Text SMS and Email Marketing-Four Best Practices for Your Text Message Marketing Campaigns

There are some best practices that are particularly important to text message marketing. You'll want to follow all the industry guidelines, but these four are the most important.

The number one best practice (and law) of text messaging is to get permission. Never send a text message that has not been explicitly requested. You will harm your business immeasurably if you do. Think permission, permission, permission. Have a crystal-clear opt-in process and always follow it. Your opt-in process includes the initial information offering the text messages. This will be your marketing for the campaign. Your customers will then sign up to receive your text messages. They will so this by texting your keyword to your short code or by using an Internet-based sign up form, called a widget. In order to build your list of text message recipients, you must actually launch a campaign. You cannot gather names and cell phone numbers and expect to import them into a program. Most text message companies will not let you import cell phone numbers into their database unless they come from another verifiable opt-in source. As an example, if you have a collection of customers' phone numbers in your customer contact database, you cannot simply begin to text message them. They must initiate the interaction via their cells or on the web to unequivocally request text message from your company.

The second best practice of text messaging is honesty. Always tell your customers up front is they are going to be getting a subscription (more than one message). If you play to send them more than the initial text message requested, then you are starting a subscription (even if you're sending free messages). Be clear how frequently you will contact them and if you are charging them for this service, tell them what the price and billing terms are. Don't imply that a service or subscription is free if it isn't. For example, don't say that they get free ringtones if they actually have to buy 10 at full price first.

The third best practice of text messaging is to provide people an easy way to opt out. Share this information in every message that you send and in your Help message. The most commonly used approach is to tell your customers to send the words Stop or Remove to your short code. If you are using a shared short code, the opt-out text will be automatically inserted into each outgoing message for you. It will reduce the number of characters you can use for marketing to 140, but you don't have to remember to include the opt-out. Keep in mind that violating any of these rules can cause your campaign to be turned off without any notice by the cell phone carriers. This is one of most important reasons not to use SMTP for a messaging campaign. You cannot receive messages back in reply. Your only option for having an opt-out process involves using a website link, which is not in compliance with best practices.

As we investigate the options available in text messaging, it may be tempting to create a complex, multifaceted campaign. As the fourth best practice, keep it simple. Ask for one call-to-action for one specific purpose. Keep the actions that your customers need to do to the bare minimum. You want to keep it simple and straightforward so it is easy for your customer to participate. After all, the beauty of text messaging is ease of use and simplicity. Don't make your campaign too complicated; you could lose your audience.

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