A Complete Guide to SMS Marketing Campaigns

What Is an SMS Marketing Campaign?

An SMS marketing campaign is a strategy for using text messaging to accomplish mobile communication goals effortlessly and effectively, including promotional texts, delivery notifications, and appointment reminders.

How To Plan an SMS Marketing Campaign

A fast and proven way to create interest in your SMS campaigns is by assigning SMART goals.

SMART stands for "Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely." SMART goals inherently allow you to organize your campaigns in a way that will enable you to track and measure results.

  • Specific: Is your objective specific?
  • Measurable: Can you measure progress towards your goal?
  • Achievable: Is the goal realistically achievable?
  • Relevant: How relevant is the goal to your organization?
  • Time Based: What is the time frame for achieving this goal?

How to Create & Send an SMS Campaign

Creating and sending (or scheduling) SMS messaging campaigns is easy. Here are the six simple steps that will take you from getting started to optimizing your next campaign.

1. Sign Up for an SMS Marketing App: To get the most out of your SMS campaigns, choose a platform that offers features including mass text messaging, automations, integrations, and reporting tools.

Start your SMS campaign journey with a 14-day free trial with EZ Texting.

2. Add Contacts (They Must Opt In): Build a list of contacts who have explicitly consented to receive your SMS messages.

3. Create an SMS Campaign: Design your message with a clear call to action and ensure it's concise and engaging.

4. Add Recipients: Select the contacts you want to send the campaign to from your opt-in list.

5. Estimate Your SMS Campaign Price: Calculate the cost of your SMS campaign based on your chosen platform's pricing structure and the number of recipients. See EZ Texting’s SMS pricing.

6. Review & Send (or Schedule): Make sure your message is ready to go and send it immediately or schedule it to be sent at a later time.

7. Check Reporting & Adjust Accordingly: Analyze your SMS campaign performance and track metrics like open rates, bounce rates, and click-through rates, which will provide answers on how to adjustment your messaging or strategy for future campaigns.

quotation mark

With the help of EZ Texting, we reached so many more people than we otherwise would have.

Mat Faulkner, Searcy Resident and Owner – Think Idea Studio

7 Best Practices for SMS Campaigns

Get the most of your SMS messaging campaigns by following these seven simple steps.

Sample SMS Message

1. Keep It Short

Businesses and their customers agree—text marketing is incredibly convenient. Lean into that convenience by keeping your messages concise.

Even though SMS messaging allows you to use up to 160 characters, we’ve found that messages between 20 and 30 words achieve the highest levels of engagement as these shorter messages are effortless to read and act on. This is especially true for simple convenience messaging like appointment reminders, notifications, and confirmation texts.

As other marketing channels compete for the attention of audiences, remember that less is often more when it comes to earning that attention.

2. Tell Them Who Is Messaging

Text message marketing is considered a more personal means of communication, and as such, it’s important to make clear who is sending each message.

Think about it like this, if your phone or doorbell rings, but you are not able to see who is on the other end of that ring, how would you feel about that communication?

You can easily do this by simply adding your business name to the company name field or at the beginning of your text.

Not only do contacts appreciate knowing who is sending them text messages, the habit could increase your click-through rates on messages by as much as 35%.

 

Sample SMS Message

3. Incorporate a Call to Action

To get the most out of your messages you need to make them actionable.

A call to action, also known as a CTA, is a clear directive that encourages readers to take a specific, desired action. CTAs vary depending on business type or purpose, but some general examples include: Learn More, Sign Up, Subscribe, and Try For Free.

Once you’ve included a CTA, it’s important to make the next step as easy as possible for your customers by including a coupon, trackable link, or text poll in your messaging, so that whatever action they are being encouraged to take is a breeze.

4. Make It Personal

SMS messaging is a personal form of communication. As such, lean into the connection your audience has with their mobile devices by personalizing your text campaign messages.

You can specify first or last name, and take it further with birthday greetings and coupons and anniversary or purchase reminders.

