Best Time to Send SMS Marketing for Maximum Engagement

All credit goes to your customer data, and because of it, you know the right type of SMS that you should send to your customers to achieve better engagement. The right SMS provides your customers with answers to their problems/common pain points that they face. That’s why they won’t ignore it. However, are you aware that knowing the best time to send SMS marketing can have a huge impact on customer engagement? Yes, it’s a fact. When it comes to SMS marketing, there is no one-time-fits-all.

You might think that if you send an SMS on Monday, it will give you the best results as your customers are just starting their week! However, that’s a common misconception. Even if you have included the best offer in your message and sent it to the right segment of the customer base, if you don’t send it at the right time and on the right day, you won’t get your desired ROI.

In this article, we will discuss the best time to send SMS marketing text messages to achieve the highest possible engagement. So, keep reading this article to maximize your SMS marketing efforts.

Let’s first start with understanding the key factors that affect text message engagement.

What are the Key Factors That Affect SMS Engagement?

Generally, the factors that affect SMS engagement vary depending on audience demographics, business type and industry, purpose, and context of the campaign.

1. Audience Demographics

Your target audience’s age, gender, location and lifestyle play a crucial role in deciding the best time to send marketing text messages. Think about what your potential customers are doing at any point during the day.

If your target audience is younger audiences such as millennials or GenZ, they are most likely to engage with your SMS in the late mornings or in the evening after work. On the other hand, if you want to target older audiences, like retirees, they prefer messages earlier in the day. Understand your audience’s lifestyle. If your target audience is working professionals, they will be more active after work hours, around 6 PM to 8 PM.

Running a campaign that targets a specific product or service? It might resonate differently with male and female audiences at different times.

The location of your customer also factors into the best time to send SMS marketing. Let’s understand it through a simple example.

You have customers on both the East and West Coasts. If you send text messages to West Coast customers at 10 PM EST time, they will reach them at 7 AM PST. Therefore, it will make your SMS non-compliant with text messaging laws. You should segment your customers based on their location and ensure you send them messages at the appropriate times.

2. Types of Business and Industry

The best time to send marketing text messages varies depending on whether you’re operating a B2B or B2C business. If you’re targeting a B2B business, they will be active during business hours from 9 AM to 5 PM. In B2C business, the timing differs based on the nature of the business.

For example, if your target industry is retail and e-commerce, the best time to send SMS is on weekends, lunch breaks, evenings, and during the holiday season. For the health and wellness industry, send messages on weekday mornings. When it comes to travel and hospitality SMS marketing, promoting last-minute deals or booking confirmations provides higher engagement in the early evenings.

3. Message Content and Purpose

The message content and purpose also impact the ideal timing to send messages. Send promotional messages during non-disruptive hours, such as early evenings or late mornings, when customers are more likely to engage with messages.

To promote a great deal, decide how early in advance you want to send it. If you want to create a sense of urgency, send them well in advance so your customers can take advantage of them. If you want to send transactional messages like appointment reminders or payment confirmations, you should send them immediately.

4. Seasonal Timing and Campaigns

If you want to promote any deals for the holiday season or any seasonal events, you should launch the campaign early. For example, for the Back-to-School campaign, you should promote it in late July through August with weekend reminders. Black Friday SMS marketing offers, which you can promote on Thursday evenings or Friday mornings.

Best Practices for Timing SMS Marketing Campaigns

Selecting the right time to send text messages can make all the difference. It can be the difference between a SALE and SILENCE. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all approach that works here, but our research shows that there are three main key windows for sending text messages.

If you’re wondering whether to send messages on weekdays or weekends, here’s a simple answer to it.

If your target audience is professionals, sending messages on weekdays and during work hours tends to perform well. On the other hand, for industries such as travel, e-commerce, and hospitality, sending messages on weekends works better.

Omnisend’s research shows that on Saturdays, you will get the best average conversion rates. Even Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday will provide good conversions.

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However, you need to consider your business type, audience demographics, industry, and other factors to decide which day and time works best for you.

Not considering the timezone can lead to text messages arriving at inconvenient times like early morning or middle of the night. Use an automated SMS marketing platform like Textdrip to automate and schedule SMS based on your target audience’s time zone so that it reaches them at the right time, irrespective of their location.

Besides all these, there are some common practices that you should consider while sending text marketing.

• Get your customers’ explicit consent before sending them an SMS. Use compliant opt-in methods such as keyword/web form for it.
• Personalize text messages with relevant details like names, locations, or birthdays that your subscribers have shared with you. Segment your audience based on locations.
• Let your subscribers know how many SMS they can expect to receive from your business in a week/month. Therefore, you can be sure that they want to hear from you exactly as often as you have decided to reach out. You don’t have to worry whether your audience will engage/receive your message or not.

