How Often Should SMS Marketing Messages Be Sent?

In the video above, Tatango CEO Derek Johnson answers the question, “How often should SMS marketing messages be sent?” Prefer to read instead? No problem, please see the post below. You can also find answers to all of your SMS marketing questions in our Q&A video library; click here to browse.

How Often Should SMS Marketing Messages Be Sent?

SMS marketing is a form of marketing where brands and organizations utilize text messaging to send subscribers value-adding content. In SMS marketing, consumers opt-in to a text marketing campaign to receive frequent alerts, offers, and promotions from a brand. But, how often is frequent?

It depends on the application and situation. To gain a better understanding of how often SMS marketing messages should be sent, the brand can use customer data (purchase frequency) to help determine how often a subscriber may want to receive messaging. 

For example, if a quick-service restaurant like Chipotle wanted to determine how often they should send marketing messages to their subscribers, they may want to see how often their customers visit their restaurant. If their average customer purchased a burrito once a week, sending a message once or twice a week would be the right cadence for their text message marketing. 

In a different scenario, a car dealership’s customer is much different than a quick-service restaurant. Due to the nature of the industry and business, customers visit dealerships once every few months for an oil change or car maintenance. The messaging cadence of a dealership would be much different. While Chipotle could send a message once or twice a week, a car dealership could send a message once or twice a month.

Ultimately, the frequency in which SMS marketing messages should be sent depends on the nature of the industry, business, seasonality, and much more. A car dealership might send one or two messages during the off-season but increase its messaging during the summertime. After all, the key to successful text message marketing is understanding a brand’s customers as best as possible.

Industry Resources: SMS Archives

SMS archives is a free public resource with more than 500 sample SMS marketing examples from some of the world’s biggest brands.

On SMS Archives, text message marketers can see how other brands use SMS marketing to generate revenue, promote special offers, and add value to their subscribers. All SMS marketing examples on SMS Archives are dated, so you can know precisely when (and from whom) text messages are sent. In the example below, users can view the messaging (SMS or MMS) and how often Papa Murphy’s sends its subscribers messages. Papa Murphy’s sends its subscribers SMS marketing messages (as compared to MMS messages) 100% of the time, about every 1.9 days.

Survey Results: BlueHornet’s Consumer Views of Email Marketing Report

For the third consecutive year, BlueHornet surveyed more than 1,000 consumers across the United States to better understand their behavior and sentiments about email and text message marketing. BlueHornet developed the questionnaire for this survey with assistance from Flagship Research. The survey was administered by Flagship to a national panel of 1,308 consumers between the ages of 18 and 75, distributed evenly between women and men across East, Midwest and Western regions of the United States; 64.5% of whom are employed and 72.3% with a household income over $35,000.

So, how often should businesses text message their customers? According to the survey, 89.3% of respondents agreed that they’d want to receive 1-2 text messages per week. The results of the survey are below.

By using the combination of customer insights, industry resources, and survey benchmarks, you can find the right frequency with which to message consumers. We hope that helps you determine your own right answer for how often SMS messages should be sent.

To learn more about SMS marketing or set up your own text message marketing campaigns, contact us at Tatango today.