What is an SMS Notification: Tips, Examples, Best Practices

There are many ways for  businesses to reach out to users and grab attention, like push notifications or email alerts, which benefit the business and the customer. However, out of all possible types of communication with customers and clients, SMS notifications have proven to be the most reliable, fast, and efficient. 

In a nutshell, SMS notifications are brief text messages sent to inform your audience about an update, event, or transaction. A simple text message can be a powerful digital marketing tool for your business. 

According to Mobile Squared, consumers open 90% of their SMS notifications within three minutes. On top of that, text messages don’t depend on Internet connection, are easily accessible, and can be modified to fit any goal, from confirming a booking to driving traffic to your website. 

So how can your business benefit from SMS notifications?

Let’s dig in to the key role of SMS and the most relevant ways to use it to build a relationships with your audience. Don’t forget to go through the seven examples of SMS marketing messages!

5 Reasons to Use SMS Notifications

One of the key reasons businesses use SMS notifications is to enhance lead generation. Texting clients via SMS is an efficient marketing technique that makes communication fast, direct, and personalized. 

However, SMS marketing is just as powerful when retaining new customers. Use a powerful message delivery tool like Smarter Contact to create automated messaging campaigns,expand your audience, and build authentic relationships with your customer base. 

Here are just a few examples of how a company can use SMS notifications:

• Promote important events 
• Appointment confirmations and reminders
• Send promotions and discounts
• Promote certain products or services with short code or long code messages
• Provide a link for order status and tracking

Who Can Take Advantage of SMS Notifications?

Generating leads and retaining new users is vital for every modern business. SMS alerts present an endless number of opportunities to connect with clients and implement powerful text marketing strategies.   

SMS notifications may become the key to success for for businesses in virtually every industry. They are likely to address the needs of real estate, recruitment, advertising, automotive, law, software development, promotions, marketing and sales, sports and fitness, event management, and more. These and other fields can take advantage of SMS solutions and use various tactics to achieve their individual goals. 

For example, real estate agencies often use our text marketing tool to close more deals by making it easy to connect with potential buyers and sellers on their mobile devices. As soon as potential property buyers leave their contact information on a real estate website, an agency can remind them about open house dates, provide new offers, send requests to schedule viewings, and more.     

Benefits of SMS Notifications

According to a report from the State of Texting, an SMS notification is the fastest way to reach users out of all modern communication methods. 78% of surveyed businesses said that the messages sent directly to each customer’s mobile phones reach more customers than other means of communication like voice calls or emails. 

But the benefits of SMS alerts go far beyond that. 

Let’s look at the key advantages of implementing SMS marketing as a part of your business strategy.   

Faster Delivery

As mentioned above, one of the main benefits of SMS notifications is the speed of their delivery to the customer. Data.ai reports that, on average, people spend 4.8 hours a day on their mobile phone. No matter if a person is scrolling through social media, playing a game, or listening to music, the push notification will allow them to immediately get your message.  

An average customer will likely be more satisfied by getting a text than a phone call that may disturb them, or an email that could potentially be lost or unnoticed. In addition, you can rely on SMS marketing for time sensitive notifications.

The Highest Open Rates

Open rate is the key metric for notification delivery showing exactly how many people have opened a message or email. The average email open rate is 21% across all industries, while the average SMS (or short message service) open rate is 98%!  It’s clear that SMS marketing is the communication channel with the highest delivery rates and most potential.

Open rates are important because they provide a good idea of customer engagement. Plus, another reason to take advantage of SMS marketing is because text messages are trustworthy. They are typically more credible because they are less often associated with spam or unsolicited advertising. This is just one reason why open rates continue to stay close to 100%.

No Internet Required

Unlike email and push notifications, an SMS notification service is dependent on an Internet connection. Without this requirement, texts are more accessible since people can get messages almost anytime and anywhere. You can reach more users and expand your capabilities without being tied to the Internet.  

Customer-Centered Approach

Sending SMS messages is a perfect way to address your clients’ needs and meet their expectations. Most people who use your service or are potentially interested in your product actually want to receive information and updates. You can provide a better customer experience with consistent, accessible updates about their purchases, interests, appointments, tracking numbers, or events.

SMS is not only a powerful marketing tool for businesses. It’s also a powerful tool for customer satisfaction.. 

Boost Lead Generation

Attracting new customers and converting them into buyers is one of the ways SMS marketing campaigns can move the needle in your company. By sending special offers, alerts, and other personalized texts to a specific target audience, you generate new leads much more successfully than with emails that often end up in the spam folder.  

You can also use SMS in combination with other communication channels like emails and push notifications. This will help you develop a complete marketing funnel and capture a wider audience.

Smart Tools

Modern bulk SMS services like Smarter Contact  provide templates, solutions for automation, CRM systems, and useful tools that make communication easier and deal closing faster. You can achieve multiple marketing goals by turning to an SMS delivery software. 

In particular, we offer our clients a smart Skiptracing tool that allows you to increase your response rate by 157%. With Skiptracing, you can find client’s phone numbers, addresses, and names. Smart Contact software will provide you with the latest phone data, separating mobile and landline information.  

