Best practices for creating SMS message content

Drive engagement without exceeding your monthly SMS budget by creating shorter messages with a clear call-to-action

SMS messages have a high likelihood of being read, but if they're too long, they can eat into your monthly sending budget. Here are some useful tips to create short and meaningful SMS messages:

• Shorten your SMS message
• Make your message meaningful

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Shorten your SMS message

Every time you send an SMS message, you're charged by the number of individual text messages that make up your SMS message, times the number of contacts you send it to. If your SMS is broken into two segments, it counts as two text messages, if your message grows to three segments, it counts as three text messages. The good news is that you can fit quite a bit into 160 characters:

• Have one call-to-action - Keep your message focused to one topic. If you have lots of information to share, it's better to segment your SMS contacts into groups and send more targeted messages to each segment.
• Use smaller words - Your brand voice is important, but there's a balance with SMS messaging. Longer words take up more characters and lengthen your message.
• Reduce emoji - Emoji go hand-in-hand with text messages, but they take up extra space behind the scenes. If you're going to use emoji, be strategic!
• Give a path to more information - Don't try and cram every last detail in your message. Instead, share a URL where your readers can round our the picture and take an action. We automatically shorten it for you too!

Make your message meaningful

SMS messages are a powerful too to help you reach and engage the people who most want to hear from you. Each message you send needs to be meaningful; if your contacts don't find value, they'll start unsubscribing from SMS.

• Grab attention - Your SMS contacts signed up because they want to read your messages; you've already grabbed their attention! The hard part is keeping it. Each message should have content that excites, and isn't part of your regular routine.
• Provide value - Your SMS subscribers signed up because they expect a more personal relationship with you. SMS messages are the perfect way to reward loyal subscribers with exclusive offers, discounts, content, surveys, sneak peaks, and early access that make them feel special. 
• Give real-time updates - If you have important news, your SMS contacts should be the fist to know. It's a great way to get eyes on articles about your organization, your most recent blog posts and video content, or to share schedules and line-ups.
• Set a deadline - Making your message time-sensitive increases the sense of urgency to take action and increases engagement.

Questions?