SMS marketing is the art of reaching your customers and prospects directly on their phone, with short, punchy and targeted messages. With an open rate that exceeds 90% within minutes of sending, this channel is unbeatable for capturing attention and driving immediate action.
Ideal for sharing a flash offer, an exclusive promotion or essential information, SMS creates a direct, instant and personalised relationship. Easy to integrate into your digital strategy, it perfectly complements emailing, automations and CRM solutions, offering simplicity, efficiency and measurable results.
The result: more engagement, a better customer experience, and revenue that takes off.
Different types of SMS in marketing
There are mainly two broad categories of SMS in marketing:
- Promotional SMS: These messages are used to inform customers about SMS marketing campaigns tied to special offers, time-limited discounts, prize draws or events. Their goal is to boost sales and draw attention to specific commercial offers.
- Transactional SMS: These messages let you send important notifications or confirmations, such as order confirmation, an appointment reminder, an event alert or service-related information. They play a key role in improving the customer experience by offering fast and personalised communication.
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Best practices for a successful SMS marketing campaign
Getting consent before sending
Before sending SMS messages as part of your SMS marketing campaigns, it is essential to obtain the explicit consent of each recipient. This not only ensures compliance with legislation on commercial prospecting and the rules of the CNIL, but also guarantees a receptive and engaged audience. Indeed, sending unsolicited SMS can harm your company's image and lead to financial penalties.
Encourage your customers to subscribe voluntarily by clearly explaining the added value of the messages they will receive.
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Personalisation and targeting
To maximise the impact of your SMS campaigns, personalising your text messages is essential. Make use of the available customer data, such as name, purchase history or preferences, to adapt the content and offer a more engaging experience.
Precise targeting of recipients, based on their behaviours or interests, also lets you put forward genuinely relevant offers. Avoid generic messages and favour effective segmentation to increase your chances of conversion while strengthening the customer relationship.
Sending time and frequency
Timing plays an important role in the success of your SMS marketing campaigns. Schedule messages to be sent at times when your recipients are most receptive, avoiding inappropriate hours such as early in the morning or late at night, so as to respect their peace and quiet.
In addition, keep control of your sending frequency to avoid annoying your recipients. Too many messages can be perceived as intrusive, while too low a frequency can reduce the impact of your communication. Analyse your data to determine the optimal frequency, ensuring both greater visibility for your offers and a positive customer experience.
Which CRM should you choose for your SMS campaigns?
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a leading digital marketing platform that combines CRM, email marketing and powerful SMS marketing tools. It lets you design highly personalised SMS campaigns thanks to precise segmentation based on behavioural and transactional data. What is more, Klaviyo integrates easily with many e-commerce platforms, which simplifies the synchronisation of customer data.
With Klaviyo, you can automate the sending of SMS messages for reminders, personalised offers or transactional notifications. This improves the customer experience while increasing the open rate and engagement. Its analytics dashboard lets you track performance in real time, making it easier to optimise your SMS marketing campaigns.
Brevo
Brevo is an all-in-one solution that combines CRM, email marketing and SMS marketing. The platform centralises customer data, ensures automatic tracking of interactions and offers advanced segmentation for precise targeting.
With Brevo, you can schedule, personalise and automate your SMS marketing campaigns. By creating scenarios based on specific triggers, you send personalised messages at the ideal moment, thereby improving the customer experience through smooth and relevant communication.
Brevo also offers detailed results-tracking tools and reports to assess the success of each campaign and optimise your future marketing actions. Its flexible payment model, based on prepaid SMS credits with no expiry date, makes it an economical solution suited to businesses of all sizes.
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Evaluating and improving your SMS marketing campaigns
Tracking and analysing engagement
To effectively measure the performance of your SMS marketing campaigns, it is essential to track key indicators such as open rate, click rate, number of replies and conversion rate. This data offers a precise view of your recipients' engagement and helps identify the messages that generate the best results. Specialised platforms like Klaviyo often provide analytics dashboards that bring this information together, which simplifies the analysis of customer behaviour.
For example, analysing reading times can indicate how quickly your SMS are viewed after being sent. This information is valuable for adjusting the sending time and better targeting your recipients. In addition, tracking unsubscribe or non-delivery rates can reveal problems in your contact lists or in your sending frequency, allowing you to take corrective action.
Adjusting strategies based on results
The data collected should be used to adjust your marketing strategies dynamically. Depending on performance, you can refine your segmentation, experiment with different tones or formats of SMS messages, and adjust the sending frequency to maximise the impact of your campaigns.
Spotting the best-performing campaigns or offers will help you create more personalised content tailored to each segment of your audience. This personalisation strengthens the relevance of your messages and improves their effectiveness.
Finally, analysing trends lets you capitalise on best practices, such as optimising sending times or setting up marketing automation tailored to your customers' behaviours. This continuous process of evaluation and optimisation helps strengthen your relationships with your customers while maximising the return on investment of your SMS marketing campaigns.
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Conclusion
SMS marketing is now an essential tool to boost your communication and increase your revenue. By applying best practices, such as obtaining your customers' consent, personalising messages and using a powerful CRM like Klaviyo or Brevo, you maximise the impact of your campaigns.
Also remember to analyse your results regularly to adjust your strategy and improve your audience's engagement. So do not wait any longer: start creating effective SMS marketing campaigns now to reach your customers directly and strengthen your business relationships.
FAQ
How do you obtain subscribers' consent before sending marketing SMS?
To send marketing SMS, it is essential to collect prior, explicit consent (opt-in). This consent must be obtained through a voluntary action, with no pre-ticked box, and documented. Subscribers must also be able to unsubscribe easily (opt-out). Compliance with the GDPR and the rules of the CNIL is mandatory, in particular regarding transparency about the use of data and sending hours.
Note that there are two exceptions: existing customers and similar offers. Any non-compliance with these rules can lead to significant penalties.
How do you write an effective and engaging marketing SMS?
To write an effective marketing SMS, here are the best practices:
- Always obtain recipients' prior permission.
- Personalise your messages and segment your audience.
- Send short, relevant and varied messages, at a frequency of around 1 to 2 times per week.
- Use a clear call to action, accompanied by a working link.
- Avoid overly informal or abbreviated language.
- Make the unsubscribe process easy for subscribers.
How do you stay legally compliant with marketing SMS?
To comply with the laws in force regarding marketing SMS:
- Collect explicit and prior consent (opt-in).
- Offer a simple and accessible means of unsubscribing (opt-out).
- Respect the authorised sending hours.
- Make sure to protect personal data in accordance with the GDPR and the CNIL guidelines.
These good practices help you avoid heavy penalties.
What time of day should you send marketing SMS?
To maximise the effectiveness of your marketing SMS, it is recommended to:
- Limit sends to a maximum of twice a month.
- Favour sending on Tuesday or Thursday, between 10am and 12pm or between 2pm and 4pm.
- Consider Saturday morning for B2C campaigns.
Avoid sending between 8pm and 10am, as well as on Sundays and public holidays, in order to comply with French legislation.
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