Not getting the results from your SMS marketing campaign? Maybe you’re committing these marketing mistakes:

You’re sending generic texts.

What you may be texting: Dear loyal customer, come by for lunch tom & get an appetizer FREE!

Your subscribers signed up because they want in on special deals and discounts. However, for them to take advantage of these promos, you must get their attention first. Sure, the word “FREE” is capitalized and marketing professionals swear by this word.

But your text begins with a “Dear loyal customer …” Not exactly something that will call attention. It doesn’t convey the impression of exclusivity.

A better strategy would be to address them by their first names. Ask if your text marketing services provide a mail-merge feature that will allow you to do just that.

What you should be texting: Hey John, come visit us for lunch on Mon & get a drink FREE!

Your marketing copy needs a lot of work.

Maybe the reason why your customers aren’t coming in droves when you text them about your big weekend sale or your new product launch is because they did not understand your text.

It’s easy to confuse people with incomplete details on SMS because of the 160-character limit. But the limited message length is not an excuse for a bad marketing copy.

Review your messages before you send them out. Always edit and never use text shortcuts or web slang.

Your subscribers don’t receive your messages.

If your messages are not lost in translation, maybe they’re lost in transit.

Many text marketing services providers guarantee that the SMS marketing messages you send will be sent instantaneously. The downside to this, however, is that some messages are not received at all. Imagine how many important marketing communications are lost through the process. Perhaps this is the reason why the attendance at last weekend’s exclusive sale or your website traffic are below expectations.

You don’t check your metrics.

Your metrics provides insights on your SMS marketing progress. It lets you know which text messages received the most response or the most clickthroughs (if you provided a link), and which ones fell flat. If you don’t track the performance of each of your texts, how will you know which promotions are the most effective? Knowing what works and what doesn’t allows you to continue sending the types of texts that are most successful and, more importantly, permits you to correct the types of texts that received the least response.