One of the most important parts of SMS Marketing is making sure that you have acquired the right permissions from your recipients. If you are sending SMS to a database of contacts and you have not got the relevant permissions, you could be breaking regulations for sending SMS. Before sending a message to your customers, make sure that you have their explicit consent to contact them.
There are different ways that your customers can opt-in to receive messages from you, including: expressing permission via SMS; filling in a form on your website or even on an external website where you had a lead generation form where they could give permission.
If you are sending promotional content in your SMS, then you must ensure that you have a record of the consent being given; written, electronic or an opt-in section on a website form must all be collected and stored for future reference.
It is essential that the recipients of your message are aware that the message is coming from your company. There are two ways that you can go about this: simply add your company name at the beginning of your SMS with your contact details later on in the message or, ideally, using a Sender ID to show your brand as the sender of the message. Not only does this mean that your message recipients will know the message is from your company, but it will also decrease the time it takes for your customers to open and engage with your SMS.
As well as identifying your company as the sender, you also need to provide clear opt-out instructions for users to remove their consent to receiving SMS from your company. It is imperative that this is clearly displayed within this message; this could be something as simple as providing an opt-out word which the user can text so that they are automatically removed from your list of contacts.
This is especially important if the SMS that you are sending are for marketing purposes. Ensure that you are providing the relevant guidance on how users can opt-out of receiving your messages during the sign-up process when they are opting into your services. This is an important part of complying to SMS best practice and the emphasis is on your business to provide guidance on how your customers can opt-out.
Once users have chosen to opt-out from receiving communication from your business, a process must be in place to ensure that these users are removed from your contact list as soon as possible. Ideally this should be done in real-time to eliminate risks of contacting those who have chosen not to receive further communication from your company.
If you are sending SMS with a customer sender ID, it will not be possible for your recipients to directly reply to your message. In these cases, you should include information within the SMS on how they can opt-out from hearing from you in the future.
Making sure that you are sending the right type of content within your SMS is important as there are different regulations that govern what you can include. This will depend on the type of SMS that you are sending to your database. We can break SMS down into 2 different categories: promotional and transactional, we will discuss this shortly.
In addition to this, you must also ensure that your SMS do not contain language that could be considered offensive or harmful and that it does not violate laws or regulations. Many countries have laws in place relating to registering of sender IDs to help prevent abuse and criminal activity from taking place via SMS.
Ensure that you are not bombarding your database with too many messages as it can have the opposite effect to the one that you are trying to achieve. This may also lead to your recipients unsubscribing from your lists – it is better if you use SMS as a channel to encourage your audience to take action and increase awareness of a particular offer that you have available.
They are most impactful when there is a clear action to be taken and you want to generate a sense of urgency.
You should also make sure that your messages are sent during waking hours as this help increase engagement with your messages – you can use the rdcom multichannel platform to schedule your campaigns to make sure that they are received at a certain time based upon the recipient’s time zone.
Remember to send content that is clear and concise and include a ‘call to action’ to encourage your audience to take action.
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