People increasingly rely on their phones for everything from staying connected with friends and family to managing their finances and shopping online. In that setting, businesses are leveraging text messages to engage with their customers. And recent consumer research underscores the effectiveness of this strategy. According to Vibes’ Mobile Consumer Insights Report 2024, which surveyed over 1,000 mobile-centric consumers, 75% said SMS messaging routinely drives them to purchase from particular brands.

The mobile marketing software platform undertook the survey to understand consumers’ relationships with their smartphones today as compared with the previous seven years. The research revealed the widespread adoption of SMS by both consumers and brands. “Mobile usage used to be driven by youth, but now it spans all demographics,” said Vibes co-founder and chief innovation officer Alex Campbell.

SMS, which stands for Short Message Service and is essentially synonymous with text messaging, requires a strategic approach. No matter the age of your customer, bombarding anyone with irrelevant messages can lead to annoyance and opt-outs. Among survey respondents, 71% cited too many messages as their primary reason for unsubscribing from brands’ SMS marketing efforts.

Conversely, sending too few messages may cause customers to miss out on valuable deals and promotions. Interestingly, 25% indicated that message frequency didn’t matter as long as the content was relevant to their interests.

The takeaway is that SMS messaging must be purposeful. “If brands are intentional about what they communicate to their mobile customers, not only will consumers not care about how often they receive messages, but it will also drive higher revenue,” Campbell said.

That’s especially because SMS messaging, as compared with email, has “way more regulation to it,” he said. For instance, to comply with regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, brands and businesses have to obtain explicit consent from customers before sending them texts and must provide clear instructions for opting out. For a full list of all regulations, click here. 

To maximize the effectiveness of SMS messaging, Cambell recommends the following strategies.

Ensure that the texts you send reference something current.

“SMS is something that when you send it, people read it right away,” Campbell said. “Ninety-seven percent of SMS messages are read within the first three minutes.” Because people have short memories, messages about future events or sales may not be as effective. “When I see marketing messages that say, ‘Over the weekend, we’re going to have a 10%-off sale,’ I think: ‘Why would you text that?’” Instead, texts work best when there’s an element of urgency. “If you say something like, ‘This sale is only going on for the next two hours,’ that’s an effective text.” It creates a sense of immediacy that drives action.

Personalize your texts.

“That doesn’t just mean simply inserting a name like Becky into the message,” Campbell said. “It means knowing who your customer is, how you can help them best and what’s going to actually create value for them.” This can be achieved, in part, with platfoms that can segment your customer list based on factors like age, psychographics, shopping habits and favorite items. Then, send out more targeted messages. “In my ideal world, you have a million customers in your database [and] when you hit send, every single message is different,” Campbell said. “We’re not there yet, but when you think about segmentation, that’s where I want to get to.”

Things have changed over the seven years that Vibes has fielded its survey. No longer is it “considered creepy” for businesses to have knowledge about their customers, Campbell said. “Now, it’s expected that you’re going to know who I am. If you’re sending a text about something, consumers want it to be relevant to them.”

And as consumer expectations evolve, irrelevant messages will be seen as annoying, Campbell predicted. Customers think: “I use you a lot. I expect you to know who I am, and I expect you to use that information to my benefit as a consumer.” For example, imagine a loyal customer of a local coffee shop learning belatedly that they’d missed out on a buy-one-get-one-free promotion. “You’d have wanted to know that information, and you’d be kind of annoyed if you didn’t get it,” Campbell said.

Think about your voice.

Texting isn’t just a shorter version of email; it has its own unique tone and style. “Think about how you text your friends versus how you email your friends — if you even still email your friends,” said Campbell.

Texts, by their nature, are punchier, more concise and informal, reflecting the spontaneity of the moment. Moreover, texts typically focus on one main idea or call to action. Bombarding customers with multiple questions or requests in a single text can be overwhelming and ineffective. “I have a list of ‘nightmare texts,’” said Campbell. “One of them is the text with six different questions in it like, ‘How are you doing? What did you do this weekend? How’s your daughter?’ — all in one text. That might work in an email, but it’s impossible to answer that all in one text message.”

