving forward.
