How to Improve SMS Response Rates: Tips from Experts

What is the SMS response rate of your marketing campaigns?

When you run an SMS marketing campaign, you need to track certain metrics to see if you’re performing well. In this blog post, we’ll discuss SMS response rate as one of the most important metrics in SMS marketing.

We’ll explain how you can improve the response rate of your SMS campaigns. Here at WSMS, we’re ready to help, so stay tuned.

What Is the SMS Response Rate?

The SMS response rate is the percentage of recipients who respond to your text messages compared to the total number of messages you’ve sent.

The following formula shows how to measure the SMS response rate:

SMS Response Rate = (Number of Responses) / (Number of SMS Delivered) * 100

For example, if you send 1,000 messages and receive 100 responses, your SMS response rate is 10%.

It’s one of the most important KPIs showing whether your text messages are engaging enough.

Fortunately, SMS campaigns typically have higher response rates than other marketing channels like email.

You can reach a 45% response rate with SMS, while emails can only bring a response of around 10%.

Expert Tips to Improve Your SMS Response Rate

Now that you know what the SMS response rate is, it’s time to learn how you can reach a higher rate in your campaigns.

First, let’s review factors affecting SMS response rates:

• Content
• Timing
• Call-to-action
• Targeted audience
• Offer/Incentive

If you understand these factors and follow the tips below you can improve your SMS marketing strategy and achieve a higher SMS response rate:

Use the Right SMS Platform

Choosing an effective SMS platform has a great impact on the success of your SMS marketing campaign.

Many times, technical issues can prevent your text messages reach your audience or get a response. Here are some of these issues:

• Formatting Errors: Your messages might be unreadable and dent your response rate.
• Delivery Failures: The wrong SMS gateway and poor carrier connections will lead to delivery failures.
• Lack of Compliance: If the SMS platform doesn’t comply with SMS marketing regulations, you might face legal fines.
• Limited Features: A good tool should provide personalization, segmentation, or analytics to reach an acceptable campaign performance.
• Scalability Challenges: Some SMS platforms can’t handle international and large-scale SMS campaigns.

So if you want to make sure about the response rate of your SMS campaign, you need to choose a valid SMS tool.

You have to choose your SMS tool, depending on your business requirements. For example, if you have an ecommerce business with a WordPress website, you can go for WSMS.

It’s a great SMS plugin that supports more than 300 gateways including Twilio and Plivo and allows you to run SMS campaigns directly from your website’s dashboard.

Here are some benefits of WSMS that make it perfect for your business:

• Perfect integration with WordPress
• Ease of use
• Offering a free plan for beginners
• Supporting bulk messaging
• Dynamic content and automation
• Providing a demo version
• Two-way messaging
• GDPR Compliance
• Unlimited international SMS

Obtain Consent and Build a Laser-Targeted Subscriber List

You need to comply with data protection rules like GDPR and TCPA when running SMS campaigns.

One of the most important matters in these regulations is to obtain consent before sending text messages.

Please bear in mind that non-compliance can result in legal fines and also dent your brand reputation.

So it’s essential to:

• Run opt-in campaigns: Use forms on your website, social media, or in-store signage.
• Offer incentives: Discounts, exclusive offers, or free resources to subscribers.
• Clarify: Explain why you’re obtaining the subscribers’ consent.

If you send ads without your recipients’ consent, they might block your phone number or even report your message as spam. So the response rate of your SMS campaign will decrease.

Building a laser-targeted list of subscribers with direct consent will increase the chance of receiving a response from the recipients.

Remember that you shouldn’t focus on the number of recipients but on the relevance and engagement level of them.

Segment Your Audience

One of the most important reasons why subscribers don’t respond to your text messages is that the content is too generic.

People like to read text messages that are specifically about their own needs and interests and if you consider this fact, you can grab their attention.

An effective method to do that is to divide your audience based on important factors like:

• Demographics: Age, gender, location.
• Purchase history: Repeat customers vs. first-time buyers.
• Behavior: Interaction with past campaigns or website visits.
• Preferences: Interests or product categories.

This way, you can send more specific messages to each group and expect higher response rates.

For example, if you’re a clothing retailer, you can send ads for winter coats to customers in colder regions. On the other hand, it’s recommended to target people in warmer regions with discounts on summer shirts.

Look at the SMS samples to see how audience segmentation in SMS marketing works:

Message for Colder Regions

Message for Warmer Regions

Schedule the SMS at the Right Time

Timing is very important when it comes to SMS response rate. You need to put your feet in your recipients’ shoes. If you receive a message late at night or early in the morning, you’ll probably block the sender or at least avoid responding.

So if you want to reach a high SMS response rate, you need to send the messages at the best time to avoid annoying your audience. Also, you must think of the peak hours with the maximum chance of getting a response.

For example, people might be more willing to respond to your messages during mid-morning (10–11 a.m.) or late afternoon (4–5 p.m.).

