Business text messages are different from friends and family in that they may be seen and not always be receptive. When using bulk SMS for marketing you need to understand your client base. The current era has users attached to their mobile phones meaning a single text message has the power to evoke emotions in its owners.
If you are a marketer using bulk text messaging, your accomplishments are centered on the growing the amount of opt-in mobile database participants and their engagement. Users have the power to unsubscribe easily if they feel bothered or distressed.
Besides practicing the best ideas with text messages, one of the fastest ways to distress mobile database subscribers is to send them short messages at the wrong time. For example, waking them in the middle of the night to share a fast food offer or a payment reminder as to the first thing when they wake up. This will highly trigger the user to unsubscribe.
To avoid inconveniencing your subscribers you need to consider the times of day that they are on their phones the most and what periods are most suitable for within their daily routine.
These are timings considerations:
- Mondays have a very low response rate
- Research shows that Mondays have the lowest response mostly because of the overwhelming content they receive over the weekend. Unless your message is an important reminder, Mondays are not the best days to send marketing messages/
- Avoid rush hour at all times. Since everyone is usually busy around this time, means they are unlikely to be read and eventually ignored.
- Think of when users are likely not to receive phone calls that are early mornings and late at night. The same goes for text messages, avoid sending text messages at the said time
- Desist from sending unexpected or irrelevant messages on holidays or during major events, always have a clear purpose for sending messages at this time
- Users opt-in and then forget why so following up with a message immediately keeps them engaged and build loyal followers
- Know when clients usually respond and give them enough time during the day to be interactive this will allow you to draft and schedule delivery at any time/ It is significant to leave your customers enough time during the day to take the action you want them to take. You may also use Bulk SMS Marketing Software like Scheduler for drafting your messages now and scheduling them for delivery at any time that you find right for your customers; Celcom Africa the leading Bulk SMS provider in Kenya has the most friendly and easy to use customer interface that allows scheduling of texts in future The biggest day for retailers is Black Friday. So it is ideal time and season to send a message on the few days leading to it and also during it because the customers are eager and anticipating
Keep in mind that these are only suggested times and days, it is advised to experiment and assess your customers by trying to send bulk SMS at different days and times to see what works best for you.