In an era of instant communication through social platforms and sophisticated emails, SMS marketing may seem a bit old school. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth, especially for businesses that want to instantly engage their customers.
According to a 99Firms report, 89% of phone users check and read a message within 30 minutes of receiving it.
This impressive statistic clearly states the importance of text message communication reliability. But what does text message reliability mean and how can you ensure the successful delivery of your text message SMSs? Let’s debunk the same:
What Does Text Message Reliability Mean?
The text message’s reliability means how trustworthy the SMS channel is. It is defined by the open rate and delivery rate of text messages. The overall text message reliability is determined with the help of the delivery rate and open rate.
There can be several reasons why text messages fail to deliver, and thus, never get opened by the intended recipient, affecting their reliability. For instance, sending SMS texts from your mobile phone will likely reduce the delivery rate and it may run into the “failed to send” error.
But the good news is that there are several business texting solutions such as SMS automation software that allow the safe delivery of mass messaging. Moreover, they eliminate the backlog or long delivery wait times each time you send a new SMS from your drip campaign.
Importance of Text Message Reliability
The obvious benefit of text message reliability is that the more people will receive and open your message, the higher your return on investment and revenue from the SMS campaign will be. For example, if you are sending 1000 SMSs for $10, the ROI will depend on how many users receive and open them out of 1000.
Since text messages have a high open rate, it also translates to high deliverability of the channel. However, the problem may arise when you attempt to send mass text messages without the right systems in place.
Sending out an SMS blast to hundreds of customers from your mobile phone isn’t going to cut it. Moreover, text messages take a few seconds to deliver, and if you send hundreds of them together, they’ll queue up and overwhelm the carrier.
This will not only create deliverability issues but also impact your ROI and the overall reliability of the SMS channel. Thus, if your business involves sending out thousands of SMSs, it makes sense to invest in automated text drip campaign tools to ensure the messages reach your customers quickly and smoothly.
Factors Affecting Text Message Delivery
Besides carrier limitations and mobile device capabilities, several factors affect the delivery and reliability of text messages. Here we’ve listed a few:
- Invalid number: Invalid customer numbers such as landline numbers create delivery issues. Double-check all the numbers and their region code and confirm the same with the user by contacting them through email.
- Number is on the “Do Not Call” list: If customers have turned on “Do Not Call” for their number, you might not be able to send SMS to them. Check the Do Not Call registry of your country to ensure users haven’t opted for that.
- Not using an approved carrier: If you’re using a carrier not approved by governing authority, then you may face delivery issues. To avoid it, choose an approved carrier to send automated text drip campaigns.
- Flagged as Spam: Sometimes, carriers of recipients may flag your SMS as spam because of the use of certain language, words, or symbols that trigger spam filters.
4 Best Practices for Optimizing SMS Delivery Rates
The delivery rate is the percentage of SMSs that are delivered out of all the SMSs that you sent. For instance, if 750 SMSs are delivered out of 1000, then the delivery rate becomes 75%. Here are some ways to improve the deliverability of your text messages:
1. Use the Correct SMS Phone Number (SenderID)
There are two types of numbers you can use for sending automated text messages: Long code and Short code.
Long codes offer an interactive messaging experience but come with a limit of 500 messages per day. Short codes, on the other hand, don’t have such daily restrictions on sending messages. However, you won’t get the interactive messaging experience with short code numbers.
Sending correct messages from the correct phone number type would increase the delivery of your text messages.
2. Avoid Repetitive Content
Repetitive or offensive content that involves marketing announcements is more likely to be considered spam. The carrier may block your number, and you may even lose the number and pay hefty fines.
Use proper and concise language to avoid spam filters and try to include users’ names in the message. Also, explain to your users why they are getting the SMS and what they should do afterward.
3. Clean Your List
As explained earlier, your delivery rate may get affected due to invalid or incorrect numbers. Regardless of the reason why they are invalid, you should make sure to clean your list frequently to remove incorrect numbers.
Doing so will improve the delivery rate of your SMS campaign and also help save money charged for sending messages to invalid numbers.
4. Select a Good Carrier & SMS Tool Vendor
Every carrier has different rules for different SenderID and they vary depending on the type and number of messages to send at a specific time. Thus, choose a carrier that’s suitable and fits perfectly for your SMS needs and business requirements.
Further, selecting the best SMS tool vendor who has a good relationship with most carriers will more likely give you an improved delivery rate. They understand the rules of each carrier and may guide you to get the best out of your SMS marketing campaign.
Conclusion
Text messages’ reliability and high deliverability are just the reasons why it’s so popular among businesses. As a marketer, your job is to cut through the noise and use the SMS channel for effective marketing communications.
We believe that this article gives you the information you need to optimize your SMS communication and delivery rate. Adorned with good carrier and business texting solutions, you are bound to get success with SMS marketing.