Remember to pay attention to time zones if you’re running a large SMS campaign. Also, think of industry-specific considerations for time-sensitive campaigns. For instance, if you have a restaurant, sending a message before the launch time is a smart idea.

Personalize Your SMS Content

You need to focus on a long-lasting friendship with your audience and the key to this friendship is personalization.

Try to talk to your audience at a personal level to gain their trust and make them feel valued. For example, when you use the first name of your audience, they feel more intimate compared to a generic message.

Also, it’s good to mention the previous interactions of your audience like purchases or even complaints. This method makes them sure that they’re part of your story and that you consider their presence.

You might wonder if writing a specific message for each customer is a time-sucking task. However, this is now easier than ever thanks to advanced tools like WSMS.

The dynamic content feature of WSMS lets you automatically customize a message template according to the recipient’s information.

For example, you can include names, products, dates, locations, and other items in the message template. These items will be filled with the specific information of each customer. This way, you can personalize your messages without spending too much time.

Take a look at the following message template to see how it works:

Write a Short & Clear SMS Copy

People usually don’t like lengthy messages. Leave such messages for email and think of a short but clear SMS structure to reach the maximum SMS response rate.

SMS messages are limited to 160 characters and if you write more than that, you’ll have to pay for 2 messages.

To be able to do that, you need to focus on a single goal and avoid any extra words. Your SMS should include the main message, offer, and the action required by the recipient.

It’s good to spend time on your SMS copy and also review the messages sent by your competitors to make sure you’re sending an optimized message.

Offer Something Enticing

People are more likely to respond to SMS messages that include an offer like:

• Exclusive discounts or promotions.
• Early access to a new product or service.
• Useful information, such as appointment reminders or updates.

These perks might seem costly but will significantly increase the response rate of your messages and boost your sales.

The following message shows a common offer in an SMS campaign:

Avoid Spammy Content

Nothing can be more dangerous for your brand reputation and the success of your SMS campaign than spammy content.

If your audience feels your message is suspicious, fake, or offering something “too good to be true,” they will lose trust.

Spammy content will lead to low response rates or high opt-out rates. So try to create a message that is professional, polite, and friendly.

Try to avoid the following items in your message to prevent being spammed:

• Overusing all caps or excessive punctuation. For example, “LIMITED TIME ONLY!!!”.
• Including suspicious links.
• Sending overly frequent or irrelevant messages.

Include a Compelling CTA

A clear call-to-action (CTA) is key for driving responses in your SMS marketing campaign. This is actually what you want your audience to do after reading the message.

Your CTA should be action-oriented. In other words, you need to use verbs like “Buy,” “Sign Up,” “Reserve,” or “Claim.”

Another key aspect of a good CTA is the sense of urgency. You need to make your audience feel they might lose something if they don’t respond to the message.

Phrases like “Limited Time Offer” or “Ends Tonight” can encourage your recipients to react quickly.

Finally, you need to provide them with an easy way to respond. For example, you can offer a link or a two-way message to reply with a phrase like YES or NO.

Include Shortened URLs

Many times you need to include a link to your webpages. Of course, URLs are long and this makes your message look improper.

Fortunately, SMS tools like WSMS offer link shorteners like Bitly that allow you to solve this problem.

Look at the following examples to see how shortened links help:

Test, Track, and Optimize Messages

Continuous improvement is key to success in every marketing effort, and SMS marketing is no exception.

Try to regularly test your campaigns to identify what works best. A/B testing is a great method to do that because it lets you recognize the best version of your SMS copy.

You can consider important factors like personalization, wording, offer, CTA, and timing and find a version of your SMS campaign with higher response rates.

Apart from testing, you need to constantly analyze the performance of your campaigns in terms of key metrics, especially the response rate.

Send Feedback Request

Last but not least, you can ask your recipients for their opinions. This has several benefits like:

• Showing you value their opinions.
• Obtaining valuable insights to improve your SMS strategy.

As a result, you can improve your SMS response rate using feedback requests and optimizing your campaigns according to your customers’ opinions.

Final Thoughts

The SMS response rate is one of the key metrics for measuring your success in SMS campaigns. If you’re getting a response rate of between 20% to 45%, you’re performing well.

Of course, there is always room for improvement and we tried to offer tips to do that.

Using a fine SMS structure, an enticing offer, a compelling CTA, and smart timing are the most important matters in the response rate of your SMS campaigns.

A versatile SMS tool like WSMS can also be of great help to optimize your campaigns and make sure about a high delivery rate.

Try the demo version of WSMS to test its features and make sure that it fits your requirements.

FAQs

What is the SMS vs. email response rate?

SMS has a whopping SMS response rate of 45% while email has a response rate of less than 10%.

What is a good SMS open rate?

SMS campaigns can reach a whopping open rate of 98%.

What is the CTR of SMS?

CTR or click-through rate is the percentage of recipients who click on your links compared to the total messages sent.

What is a good SMS response rate?

SMS campaigns can reach an SMS response rate of 45%, which is great compared to other channels like email.