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• If the subscribers have abandoned carts, remind them within 24 hours.
• Send texts immediately after someone buys from your business. Automate thank you notes after purchase.
• Research what times your competitors are sending SMS campaigns. It helps you understand what will work and what will not for your brand.
• Target the time that works perfectly across all time zones in the US.

• Before sending a message, ask for subscribers’ permission and let them choose the frequency and time they want to receive messages. You can provide options such as “opt-in for morning or evening messages”. It will help improve user satisfaction.

Analyze the engagement trends during different times of the day by measuring click-through rate, response rate, or other engagement metrics.

How to Analyze Data and Test Optimal Times to Send Marketing Texts

To find out the best time to send SMS marketing campaigns, analyze past performance data. Analyzing engagement metrics like open rate, response rate, click-through rates, and conversion rates provides insights about when your target audience is most engaged.

You can also A/B test different send times to identify which timing provides better engagement. For example, you can test the campaign, which is sent at 11 AM Vs 6 PM, and compare engagement rates to find out the optimal window. Send the same message and content at different times and analyze which performs better.

SMS marketing platforms provide in-depth analytics that will help you track performance and identify trends. These platforms have features such as automated scheduling and contact segmentation for more targeted campaigns.

Best Time to Send SMS: Industry-Specific Timing Recommendations

The best time to send an SMS depends on your industry and typical business hours. For example, for restaurant text message marketing, around mealtime is the perfect time to send promotional messages. However, it can be different in the e-commerce business, which wants to reach its potential customers with 24-hour flash sale offers in the morning. On the flip side, businesses like dental offices, and retail generally send messages only when their office is open.

As per our studies, here are the industry-specific timing recommendations for various campaign types. It justifies the SMS marketing pricing you’re spending to increase sales for your business. However, try experimenting with sending the same content at different timings and determine which drives the best engagement for your business.

1. Retail and E-Commerce

2. Hospitality and Travel

3. Healthcare and Fitness

4. Restaurants and Food Delivery

5. B2B and SaaS

Best Time to Send SMS Based on Use Case

You must understand the use case and SMS campaign type. For example, you need to send transactional SMS immediately. However, when sending promotional messages, you need to consider your business goals and customers’ psychological insights.

Here, we have classified some common use cases based on the timing. Keep in mind they are a general rule of thumb. Timing can differ based on your goals, business, and customers.

How Mobile Trends and Engagement Patterns Affect Text Message Timing

Analyzing mobile usage trends and engagement patterns plays an important role in the success of any SMS marketing campaign. It helps you identify the best time to send SMS marketing text messages. Usually, people use smartphones during lunch breaks, after work hours, and while commuting. Therefore, you can expect higher engagement during that period. Besides, you should also understand the daily routine of your target audience’s demographics. For example, college students may engage more during evening study breaks.

On the flip side, working professionals may check their messages while commuting. These days, on-demand services are on the rise. Customers are relying on instant solutions. Therefore, sending messages on time, like delivery notifications or booking confirmations, is more likely to resonate.

Avoiding Common Mistakes in SMS Marketing Timing

SMS marketing is all about sending relevant information to your customers while respecting their preferences such that they might not want to hear from you all the time. It is advisable that you should not send messages during rush hours and throughout the night. If you’re waking them up in the middle of the night, how can you expect to increase customer loyalty? It will annoy them and harm your brand reputation. Early mornings and late nights are legal for quite hours, so sending messages during those times will give them a bad experience.

Never send messages without consent. Obtain written consent that shows customers have permitted you to send marketing messages.

Never bombard your subscribers with frequent messages. It will decrease engagement and increase opt-out rates. So, don’t overwhelm your customers with frequent messaging.

Give importance to your audience’s preferences, such as their preferred communication hours. If you fail to understand it or avoid it, it can be the reason for the reduced engagement.

Avoid sending marketing messages during widely celebrated holidays. Suppose you have holiday sales running but understand that your customers won’t shop during the actual holidays. Instead, they want to spend time with their family or relax at home and don’t want to be disturbed by marketing messages.

Automate and Send Marketing Text Messages On Time With Textdrip

Timing matters a lot if you want to achieve the best results from an SMS marketing campaign. Of course, no one would like to get an SMS from your business in the middle of the night or the early morning.

Therefore, you need to plan accordingly and schedule text messages to be sent at the right times. AI-powered automated SMS marketing platforms like Textdrip help you schedule and automate the SMS campaign with its impressive features like automation, scheduling, personalization, drip campaigns, contact segmentation, etc.

The platform provides you with AI-driven insights by analyzing past engagement data to predict optimal send times for the audience.  Besides, automated SMS campaigns help reduce human error in timing, let you send personalized messages that perfectly resonate with different audience segments, and help improve overall campaign effectiveness and efficiency.

So, book a demo or take a FREE trial and experience how Textdrip can increase the conversion rate of your mass text messaging with maximum engagement and minimal effort.