It’s key that your text messages go through. Otherwise your marketing campaigns are wasted. But your SMS delivery rate depends a lot on your consistency. If you start and stop your text message marketing, you’re likely to see your deliverability rate tank.
How SMS Deliverability Works
Text messaging has some of the best open rates and response rates of any marketing channel—better than email, social media, direct mail, and more. Carriers want to avoid delivery issues, so they’re relentless about stamping out fraud and spam. Anything that looks spammy is likely to draw their ire, whether it’s a questionable number of messages or too many invalid numbers.
Suspicious behavior is bad. It triggers spam filters and will lead to SMS delivery failures.
Not getting consent, not taking the time to verify your number, and an irregular sending schedule can all look like spam.
Why Starting and Stopping Is Bad
That’s right, even when and how often you send your text messages can be a problem. If you start an outreach campaign, send a flurry of texts, then shut it down and don’t do anything for months, only to start it up again and repeat the process—that looks like spam to the carriers.
Let’s talk metrics: In one use case we’ve seen SMS message deliverability drop to just 25%.
If you follow our suggestions and guidelines, Rally guarantees 98% text message delivery.
Not Unique to Text Message Marketing
This is a problem that impacts all forms of communication. Email marketing relies on consistent sends for good open rates and social media platforms promote regular posts. It shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s true for SMS marketing as well.
Good communication is consistent.
There’s a regular cadence to the communication and it comes frequently enough that people recognize the sender. If you only communicate once in a great while, people are likely to forget who you are and see it as spam. Make the most of your marketing efforts by being consistent.
Consent & Consistent
The two biggest things you can do to ensure your text messages get through is to always get opt-in consent and communicate consistently.
Consent: You must have permission to text people. This is text message marketing 101. You want people to opt-in and give consent when they share their phone number. Otherwise it’s illegal (you have to follow TCPA guidelines), but also you’re just asking to be marked as spam, and that’s going to tank your deliverability rates.
Consistent: You need to send text messages consistently. You can’t start and stop your SMS marketing, otherwise you’ll run into deliverability issues. Also, consistent communication is more effective.
How to Ensure SMS Deliverability
Here are five tips to help your SMS campaigns go through and land on people’s mobile phones:
- Personalize: Make your text messages personal by including a first name. This humanizes your communication and makes sure you’re not mistaken for spam.
- Keep it fresh: Change up your messaging so it’s always unique and fresh. Never let it feel repetitive or robotic. Refer to current specifics so it’s clear there’s a human sending the message right now, and it’s not some automated, AI-generated text bot.
- Timely: So what time frame matters? Don’t wait more than 30 days to text people. Otherwise you’re likely to get more unsubscribes and watch your contact list shrink. This is especially important for nonprofits who plan to text their list only once or twice a year. You need to communicate year-round. Build an ongoing relationship with your intended recipients to share wins and say thanks—don’t just reach out to ask for money.
- Set expectations: Tell people what to expect when they sign up for your SMS texts. Both at the point where they sign up and again with your initial welcome texts you should be setting expectations. If they’re signing up for a regular list and occasionally more, say so: “We’ll send weekly updates plus occasional extra texts.”
- How to opt out: It sounds counterintuitive, but you can ensure people stay on your list by telling them how to unsubscribe. Clear opt-out instructions give people confidence that you’re not spam. Following legal guidelines and going above and beyond is just good nonprofit marketing.
The SMS Marketing Platform That Helps
At Rally, were here to help.
- Results: We’re here to help you get results with your texting campaign. Your supporters are getting tons of updates and notifications on their mobile devices, so it’s crucial that you reach them where they’re at and aren’t plagued by undelivered messages.
- Tools: We offer integrations with your preferred fundraising platform, CRM, donation form, and more. We also have pre-written text message templates for when you’re not sure what to say. Our functionality and workflows can boost donor engagement, encourage peer fundraising, increase recurring donations, and in general make your mobile fundraising more effective in real time.
- Support: Yes, we care about customer experience. We’ve got multiple options for help from FAQs to webinars. Plus, we’re happy to get on a phone call and talk through concerns, pricing, and more. Read our case studies to see how nonprofits rave about our support and user-friendly system.
Now that you understand the value of short message service (SMS) delivery, book a demo to see Rally in action and we can talk marketing strategies to ensure your delivery status and help your nonprofit organization succeed.
