MMS best practices

There is a lot to consider when creating your MMS messages for customers. What kind of picture leads to higher conversion rates? Is a QR code better than a link? Which font is more engaging?  

In short, it depends.  

The best solution for a coupon campaign might not work for a product registration and vice versa. Every feature should be considered on a case-by-case basis, but we can give you some general pointers to keep in mind when crafting the perfect MMS message.  

While you might be used to spamming your friends, different rules apply when it comes to marketing. Depending on the country you’re operating in, you might require informed consent from a customer to send them promotional material through MMS.  

This isn’t a bad thing, though. Asking your customers for permission makes them more inclined to trust you and those who decide to opt-in usually deliver higher engagement rates. Unsolicited messages are often met with outrage anyways, so it’s best to avoid them all together. It can land you in legal trouble and drive away customers in the long run. 

The key reason why MMS shows much better results than a simple SMS is the rich media. Using a catchy picture or a funny video grabs the reader’s attention and increases engagement by almost 300%. The image is the first thing anyone will see as they open your message, so you need to make sure it’s attractive and relevant.  

Don’t be afraid to use large, clear text in your visuals since phone screens are generally small. An image that looks perfectly readable on the computer might not be legible at all on mobile. A bold font in pictures can help make things clear, as well as choosing colors that contrast and complement each other.  

Try to avoid putting too much text in your graphics because this can make things cluttered. Keep only the most relevant information so the reader has an incentive to read more, but reserve the explanation for the body of the message itself.   

When communicating through MMS, it’s best to keep it short and sweet. A really long message will probably not be read in its entirety and can even drive people away from reading it in the first place.  

Generally, you should keep the body text under 100 words and focus on the most crucial information that you think your reader is most interested in. This can be a discounted price, a one-sentence description of a new product or something else more relevant to the message you’re trying to convey. Be specific. 

If the point of your message is to invite people to a specific website, include a weblink. The user can immediately click on it right after reading and follow through with the rest of the campaign. QR codes are a good substitute, but keep in mind that some people don’t know how to scan them.  

Know your audience, then create your message. 

At the end, don’t forget to include a call-to-action to entice your readers to engage and guide them to the next step. It gives them an actionable task and usually contains an imperative verb. Something like this: Click to learn more

While you can send an MMS at any time of day, it’s essential to choose the right moment. For example: the typical American worker will probably skim over your message if you send it at 7 a.m. when they just wake up. They will likely be more responsive if you send it after work.

Finding the right time depends on the campaign and your customers, so feel free to experiment to see what works best. Also, customer data can be a great resource to help you optimize send times and pin-point who should receive what message and when with surgical precision. 

You can spend hours creating the ideal message and finding the perfect picture, but if your customer receives a message from an anonymous number telling them to click a foreign link, you probably lost them. The number of scams increases year-by-year, and so does scam awareness. To make sure your customers know that it’s you, don’t forget to add your brand name and logo before sending out the campaign. You’ll save yourself quite a bit of trouble. 

To make sure your campaign is successful, you need to constantly monitor messages and evaluate their performance. Even the most well-crafted messaging campaign can fail because people sometimes respond in unpredictable ways. 

If you want to achieve the best results, experiment with content to see what works. A/B testing is common in marketing and for good reason – it shows you what people find engaging so you can steer your campaign in the right direction. In order to do this and maximize ROI, you need an omnichannel customer engagement solution and a customer data platform.