The Anatomy of a Text

So, you’ve got a texting service. You’ve got subscribers. Now it’s time to send out a message.

In working with clients, it often seems like the main objective is to “just get a message out”. It’s a Deal of the Day. It’s a notification of a cancelled meeting.

But it’s also 160 characters that work together to communicate something of importance. And sometimes in our haste to simply “get the message out”, we overlook something.

Each one of those 160 characters is singularly important. Why? Because text messaging has a 98% read rate.

That type of number begs responsibility on our part to keep the content vital & relevant. Or risk losing a subscriber.

Your customers cell phone number is a valuable commodity. And after the exploitation our email addresses have received, it’s probably not something given out lightly.

Make sure your message counts.

Don’t waste valuable real estate with unnecessary or repetitive words or phrases. Don’t get too carried away with overcapitalization and punctuation. Sometimes it can be misinterpreted as yelling.

I once saw a client send out a message promoting catering with no less than 12 exclamation points! (Four after each one of her three sentences.) She could have used just one for each- and then had enough space to include her phone number, so subscribers could easily reach her to place an order.

Strategically thinking through how to best utilize this real estate of 160 characters will take your efforts to the next level. Being creative by using links to videos, social media pages, as well as phone numbers and email addresses are all great ways to create a call to action in your texts that keeps the communication cycle going.

So, that being said…happy texting!

Amy Mardis

VP Communications