5. Get Permission

SMS messaging is an opt-in-only communication channel, which means you must receive permission from every member of your contact list to send them mass text messages.

Set by guiding committees and the carriers, the regulations required to use SMS marketing ensures you’re only sending to those who want to receive your messages.

6. When to Send an SMS Campaign

Like so many things in life, when it comes to text marketing, timing is everything. The results of our 2022 Consumer Texting Behavior Report revealed that the majority of consumers prefer to receive SMS messages Monday-Friday, 9AM-5PM or during the hours that are typical to the particular business.



Text notification vs SMS marketing text example

7. How to Measure Your SMS Marketing Campaign

To measure how effective your SMS campaign is for your customer base, take a look at delivery rates, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes to ensure your messages are finding their audience.

If you notice low response rates or high unsubscribes, that's a suggestion to vary your campaign by segmenting your audience, updating messaging, or experimenting with delivery times.

4 SMS Campaign Examples

SMS campaigns can be used to solve a myriad of audience engagement issues.

Here are of four of the most common SMS campaign use cases, and how you can implement something similar:

1. SMS List Growth Campaign

SMS Marketing keyword subscription example

Sending SMS messages is a great way to promote your business, but before you start, you need a list of contacts who have given you permission to text them.

The best way to get that permission is through a compliant opt-in method, which include:

  • QR Codes
  • Digital Sign-Up Forms
  • SMS Keywords
  • Click-to-Text Generator

2. SMS Campaign to Increase Sales

SMS marketing sales text

Promotional SMS marketing campaigns are a great way to drive engagement and action for your products and services. 

Think of a special offer that will capture your audience’s interest and has a clear action for them to take, such as a link-to-purchase or coupon. 

To improve your chances of success, try dividing your contacts into groups based on their interests and create customized offers just for them.

3. SMS Appointment Reminder Campaign

SMS marketing keyword subscription example

If your business relies on customers making and keeping appointments, setting up automated reminders can not only save you time, but can also reduce no-shows by more than 90%.

EZ Texting makes it effortless, and saves you and your team from long hours on the phone confirming and rescheduling appointments.

4. SMS Fundraising Campaign

Donation SMS marketing text

SMS fundraising campaigns offer a powerful and convenient way to engage and connect with your donors directly. 

Organizations can quickly engage supporters and solicit donations by leveraging the immediacy and reach of SMS campaigns. 

Personalize your messages, send real-time updates, and links to payment options and SMS will quickly become your most convenient and effective fundraising channel.


 

Choosing the Right SMS Campaign Software

Choosing an SMS campaign platform that works for your business is vital to text marketing campaign success. With so many service providers available, it helps to know which specific features and functions you need.

When making your decision, you can simplify the process by asking yourself these five questions during your review:

  1. Is the platform easy to understand and use?
  2. What are the costs associated with SMS marketing?
  3. Does the platform deliver the features you need for SMS campaign success?
  4. How dependable is their message delivery?
  5. What does their software offer that the other providers do not?

Find the answers to those questions and you've found an SMS campaign service that can scale with you, no matter how big your business grows.


5 SMS Campaign Compliance Tips

Mobile marketing campaigns with SMS are an effortless way to reach your audience and drive actions, but just like email, they are subject to a set of SMS compliance rules.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act stipulates the rules for opt-ins, opt-outs and message frequency, but you should also be familiar with the guidelines issued by the Cellular Telephone Industries Association which governs the nature of content that can be contained in SMS marketing messages.

Once these conditions are met, the physical act of executing mobile marketing campaigns with SMS is very straightforward. You simply log into the group messaging platform, upload your list of opted-in contacts, compose your message and click send. Within minutes your contacts will be receiving your SMS marketing message wherever they are, whatever they are doing.

  • No Unsolicited Messages
  • Use Proper Opt-In Methods
  • Explain Your Recurring Text Program
  • Allow Customers to Opt-Out Easily
  • Your Content Must Be Appropriate

You can also check out text messaging laws by state to see if your state requires anything outside of normal compliance requirements.