Ninety-seven (97) percent of Americans own some form of cell phone, and 85% are smartphone users. Statista reports that in the second quarter of 2020 (when the global pandemic really took hold), mobile retail spending accounted for $47.8 billion just in that quarter, and 31% was transacted via mobile devices. 

You likely see the potential and may be interested in reaching these mobile shoppers through SMS or MMS marketing, but there is much to consider. We are here to help. Here are five best practices for getting started with SMS and MMS marketing campaigns. 

What Is SMS and MMS?

While both SMS and MMS are considered “text” messages, there are some important differences. Here’s a run-down: 

What Is SMS?

SMS or short message service is what most people think of when you say text messaging. It’s 

straightforward and direct: No pictures, videos, GIFs or emojis. 

SMS relies on cellular network connections, so as long as someone has a cellular plan, they can receive a text message. And best of all, even a basic cell phone includes text messaging. 

Even from an unknown number, industry data shows that the open rate for SMS messages is 94%, while the click-through-rate (CTR) is 19%, which is higher than the average CTR for email marketing at 15%.

SMS works best for straightforward, short (but important) content, such as opt-in language or order confirmations. Here are a few facts about SMS:

• You have a 160-character limit (characters include spaces and punctuation). If you exceed the limit, the message can still be sent but may be split into multiple texts and not necessarily in the order you intended. 
• You wouldn’t use emojis here (you can send an SMS message with emojis, but the character limit, in that case, is 70 characters)
• SMS is about $.01 per message

What Is MMS?

MMS or multimedia messaging service allows text messaging, including images, GIFs, JPEGs, emojis and video or audio clips. MMS makes the message come to life and be more appealing to the recipient. 

However, your customer could have different MMS limits, depending on their mobile service provider. And not all providers accept MMS, so the message could bounce. 

MMS messages are better used with precision and to capture the user’s attention, i.e. sending out an outbound message about a promotion, or an opt-in success message. Here are some quick facts about MMS:

• MMS supports emojis, pictures and videos 
• MMS has a character limit of 1,600 characters. 
• There is also a limit on data, which is about 1MB; that works out to more than a million characters or a short (under one minute) video 
• MMS is about $.03 to start

For more, see our article on SMS vs. MMS for Beginners.

5 SMS and MMS Campaign Best Practices

With the number of people using either a cell phone or a smartphone, integrating an SMS/MMS campaign into your marketing strategy makes sense. Here are some ways to set yourself up for success: 

Best Practice 1: The Content

Be aware of what each customer opted in for and ensure that any text messaging campaign is aligned with why they opted in. Equally important, maintain a list of customers who have opted out and do not send them any information they have not agreed to.

Ensure that all content is high quality and high value, and it's just not another random marketing message. Personalization is key here. 

If you use segmentation, you can personalize the copy to each segment or include an incentive. 

For example, use the person’s name or personalize it with words like “just for you.” You want your customer to feel special because an appreciated customer is a loyal customer. 

You can further customize with holidays, seasons or a customer’s birthday. Go ahead and send them a text on their birthday. Everyone likes to be remembered! 

You’ll also want to use unique content in your SMS/MMS campaigns versus other marketing channels. Your customers may have opted in for both text and email communications, and receiving the same message twice may not have the same impact. 

Best Practice 2: The Frequency

Flooding your customers with text messages is a sure-fire way to alienate your customer base, get blocked and if you annoy them sufficiently, trigger a complaint under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). 

In our experience at Radiance Labs,  we have found that once a week is a good cadence for sending messages. In addition, ensure you aren’t sending more than two to four campaigns in a month. 

Use segmentation to send the right message to the right audience at the right time. For example, if a customer bought a product that requires replacement parts, sending a reminder 30 to 60 days after purchase would make sense, but a week later would not. 

Best Practice 3: The Timing

The TCPA states SMS campaigns can be sent from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the recipient’s timezone. It can be difficult to know a user’s location, and area codes are not a reliable indicator. So, practically this means 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific Time.

The type of message will influence your best time to send it out. If you are a restaurant offering a lunch special to your VIP clients, mid-morning will get their attention better than late afternoon. 

