How to Write Good Text Messages?

When you’re writing a text to a close friend, you probably don’t put too much thought into it; maybe you even let some typos slip through unchecked. You speak casually and colloquially. When you write a text to a colleague or your boss, even, you probably are a bit more careful. You want to sound professional, but not stiff. And you certainly don’t want your tone to be misunderstood.

Now, imagine you’re crafting a text message marketing campaign to send to hundreds, maybe even thousands, of your business’ customers. A campaign is much more than just one text, and the way those messages are received can make a huge difference in your business. You try to write a text, but you’re paralyzed with fear, shaking, sweating, crying a little bit… Just kidding!

Crafting effective text message marketing does not have to be a big, dramatic scenario! We’re here to put you at ease with the steps to crafting marketing texts that convert. 

Here are the steps you need to take to write good marketing text messages.

How to Write Good Text Messages

  •  Get clear on your goal.

The very first thing you want to do when embarking on any marketing campaign is to get clear on your goal. Once you’ve set your goal, ask yourself, “Can I get more specific?” Your text message marketing goals should be time-sensitive and work in tandem with your overall business goals.

What do you hope to achieve through your text message marketing, and how much time do you plan to dedicate to achieving that goal? For example, maybe your goal for your campaign is to “increase text message marketing conversions by 10% this month.”

Whatever your goal is, having some clarity will help you to know what kind of information should be included in your text message marketing efforts. In the aforementioned example, you might want to offer exclusive coupons or codes to text message subscribers to more easily track which were redeemed as a result of that channel versus other places you may run promotions.

If you never get clear on your goal, however, not only will you find difficulty in writing good text messages, but you will also have no way to measure the return on investment of your text message marketing.

  •  Establish your brand’s tone of voice.

If your business has been around for a while, you probably already have your tone of voice nailed. However, if you’re just getting started- or are trying to grow- you may be less sure of this aspect of your brand.

However, it’s imperative to get clear on this before writing any marketing campaigns, including text message marketing. Is your brand’s tone of voice humorous? Or is it more professional? If you’re appealing to a younger audience, you can take some inspiration from how they speak to each other on social media, for example. If your target audience is older, however, they might respond to something a little different. Or maybe not! It all depends, and only you can answer these questions.

Once you get clear on your brand’s tone of voice, plus that super specific goal you set earlier, you’ll be ready to start actually writing campaigns!

  •  Personalize messages.

Many business texting services allow their users to send texts that address the recipient by name. 

For instance, you may write:

“Hi {name}! We were just thinking about how much we value you. Present this msg at the register to get 10% off your next purchase before 8/30/20- on us!

With the right business texting service, sending that message in bulk to your subscribers will automatically fill in each of their first names for you! That will make your messages feel less like marketing, and more like a friendly nudge.

Personalization pro tip: Segment your subscriber list into more specific categories or customer personas. This will ensure that you’re not shooting off one-size-fits-all text message marketing campaigns. Instead, you can personalize messages to the specific needs and wants of each segment of your target audience.

  •  Keep it short and sweet.

When it comes to text message marketing, here is a good rule of thumb: “Give customers what they want, and get the heck outta there.”

That may be an oversimplification, but it’s true that most texts are limited to 160 characters. If your texts exceed that limit, they’ll probably end up getting split and sent separately, often out of order. Unfortunately, that may obscure the message which would not bode well for your campaign.

Instead, keep all texts short, sweet and to-the-point. 

  •  Proofread, proofread, proofread.

You might be thinking, “It’s a short message. I don’t need to proofread the same way I might for an article or email. What could go wrong?”

To which we respond, “It’s your funeral.”

Just like emails, Linkedin articles, blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, brochures, etc., text message marketing is representative of your brand! Companies who take branding lightly usually don’t live to tell the story. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Yes, text messages are shorter than other written mediums, but if you let an error slip by unnoticed, there’s no taking it back. It’s out there, and people will see it. After all, about 98% of texts get opened by the recipient. While that number is great for your well-thought out campaigns, it’s not so great for the day you decided to skip proofreading.

While the occasional mistake certainly won’t spell the end for your company, multiple and consistent typos, grammatical errors and spelling errors across platforms might do just that. It just looks unprofessional. At the very least, you’ll get a lot of people punching that ‘Unsubscribe’ button on your text message marketing.

Which reminds me…

  •  Include an easy opt-out method.

Make sure that people are well aware of how to stop receiving text message communications from your business, should they so choose.

If subscribers are no longer receiving value from your messages, then it’s in both of your best interests that they be able to opt-out. Make sure you’re providing them a clear and simple method for doing just that.

Pro tip: Have a process in place to ask people why they are choosing to opt-out. This information could prove valuable in formulating future campaigns.

  •  Make your texts feel urgent.

In text message marketing, you want to encourage your subscribers to act now. Kind of a “run, don’t walk” style of messaging.

Of course, you’re not trying to appear pushy with this tactic. However, without a little urgency, interested recipients may read your message and leave it for later. This could lead to them forgetting completely and never acting. Just like your goals, you’ll want to make your text message marketing time-sensitive.

  •  Don’t forget your CTA!

If you’re unfamiliar with this abbreviation, CTA stands for “Call To Action.” It’s what you want your customers to do immediately after reading your message.

Your CTA should be directly related to the completion of the goal that you set at the beginning of your campaign. Sticking with the example we used earlier- if your goal is to “increase conversions,” then your CTA should be something that will encourage a sale. This may be something like, “Redeem by THIS Saturday to take advantage of this offer!”

That CTA is urgent and works towards the completion of your goal. Check and check!

Although text message marketing may be a newer concept, especially to small business owners without the benefit of a team of marketing experts, it really isn’t so complicated. We covered a lot of ground in this article, so try writing a few practice messages before sending out the real thing. 
And of course, you’ll need the best business texting service to implement all those incredibly creative text message marketing campaigns. Get in touch today to find out how we can help!

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