While SMS marketing remains one of the most sought-after channels for marketing communications, most businesses are still not relishing the full potential of this marketing channel.
For SMS marketing campaigns to be successful, messages need to be delivered to the recipient’s inboxes; having a low delivery rate means messages are not being delivered as planned, which may hurt your business’s campaign goals.
In this article, we will be looking at how businesses can increase the deliverability rates of their SMS campaigns.
What is SMS deliverability?
SMS deliverability is a term used by SMS marketing providers like NALO to signify the percentage of SMS that has been successfully delivered to the recipient’s inbox.
When analyzing your business’s annual bulk sms reports, you are to note that a higher percentage of deliverability means a significant number of your messages reached their right destination. Hence, messages will be discovered by your customers.
What are the causes of low SMS deliverability?
There are many reasons why your SMSs are not delivered. Examples are wrong recipient numbers, active spam filters, and using gray routes, etc.
1. Gray routes:
You may be getting lower SMS delivery rates because your SMS provider may be using unauthorized routes that has not been verified by the operator to send bulk sms campaigns. Although messages will go through, spam filters may block deliveries if it finds such messages.
2. Active Spam filters:
When choosing SMS sender IDs, make sure they look human and have no suspicious characters, messages, or links that trigger operator spam filters to activate. Else messages won’t deliver.
3. Wrong or inactive numbers:
Bulk SMS campaigns may not deliver when there are issues with the recipient number. This may lower your deliverability rate.
4. Third-party apps that receive your messages:
Sometimes third-party messaging apps you install to receive your messages may have permission to read your messages. Such apps may contain filters that reject certain sender IDs.
5. Technical challenges at the operator:
The operator may face technical challenges on their routes which affect message delivery. Providers like NALO have dedicated monitoring support that detects operator downtime and switches to a stable route, so message delivery is not affected.
How to increase your SMS delivery rate
1. Avoid sending the same SMS over again:
Modern smartphones have smart message filters that automatically flag messages as SPAM when the same message is sent over and over again to customers.
Therefore you would have to be mindful and be making edits to your messages according to the campaign goals.
2. Remove inactive contacts:
By default, your bulk SMS blasts are supposed to reach every user provided their numbers are active. Cleaning your contact list will help you remove incorrect numbers helping you reach an engaged audience.
3. When adding URLs, make sure they redirect to sites you control:
Random URLs to unknown sites are usually flagged as spam and may never reach your customer’s inboxes. When sending sms, make sure to use domains you use domain URLs that link back to your website.
4. Following operator rules in each region/ country:
Every country may have a set of rules for selecting Sender IDs, how many messages you may send at a specific time, or what type of you can send.
In conclusion, by following these steps, businesses can increase their SMS deliverability rates and ensure that their messages reach their intended recipients. This will help improve communication, customer engagement, and ultimately, customer satisfaction.
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