If you are sending out a reminder of an upcoming appointment, 48 hours ahead works well. (If you have a cancellation policy, make sure you send the reminder with enough time for the customer to adhere to your rules.)

In general, here at Radiance Labs, our research has found that the sweet spot to send SMS/MMS text messages is around 11 a.m. local time, although anytime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. works, and that includes the weekend. 

During these times, people are starting to think about lunch, they’ve cleared the most urgent matters in their morning and many are taking a break and checking their phones. If you want your message to be read, that’s prime time. 

In the e-commerce or retail space, Wednesday through Friday are great days to send out campaigns based on the work we’ve done here at Radiance Commerce. 

We’ve found people are  thinking about the week ahead by Sunday evening and not really in shopping mode on Monday or Tuesday. Textmarketer found 44% of SMS campaigns are sent on Fridays. 

Best Practice 4: Choosing SMS or MMS

You want to use the right medium for your marketing message, so choosing SMS or MMS is important. 

SMS works best for:

• Smaller budgets, since it’s about $.01 per message 
• Short information, such as confirming appointments, opt-ins or order confirmations
• Reminders for renewals, upcoming appointments and events
• If you are sending time-sensitive information
• Messages that do not have images
• Messages that are less than 160 characters, including spaces and punctuation; if you exceed 160 characters, the provider will divide the messages into a series of 160-character messages and hopefully deliver them sequentially

MMS works best for:

• Messages that need images (for example, .JPG, .PNG, .GIF)
• Longer text blocks, since the character limit for MMS is maxed out at 1,600 characters 
• Unlimited emojis (although emojis are polarizing, and some people hate them)
• Impactful messages that you want to generate a response, such as a new product launch, a charitable campaign or a competition 
• When you have a bigger budget, since MMS is around $.03 per message (that makes MMS about two times more expensive per message than SMS) 

Here are some image guidelines:

• If you are using images, make sure they are high quality 
• JPG and .PNG can be used in an MMS campaign; the optimal performance size is under 300KB, max 500KB 
• GIF images can be used in an MMS campaign, too, with optimal dimensions preferably 400x400px with the max file size of 500KB; this optimal file size is to ensure compatibility with a wider range of mobile devices 
• The preferred image orientation on mobile devices is portrait (most phones have a setting where it auto rotates images, and portrait is what most people lock it to when they don't want the phone to keep switching orientation) so for images, use tall (aspect ratio 16:9) or square 

In most cases, you will have a variety of SMS and MMS messaging in your text messaging campaigns to keep things fresh and relevant to the format.

Best Practice 5: Compliance

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) administers the TCPA, which encompasses all forms of business marketing, including all unsolicited email, faxes, telemarketing and robocalls. That oversight has grown to encompass SMS messages as well. 

Before a business can send marketing messages to a consumer, that business must get express written consent from the consumer. Consumers can specify what kind of communications they want to receive. They can also opt out, and that wish must be respected.

Ignoring the rules can be expensive. TCPA fines range from $500 to $1,500 per violation. “Per violation” is per call/text, not per message, so if you send one message to 1,000 customers without obtaining consent first, it could be a costly lesson. 

In 2013, Domino’s Pizza paid approximately $10 million to settle a class action lawsuit involving unsolicited calls and text messages. 

Repeat offenders can be subject to treble damages. 

Final Thoughts

In 2019, wireless users exchanged 2 trillion text messages. Messaging channels like SMS and MMS represent an ideal marketing channel that businesses can leverage. 

SMS/MMS marketing campaigns use similar resources to executing email campaigns and costs are similar, too--but the ROI can be 15 to 50 times the investment in our experience. 

A bonus is that SMS/MMS marketing is easily scalable--you can start with simple text-only campaigns and grow as resources and expertise increase. 

About Us

Radiance Commerce offers a rich conversational messaging platform that provides businesses with the flexibility to communicate with customers, no matter where they are. You can design engaging customer experiences using pre-defined messages and pre-built workflows powered by natural language understanding technologies to uncover customer intent. Additionally, your team can train the chatbot and create automation that handles over 80% of your customer interactions.

Contact us today to learn more about Radiance Commerce or to see our Messaging Platform in action.