Seventy percent of the world population will be mobile users by 2020 according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index; which means 5.5 billion global cellphone users can be targeted through SMS marketing.

SMS provides a fast, real-time access to your clients. It has 98% open rate, the highest among other marketing methods. It can be seen by your consumers immediately and they can respond quickly too. In fact, 90% of SMS texts are read within three minutes after receiving.

Using SMS is a great way to increase your sales; but, you have to do it the right way. Avoid the common mistakes below to achieve the full potential of SMS marketing.

5 SMS Marketing Mistakes and How You Can Avoid Them:

1. Failure to Know Your Clients

Knowing who your customers are is imperative to be victorious in any business. It should be the first step of any marketing strategy including SMS marketing.
Blindly shooting your messages to unknown consumers will make you reach your goals longer if you reach them at all.
To avoid this mistake, you have to do your research first. Learn about the professions, likes, hobbies, and activities of your recipients. Only send messages to those who might be interested in your products and services.

2. Failure to Personalize your Messages

Not personalizing messages is a common mistake of SMS marketers. Sending messages that obviously has been sent to thousands of recipients is not appealing to receivers.

You can only personalize your messages if you already solved the first mistake, failure to know your clients. Once you have performed research about your clients, use the results to make your messages personal.

3. Lacking or Unclear CTA

Marketing messages without CTAs are useless. The purpose of marketing through SMS is to convince and convert your costumers to avail of your offers. Without CTA, you cannot achieve that.
You also have to make your CTA’s clear and simple to understand. Use the language that your respondents are using and make it easy for them to respond.

4. Improper Timing of Messages

Base your timing on your research about your customers and previous researches about SMS marketing. You should send your messages during the most probable time they will open your message immediately and act on your CTA. You should try your best not to send your messages during disruptive times because you do not want to be annoying.

5. Sending long messages

Nobody has the time and patience to read lengthy messages. They might just open and delete your message if they see that it’s too long. Make your messages straightforward and concise.

Conclusion

Not researching about customers, not personalizing, no or vague CTA, improper timing, and sending long messages are among the common mistakes made in SMS marketing.

To avoid these mistakes, you must know and understand your target receivers and compose a message that is fit with their characteristics. Use a clear CTA, make your message brief and send it at the most reasonable time.

Failure to think about your customers first is the main reason of the mistakes made in SMS marketing. Before sending any message to your clients, think if it’s a message you would also like to receive.