It’s also crucial to recognize and respect customer-engagement levels. If a customer doesn’t respond or engage with your messages, repeatedly sending similar messages can be off-putting. Acknowledge and honor their implicit feedback, even if it means refraining from further communication. “They’re saying without saying, ‘Don’t keep texting me,’” he noted. In essence: “If I’m ghosting you, don’t keep at it.”

Provide tangible value to the customer.

People are more likely to open or respond to a text message from a business if it offers something meaningful, so consider why you’re sending it and how it will benefit your customer, he said. Identify their pain points and provide relevant solutions or information that addresses their needs.

The best texts are those that customers are genuinely glad to receive. Campbell worked with a company that recognized the imminent threat of a hurricane hitting the East Coast. Understanding the anxiety and urgency surrounding such events, Vibes triggered a targeted text message informing customers that the client had generators available at its stores. “Yes, it’s marketing, but it’s also really helpful,” he said. “If a hurricane happened, I don’t have to think about ‘Where do I go to get a generator?’ because I have a text on my phone with that information.”

Similarly, a small business could capitalize on events like back-to-school season by offering coupons for specific items, positioning itself as a valuable resource and at the same time enhancing loyalty and engagement.

Think unconventionally.

Many retailers believe text messages on milestone dates like birthdays and Black Friday form the best approach to engage with and to ingratiate themselves to customers. It turns out that such thinking is unoriginal. Vibe’s research has revealed that multiple brands and stores combine to bombard customers with as many as 10 or 15 text messages on their birthdays. That staturation makes it challenging to distinguish oneself from the crowd.

Think outside the box instead. One of Cambell’s clients sent “Happy half birthday” messages, which proved to be a highly effective. “You’re not getting texts from big brands wishing you a happy half birthday,” he said, “so if you get a text like that, it’s really kind of cool, right? And no one’s going to complain about that half birthday message. They think, instead: ‘They know me — like I didn’t even know my half-birthday was today!’”

Along that line, surprise customers with unexpected deals and promotions on lesser-known holidays or commemorative days. Ceate a promotion for National Random Acts of Kindness Day or National Ice Cream Day to delight and engage your audience. Deviation from the typical holiday marketing calendar not only avoids competition but also captures customers’ attention with a refreshing and memorable approach, Campbell said.

Use artificial intelligence to help determine when to send messages.

Rather than guessing when to send SMS messages, he suggested using AI to get accurate assessments. “AI does a great job of sifting through data to figure out what’s going to be helpful in a scalable way,” Campbell said.

AI can analyze text message open rates and advise on the most effective times for message delivery. “Going into the holidays, AI predicted — and ended up being totally correct — that our companies shouldn’t send a message on Black Friday because you’re going to get a lower response rate,” as so many other brands were sending the same message at the same time, he said. 

Campbell had one client who always sent messages at 10 a.m. on Thursdays because the client had “read something somewhere that said 10 a.m. was the best time to send a text,” he said. When he ran open rates through an AI feature called Send Time Optimization, he found that the client should be sending text messages at 7:30 p.m. instead. It worked. “It was like a 26% increase in response rates,” he said. Looking back, it made sense. “This is a brand that targets moms, and it was like: Right, they just put their kids to sleep, and now they’re actually shopping.” AI, he said, eliminates biases and just looks at data.

Play around with these strategies before sending mass texts to customers,” Campbell said. “Fine-tune your approach internally before bombarding your customers with mass texts. Because SMS is so effective, some brands fall in love with it quickly and they just start sending, sending, sending, sending, sending.” That can backfire quickly. Instead, plan. Especially as a small business owner, “your mobile database is an asset,” he said, “and you’ve got to treat it like that.” When done well, “SMS is a great way to have a relationship with your customers that cuts through all the expensive mass media. It allows you to talk to your customers directly with information you want them to know.”