Have you ever sent a unique term to a mobile short code in order to receive text promos? And figured how it was a good idea for your customers to interact with your business via SMS? SMS marketers commonly pair mobile keywords with a 5 to 6-digit code for their advertising SMS campaign.
If a potential customer wants to join a brand’s contact list, he can opt in by just typing out the keyword on his smartphone and send it to the assigned short code.
So if you’re struggling to come up with a few mobile keywords you could use for a campaign, here are some tips.
Basic rules to live by
Keep your keyword short and simple – Don’t let your subscribers stress over keying in special characters and multiple SMS keywords on their phone. It’s important to keep it mobile phone keyword short and easy to remember.
Make it easy to remember – In most cases, people are too busy with other things to opt-in right after they see your advertisement. The best way to make sure that they’ll remember it when they use their phone is by making your keyword memorable.
Set up a text to join campaign
Before launching a text-to-join campaign, prepare your keyword and make sure to find out what your assigned mobile short code is. Mobile marketing keywords are very important to the success of your SMS campaign.
When you have chosen a keyword the next step is to set up a text to join campaign. SMS is a permission-based marketing effort, so make sure to let your customers know how many text messages they will receive monthly and how they can opt out
from receiving text messages when you set up your autoreply text.
See example below:
“Reaching us has never been easier with our Vip text messaging service. To receive exclusive updates and offers, please Text ‘JOIN’ to 123456. Data charges may apply.” to opt out reply stop to end
Use AutoCorrect
Ever sent an epic fail text message and blamed it on some autocorrect mistakes? Now just imagine putting your business in an awkward situation with your subscribers…
So yes, you’d better make sure that you got it right this time to not lose a subscriber over an autocorrect mistake. Plus, keywords that are likely to be misspelled is also likely to be auto-corrected and replaced with a completely different word. Keywords for mobile phones must be correct to avoid this.
That is why it is important to choose a simple and single-word term for your SMS marketing campaigns. Fortunately, you can reduce running the risk of autocorrect mistakes by testing your mobile keywords on different operating systems (e.g. Android, iOS, and Windows).
Lastly, stay away from keywords that still autocorrect despite using its many other versions. The key is to test your mobile app keywords first before making things official.