Here's How Often You Should Text Your SMS Marketing List

You’ve spent time building your SMS marketing list, segmenting contacts, coming up with best practices, and developing a process for texting your list. 

Now what?

It’s time to start texting your list. But how often should you do that? What is not enough? How often is too much? This can be a challenge for marketers and businesses. The short answer? It depends… 

Continue reading below or watch this brief video to explore some tips on how often you should text your SMS marketing list. 

7 Things to Consider When Determining How Often to Text Your SMS Marketing List

1. Your Campaign

First and foremost, the frequency at which you text your customers will depend on the type of campaign.

Is it timely? 

Are you offering discounts or promotions that will expire on a specific date?

If so, then it might make sense to text your customer list at least once or twice per week, reminding them of the promotion and provide them with a call-to-action message, allowing them to take action. 

2. Your Audience

Some audiences might appreciate hearing from your business once or twice per week, others might not. This goes back to the type of campaign you are running, and the reason you’re texting them to begin with. 

For example, if you’re texting customers to confirm an upcoming appointment, and then text them about two or three times on other, unrelated topics, this will likely cross some boundaries and be seen as annoying to your customers.

On the other hand, if your customers enjoy receiving promos, offers, deals, and discounts via text, then they might be delighted to hear from your business more than once per week.

All in all, if you haven’t already, take the time to segment your audience according to their interests, demographics, and other relevant information to your campaigns. Therefore, you can send text messages to certain audiences as they are relevant or are applicable to them. 

3. Buying Frequency

Similar to the point above, you can gauge how often to text your customers based on their purchase frequency. If your business is an eCommerce business that sells gifts or commodities, then your customers will likely purchase more often than if your business is a travel agency. Therefore, texting them more than once or twice per week might not be appropriate.  

4. Content Value

Another consideration is value. If you have a valuable message to send out to your customers or SMS marketing list, then send it. Remember, “value” doesn’t have to mean deals or discounts; it can also be tips, tricks, advice, and other useful information that can help them as people, and that also helps them associate that useful information with your brand.

Keep in mind: The more valuable content you send, the more your customers will enjoy your text messages. 

5. Time 

Depending on the nature of your business and campaign, you might only text your SMS marketing list during certain seasons or times of the year, such as the holidays. You could also send texts to your customers on their birthdays, anniversaries, or other events to help keep your seasonal brand top of mind and to keep customers engaged. 

Additionally, consider the time of day that you text your customers. 

If you are an international brand, or have a customer base or SMS marketing list that spans multiple time zones, then be sure to keep this in mind with when texting your customers. 

A good rule of thumb? 

Read the message you want to send and think about it objectively. 

If you think that there’s even a chance that customers could respond negatively to it, then you may want to rethink it or rework it before sending, or send text messages less frequently. 

6. Review the Data

Still not sure how often you should text your SMS marketing list?

Let the data decide. Evaluate your campaigns over time to see how customers resonate with your messaging and their engagement levels. Remember, frequency doesn’t have to be the same for every campaign. By taking the time to review your data, you will be able to determine if or when buyers are more or less likely to make a purchase. Use data to help guide future decision making. 

7. Strike a Balance

Above all, you want to ensure that your campaign is effective, that you are delighting and engaging with your customers, and that you are building brand awareness. 

Therefore, the frequency at which you text your customers depends on the timeliness and relevance of your campaigns. This also might mean you have to find a balance between texting just enough where you are engaging with customers and staying top of mind, but not too much where they find it invasive or annoying. 

So, whether the right frequency is once per week, or once per month, rely on the data to help you make that call!

Text Your SMS Marketing List at the Right Time with VoxDirect

To sum up, technically there is no right and wrong frequency to text your SMS marketing list and customers, depending on your campaign and audience, of course. 

By considering the tips listed above, and by paying attention to your own data, you will be able to figure out the right frequency at which to text your SMS marketing list to create a truly delightful and engaging experience for them.

If you are considering getting started with a text marketing campaign, but aren’t sure of where to start, VoxDirect can help. Here is some more information on how to build an effective SMS marketing campaign specific for your industry.

With SMS technology improving every day, text messaging marketing isn’t going away anytime soon. If you’re ready to put your SMS marketing list to work, and start engaging with your customers in a new and innovative way, connect with VoxDirect today.