3 Golden Rules for Sending Your SMS Messages at the Perfect Time of Day
The best thing about SMS messaging is you can reach your customers at any time. The worst thing about SMS messaging is you can reach your customers at any time. Think about it. People have their mobiles with them constantly. Even while they sleep according to many surveys.
So, you can get their attention immediately when you send a message. You can just as easily disturb them. While there really isn’t any universally agreed time to send a message, there are three rules you can follow to get as close to perfect timing as possible.
1. Don't Send Too Early
This seems obvious, doesn’t it? But I’ve been awakened by an SMS message multiple times. The most recent one was at 12:35 a.m. My mobile network sent me the message to inform me I had plenty of data left in my plan for the month and that I had three days left to use it.
I can tell you, I wasn’t using it while sleeping. That message could have waited until later in the morning. Even if the message was a warning about using too much data, there’s nothing I would do about it in the middle of the night.
My example is clearly an automated message generated by the mobile network. I don’t think someone sat there and said, “Let’s wake someone up”! But it does bring up an important point: All messages need to be scheduled for appropriate times, even automated ones. Luckily, fastsms users can use the business hours feature to set the timeframe you want messages to be sent (even automated ones) – if a message gets sent outside those set hours it’ll simply wait till the morning and send it then.
You want to send your messages when they will be useful to your list. Too early in the morning and you might wake them up. Or they won’t see the message because they’re in a hurry to get ready for work or school. So just because you’re raring to go at 8 a.m., doesn’t mean it’s the best time to send a message.
2. Don't Send Too Late
Sending a message too late in the day can be just as bad as too early – at least from your point of view. That’s because later in the day people are getting on with their lives. Once they get home from work they’re doing things with family, friends, or their hobby. They might still be using their phone, but studies show mobile activities switch to apps in the evening hours. No one wants their game, or streaming movie interrupted by a text message.
That means messages sent too late can be seen as interrupting important activities. And if your messages are seen as annoying, it could increase the number of people who opt out of your marketing. That’s the last thing you want to happen.
3. Pay Close Attention to Your Metrics
Now that I gave you useful, but vague, advice in rules one and two, this is where it gets serious. If you look around the web, you’ll find lots of articles with guidelines about what times you should send your message. Many of those can be a great place to start.
For example, I see articles all the time that say never send on a Monday. They have statistical data to back them up on that point too. So, in the beginning, maybe you don’t want to send messages on Mondays.
Other places say to send the messages at “odd” times. Maybe 1:36 instead of 1:30 (in the afternoon obviously). More generic advice is to send between 10:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.
Of course, there are different types of messages that need to be considered too. Appointment reminders aren’t the same as marketing messages. But when deciding the time of day, most of the same rules apply. For example, a client has an appointment at 7:30 a.m. Thursday. Best practices say you probably want to send a reminder 24 hours before. But do you really want to send it at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday? Maybe. But it might be better to add a delay so it goes out after 9 or 10 (easily done with fastsms).
This rule mentioned metrics, which I haven’t talked about yet. But I wanted to make the case first, that you can find all kinds of information about time of day if you do some research. After you do that though, and have sent lots of messages, that’s when you do the real work of discovering the perfect time of day for your list.
The way to do it is to find correlations between the actions taken with the time of day the message was sent. Examples of actions include clicking a link, replying with a keyword, or opting out of the list. If you get the most clicks at 11:36 then that’s a great time for you.
You’ll know if a time is bad when you get a jump in unsubscribes, or very few clicks. Of course, this could also be because the offer was bad. This is why you need to keep looking at your metrics versus time before you make any rash decisions. The more data you have on how your list behaves, the better the correlation will be. Not all lists are the same, and they won’t always stay the same. But if you keep rules one and two in mind, and watch your metrics, you’ll be able to focus in on the perfect time of day to send your messages.
Related Articles
The Psychology of SMS Marketing
In marketing, everyone wants to be more influential and persuasive in order to build loyalty and return custom. To gain the highest ROI, businesses want their marketing campaigns to speak to every individual in such a way that makes them feel connected and yet, with every will in the world, an SMS marketing campaign is only going to achieve this high conversion and success if it manages to tap into consumer psychology.
How to Stop iOS 10 from Changing Your SMS Messages
Apple’s at it again. Changes they’ve made in iOS 10 affect how some SMS messages are displayed to your customers. If you want to know how those changes affect your SMS marketing, and what you can do to avoid them, you’ll find it all in this blog.
6 Tips To Help You Get The Most From SMS Marketing
What are the dos and don’ts of SMS marketing? How can you get the most from your business text messaging? We’ve put together six actionable tips to help you get the best from your SMS marketing campaigns.
Insights Into The Best SMS Marketing
It’s been said that to be successful at something, you need to find someone that’s already done what you want to do, then emulate them. You don’t need to create or rewrite the rulebook every time. This is true of marketing too. While it’s a creative field, there are tried and true examples of what works. This is why case studies are so important to helping you understand how something like SMS marketing can work for you.
9 Reasons SMS Marketing is Far From Finished
With all the evidence indicating that text messaging still has plenty of life left in it, here are 9 reasons why SMS Marketing still has lots to offer. Don't miss out on what SMS marketing can bring to your business.
Why SMS Messaging is the Future of Marketing…
Since the first ever mobile ad was sent out via text back in 2000, SMS marketing has become hugely popular. What's more, it's a successful technique that an increasing number of marketeers are taking advantage of. So why is it the future? Here are a few reasons...
13 Words That Inspire Action in Your SMS Messages
Because they are so short, word choice is important in SMS messages. You need to convey instructions and the benefits of following those instructions in few words. If you’ve ever struggled to find just the right one, check out our list of action inspiring words for SMS messaging.
11 Benefits of Using SMS Messages in Your Network Marketing Strategy
Given that network marketing is very much dependent on communication, there are ways in which SMS marketing can be used to help increase recruitment, improve retention rates, create effective discussion, boost sales and motivate teams. Here's how...
5 Tips to Stay Ahead for Your Bank Holiday SMS Marketing
The ONE Thing You Never Want To Do In SMS Marketing
"UK B2C data for SMS marketing" - That was the search result headline I found while researching online. Interesting I thought. It must be relating to SMS marketing statistics for B2C (business to consumer) sales. Since I was searching for some updated information and studies about SMS I decided to click and read.