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You also don’t want to underutilize channels and miss out on potential revenue and customer experiences. So what is the “just right” cadence for SMS marketing?
As a marketer, you are always looking for the goldilocks areas of customer communications. You don’t want to fatigue your subscribers, subsequently causing them to unsubscribe. You also don’t want to underutilize channels and miss out on potential revenue and customer experiences. So what is the “just right” cadence for SMS marketing?
The cheeky answer is as often as you need to.
The better answer is you should be sending an SMS message at least once a week or four times a month. Seasonality, promotions, sales, and product launches will augment this frequency. Still, while every brand has its nuances that will work best, this is a good ground rule to start with.
Some SMS marketing platforms will encourage brands to continually blast their lists. While this may initially seem effective because every time a text is sent the brand sees some revenue come in, with this method, brands will eventually fatigue their list and ruin their customer lifetime value (CLTV). At Voyage, we are always focusing on increasing brands CLTV. Our philosophy is based on the fact that it’s anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive to gain a new customer than to retain an existing one. In fact, research done by Bain & Company found that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%. So every brand should be highly focused on delighting their existing customers rather than badgering them until they unsubscribe.
Naturally, there is more to an amazing, CLTV-increasing SMS marketing strategy than just sending a text to your subscribers once a week. So here are some other best practices to make sure you are sending the right message to the right subscriber at the right time.
We took a look at our clients, consisting of leading retail and D2C brands, and found the best-performing times for SMS. Of course, these trends could always change, or different strategies may work better for your target market, but this is a good place to start.
Across Voyage clients, we’ve noticed the following trends:
Once you have found the perfect time to send campaigns to your subscribers, you will want to use that time across all time zones. Time zone sending enables you to send a campaign to all your subscribers at a scheduled time in each subscriber's local time zone.
For example, if you schedule a campaign to be sent out at 9:00 AM, all the subscribers in your segment will receive the campaign at 9:00 AM in their local time. Time zone sending allows you to send perfect messages at the perfect time for your whole subscriber list. Without sending SMS campaigns based on time zone, you could be sending at lunchtime on the east coast and morning on the west.
SMS A/B testing will ensure that your marketing is as effective as possible. A/B testing is typically performed on a subset of a total list (10-20%). The key decision variable (CTR or conversion rate) is measured, and the winning variant is sent to the remaining list. Every brand has its own personality, nuances, and target markets, which is why testing what works for you is critical. That being said, here are a few SMS variables we recommend testing:
💡 Read more about SMS A/B testing here.
Segmentation is the key to creating a personalized and delightful experience for your SMS subscribers. Not only will it increase your CLTV, but it will also help manage your marketing spend. SMS is billed per message sent which means segmentation and personalization can help control costs by targeting messages at audiences most likely to convert and having more effective messaging to get better ROAS.
Segmentation may seem overwhelming at times, but you can keep things pretty simple to see incredible results. For example, Birthdate Co., a company that crafts one-of-a-kind astrology candles and books, found that splitting their subscribers into zodiac signs (12 segments) was a super effective way to engage with them. Birthdate Co. started sending weekly horoscope SMS campaigns that saw CTRs of over 20%. These campaigns focused on what draws their customers to the brand and provided entertaining and personalized content.
👀 Watch Ajay Mehta, CEO and co-founder of Birthdate Co., discuss why Birthdate Co.’s products have been such a success, Ajay’s journey as an entrepreneur, and much more here.
The Voyage SMS Platform integrates deeply into your existing tech stack, giving you powerful segmentation capabilities that allow you to micro-market based on customer attributes and event history. Your Voyage data, integrations, and custom events provide you with a multitude of ways to segment your SMS subscriber list. Then you can use our other capabilities including A/B testing, multi-message automations, and more to ensure that the right message gets to the right subscriber at the right time.
Start driving revenue and building meaningful relationships with your customers today. Get a demo today and start your Voyage.
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