We’ve discussed it plenty of times before and, by now, if it’s not something that’s ingrained into your subconscious, it certainly ought to be: SMS marketing should always offer some sort of monetary incentive to the customer. Without that, you run the risk of allowing your campaign to lose value in the customer’s eyes. But, how much is too much? This is one of those gray areas that SMS and email marketing software can’t really help you with. Fortunately, we’ve got some answers for you.

The first thing to consider is what you want to accomplish by sending email and SMS messages. If that’s increased traffic flow into your physical store or online storefront, then you’ve got to go about it in a way that will maximize the effectiveness of every campaign. This is how you accomplish that:

1. Don’t send coupons or buy-one-get-one-free offers too often. If you’re in the habit of using your SMS and email marketing software to time the sending of a new offer every other day, you’ll give your customers the impression that they don’t have to take advantage of the opportunity because there’ll be another soon.

2. Don’t take too long between coupon offers. This may sound contrary to the advice just given, but the fact is there’s a delicate balance you have to strike. If your offers are too few and far between, your customers may forget all about them and end up opting out of your campaign because they see no value in staying on.

3. Mix it up. Offer different discounts on a rotating basis to ensure you’re not repeating yourself too often. If you keep offering the same thing over and over, your customers may get bored and wander off.

The best advice on sending SMS and email offers is to stick to a twice-per-month schedule. That way, customers will see the opportunity as not too seldom but not too rare to be able to stick around long enough to take advantage of it.