Data-Proven Effectiveness

Don’t just create an SMS marketing campaign and assume all is well. Keep a continual eye on the efficiency of your SMS marketing campaigncan improve multiple metrics and KPIs. Here are several key indicators that track your SMS performance and prove its results: 

• Conversion rate
• Open rate
• Clickthrough Rate (CTR)
• Lifetime Value (LFV)
• Return on Investment (ROI)
• List growth, etc.
• Unsubscribe rate

SMS Notification Best Practices

After reviewing the key use cases and benefits of text message marketing, let’s find out how your business can send SMS notifications to succeed with your goals. Here are a few ways to turn short text messages into a powerful tool to engage more customers and exceed their expectations.

Follow Telecommunication Regulations

Although sending bulk SMS is completely legal, you have to follow certain telecommunication rules when conducting your campaigns. Make sure to start by getting consent from users before sending messages. This is regulated by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which controls telemarketing communication via voice calls, text messages, and fax. 

People can agree to receive your messages with an opt-in which includes text updates and additional offers. At the same time, make sure to providee your users an opt-out option.  

Keep it Brief and Precise

The word “short” in the SMS abbreviation is not for nothing. It is a well-known fact that each message has a limit of 160 charactersnd even that can be too much. Your goal is to engage the recipients, communicate solely crucial information, and hold people’s attention. Otherwise, you risk losing the reader's interest instead of encouraging them to respond. Thus, your SMS should be brief and concise.

Plus, don’t forget to include CTAs to ensure the users stay engaged in your marketing funnel!

Make the Notifications Personalized

Try to make your messages friendly and personalized. General messages that don’t appeal to the readers often repel people, and can even resemble unwanted spam. Use the recipients’ names and any other personal information like previously requested interests or the users’ location with geofencing SMS. You may also finish your messages with a personal SMS signature. 

This will establish better emotional connection and allow users to feel that the message was actually intended for them. It’s also important not to be too formal and avoid clichés while keeping the text clear and easy to read.  

Establish an Effective Schedule

Good scheduling is extremely important for an SMS marketing campaign. You should consider multiple factors here, including your target audience’s location, schedule, and demographics. Don’t send messages too often. Otherwise, the notifications will become annoying and ultimately less effective. 

An automated solution will help you set up an effective messaging schedule that significantly facilitates the task of reaching the audience. See how Smarter Contact can help you.

Use Templates

Don’t reinvent the wheel--use what already works. Using templates will save you time and effort.

In addition, by segmenting your audience and creating texts for various cases and recipient groups, you can monitor how well each one works. Setting metrics to track particular SMS types’ performance will allow you to improve your leads and reject ineffective ones. Therefore, SMS templates will help you considerably improve your text messaging campaigns.    

Top 7 Examples of SMS Notifications 

Keeping in mind the best ways to use text messages for achieving your business goals, let’s look at several SMS notification examples serving various purposes. 

Offer for Potential Real Estate Customers 

George, we were glad to see you on our website today! 

Is there anything we could help you with? 

For any questions, please contact here: 

homesweethome/contact/

Booking Confirmation 

Dear Sarah, thank you for choosing our hotel! Your booking has been confirmed. We’re looking forward to seeing you on April 18 at 1 pm. 

With questions, contact:

000-111-222.

Discount Offer SMS Notification

WHITE ROOM OFFER! Cyber Monday starts tomorrow! Take up to 50% off + free shipping for purchases of $40+! 

Our shop: whiteroomstore.com

Reply HELP for support. 

Delivery Notification

Darren, thank you for ordering with Brandford Ride! Your order will be delivered by 17:30. We will send an update as soon as your pizza is on its way. 

Darren, your pizza has been prepared and handed to your driver Jeremy. 

Thank you for using the Brandford Ride service! Enjoy your takeaway. If you have any questions, please contact us: 333-222-111.

Tracking Link

Hi Lily! Your order from PICKUPGADGET is on the way! 

The status will be updated in 24 hours. 

Track it here: trackingorder.com/PDRZIaB. 

Abandoned Cart Reminder

Hi John! We noticed that you left an item in your cart. 

Don’t miss it! You can finish your order now by visiting openshop.com. Reply here if you need any help.

Taxi Arrival Notification

Hi Sophie! Your booked trip with Stephen will start in 7 minutes. 

He is driving a red Ford Focus, license plate BKM 4346.

Thank you for using TaxiNY.com. For any details, please contact your driver:

444-222-555.

Take Advantage of an Automated SMS Delivery Software

SMS notifications allow your business to reach your audience, improve customer service, and ensure the fastest possible delivery of important messages. Therefore, text messaging should become a crucial part of your marketing campaigns. 

Smarter Contact has a robust automation platform that can help your business start growing with SMS marketing. Our tool will provide you with the highest message delivery rate, built-in CRM, top-rated integrations, intuitive interface, and helpful features – from 2-way messages to templates, duplicates, and scheduled texts. 

Looking for a way to streamline your text marketing? Sign up for our 7-day trial for free to see how efficient Smarter Contact software is!