Looking to reach new audiences more effectively? Check out these best practices to avoid missing the mark.
Integrating texting into your communications and engagement strategy is a great start to taking your audience relationship-building to the next level. By connecting with people through their most-used channel, you’re significantly increasing the odds of a ‘read’ message.’ But hitting “send” on a message isn’t always enough. With increasing scrutiny of text messages from businesses and potential scams, it’s important to maximize the chances of your message reaching its target.
There are a few common culprits that can prevent your messages from reaching their target. Some of the top offenders include extra lengthy messages and failing to include contact and agent names. You can read more about why these tactics impact deliverability in our blog post on Medium, here. Changing your approach in these areas can improve your deliverability right off the bat, but we’ve got a few more best practices to consider as you’re looking to maximize the reach of your texting.
With over a billion text messages sent through our platform, the Hustle team has gathered data and insights from our users to determine a few ways you can make the most out of your messaging strategy. While these tips aren’t guaranteed to increase your delivery rate, we’ve found these easy-to-implement tips can help organizations looking to improve performance.
Tips and Insights to Improve Deliverability of Text Messages
- Use opt-out language in every initial message sent.
- Ex. “Reply STOP for quit”
- The longer the message, the longer the send time. Messages under 160 characters perform best when initiating a conversation.
- Keep in mind that MMS messages take longer to send than SMS.
- For high-volume campaigns, consider sending messages earlier in the day, as this reduces the chance of messages getting delivered at inconvenient hours.
- Curious why? For texting in the US and PR, Hustle is limited to the throughput (how many messages we can send per second and per day) allotted by your TCR brand score and campaign.
- Avoid the use of public-domain link shorteners, like bit.ly, that redirect your links and can raise suspicion with carriers. To aid in shortening direct links, the Hustle platform has a link shortener already built in for the ‘Share a Link’ goal type, which has much better deliverability.
- HOT TIP: Using the Share a Link goal type also lets you track action taken from each link you send!
If you’re looking for more inspiration to craft your messaging strategy, you can find more texting best practices on our help center, here!
Building a compelling story for your audience is already a challenge, and deliverability adds another layer of complexity. But by using these best practices, you can avoid common pitfalls that keep your text messages from reaching your audience.
As you consider how to get your message across, it’s also important to note that 10DLC is now required by carriers to deliver messages. Looking for more info on 10DLC? Check out our help article on this texting standard.
Have questions about deliverability that we haven’t covered here? Our support team is here to help – send us a note at [email protected]
