When it comes to SMS campaigns, timing is everything. If you send the wrong reminder to a person or miss the ideal time slot, that potential client might feel irritated or opt out of future communication. In order to successfully engage your customers and help guide them to your business, you need to master effective timing strategies.
The Importance of Timing in SMS Campaigns
SMS campaigns are all about communicating directly with your customers. That means that if you mistime your message, you can damage your customer relationship rather than foster it. SMS reminders need to appear when relevant and without overwhelming your customers. When you learn how to time your messages, you can perfect your campaigns and get the best results for your efforts.
Understanding Your Audience
The first best practice for effective SMS campaigns is to understand your audience. Certain audiences will be more receptive to your messaging than others. It’s important to divide your audience into key segments that are clearly identified in your SMS application programming interface. You can then especially engage with audiences at a pace that works for their demographic or consumer needs.
Factors of Effective Timing
There are a few factors that you should consider when approaching effective timing for your campaigns. Here are just a few of the factors that need to be addressed before sending out your first message: the customer’s time zone; the receiver of the SMS; the message’s tone; the message’s end goal or the call to action; the customer’s position in their buying journey; and your customer’s location when they get the message (at work, at home, etc.).
Testing and Optimization
Another essential practice for campaigns is to make sure that you continually test and optimize your approach. You can run several different tests through your SMS API and SMS gateway to try different strategies. For example, you can test with one segment by sending SMS reminders before a sale starts and test with another segment that gets the message on the last day of the sale. You can then test to see which approach generated more revenue.
Automation and Scheduling Tools
Sending messages to your customers is time-consuming, especially if you have a large consumer base. Rather than trying to individually send messages or race to get an SMS notification out before the clock runs down, you can use your SMS API to automate and schedule your communications with customers. This helps save time and ensures you don’t miss any messages that should have been sent for a campaign.
Personalization and Context
No one wants to think they’re just one number in a long list of customers. They want to feel as though they’re respected and appreciated by the business contacting them. Adding personalization through your SMS API system can add individualization factors like names, previous purchases, or available points in messages. You also want to make sure that you contextualize your messages. Make certain customers know who is messaging them and give a clear call to action in each communication.
Conclusion
Learning how to create effective campaigns is a valuable part of engaging your customers and increasing sales. Without the right timing, you can find yourself struggling to reach customers when you need to, and you can even increase your opt-outs and unsubscribe rates for SMS marketing.
To create genuinely effective campaigns, it helps to have the support of a multichannel messaging tool like Mitto. With Mitto, you can send notifications, track conversions, and increase engagement so that your SMS campaigns are effective for your business growth.
