Every piece of communication that your company generates needs to positively reflect your brand and company values, and SMS/MMS marketing messages are no exception. 

Even though the messages are shorter, they still need to be impactful and on-brand. Here are some tips to write a marketing message that gets results.

What Is a Marketing Text Message?

A marketing text message is a message you send via SMS or MMS. Your target audience receives the messages on their phones after they opt in to communications with your company. 

Done properly, it can accomplish many of the same goals as other marketing media campaigns with similar effort and sometimes, less money -- all the while building customer loyalty. 

There is a lot of data out there on the effectiveness of SMS/MMS marketing. For example, some research shows that SMS/MMS text messages have an open rate of 94%, and a click-through-rate (CTR) of 19%. This is higher than the average CTR for email marketing.

You can segment consumers and send personalized messages based on previous purchases, search history, inquiries, birthdays and anything else you can collect metrics on. 

SMS text messages are also easy to track so you can get a sense of which messages are working and which ones are not. 


How to Write a Marketing Text Message: 10 Things to Consider

Here are 10 tips to craft text messages that will make the most impact: 

1. Get permission: Before you send anything to a customer, make sure they have opted-in to receive marketing messages from you. It can get expensive if you violate the rules. You can learn more about SMS marketing rules in: 5 SMS/MMS Campaign Best Practices. 

2. Identify yourself: Make sure that every message you send clearly identifies your company. Your customers may not have your business number saved in their phones and may not open a random text from an unknown number. 

3. Be concise: Be concise but also include all the information your audience needs. Remember the 5 Ws: Who you are, why you are contacting them, what you want them to do, when they need to respond (or when the offer expires) and where they can get more information. Be clear, be concise, avoid slang, exaggeration and hype. Remember, SMS messages have a 160-character limit, so no emojis, pictures or video; MMS includes images, GIFs, emojis or video, but not all cellular service providers allow MMS messages. 

4. Offer something unique: You want customers to be happy they shared their personal phone number with you. Make them feel like VIPs with text-only promotions, advance notice of sales and new product launches, and other offers and freebies that aren’t available to everyone. 

5. Be mobile-friendly: Not all content plays well with mobile devices. Things like a larger font, mobile-friendly smaller images that load faster and a call to action in words rather than pictures are all good strategies to adopt. 

6. Remember, timing is everything: Remember, there are rules to follow when it comes to texting your customers, and one of them is that SMS campaigns can be sent from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the recipient’s timezone only. Practically, this means 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific Time, since it’s impossible to know where your customers might be located and area codes are not reliable. Also, don’t send too many messages. In our experience, we have found that once a week is a good practice. In addition, you need to ensure you aren’t sending more than two to four campaigns in a month. 

7. Use location-based apps: There is nothing more frustrating than seeing an amazing deal, only to find out it doesn’t apply where you live. By using location-based apps, you can send pertinent deals and information based on geographic location so you don’t frustrate and disappoint your customers with offers they cannot access or take advantage of. 

8. Take “no” for an answer: Always include an unsubscribe option at the end of every message so that if your customers want to unsubscribe, it’s simple for them. “Text STOP to unsubscribe” is clear and straightforward, so long as your messaging platform will follow the directions. People are more likely to opt-in if they have the ability to opt-out again. 

9. Include a call-to-action: What do you want your customers to do after reading the text? Do you want them to go to your store? Go to your website? Sign up for a newsletter? Use a special discount code? Make sure every text message includes clear instructions for people to follow. 

10. Track your results: Text message marketing takes a bit of trial and error, and tracking your results help you determine where your successes are and what needs improvement. Using individual keywords for different regions or campaigns lets you capture metrics for analysis. 

As you build your text message marketing strategy, know that you can start with simple text-only campaigns and grow as resources and expertise increase. For more, see: “Generating ROI with SMS: A Beginners Guide.”