The Dos and Don’ts of Cold SMS Outreach

Leverage cold SMS best practices to maximize the ROI of SMS campaigns.

Despite the rise of new communication channels, SMS is still one of the most effective tools for marketing.

SMS is personal, direct, and immediate, making it essential for time-sensitive promotional campaigns and transactional notifications. Of course, SMS marketing is not easy, and you need to familiarize yourself with various SMS strategies to achieve a high marketing ROI.

Cold SMS outreach is a popular marketing strategy among businesses due to its potential for generating new leads and increasing brand awareness.

In this blog post, we’ve gathered essential cold SMS outreach tips to help you run a successful campaign. We’ll also explain how you can use WP SMS to reach out to new customers efficiently using cold messaging.

What Is Cold SMS?

Cold SMS messaging is when you send text ads to people who have not previously interacted with your business.

In other words, if they have not given explicit consent to receive messages from you, you’re sending cold text messages to them.

This is the opposite of warm SMS outreach, which targets existing customers or leads who have opted in.

So, in cold SMS messaging, you want to reach out to a completely new audience to build brand awareness and find new customers.

The following table compares warm and cold SMS:

Cold SMS outreach can be a highly effective marketing strategy. Here are some of the most important reasons why we use bulk cold messaging in our marketing strategies:

• High Open Rates: SMS messages have an open rate of approximately 98%. It’s significantly higher than email’s average open rate of 20%.

• Rapid Engagement: People read 95% of text messages within 3 minutes. This means you can use SMS for limited-time campaigns.

• Consumer Preferences: 48% of customers prefer to receive text messages from businesses rather than other channels like email.

However, cold messaging might be risky due to compliance issues with communication regulations like GDPR and TCPA. 

Misusing cold SMS outreach can lead to the following:

• Negative responses
• Legal issues
• Damage to your brand reputation

Understanding the dos and don’ts of cold SMS outreach is crucial for running a successful campaign.

The Dos of Cold SMS Outreach

Here are some of the cold SMS best practices to use in your marketing campaigns:

Run Opt-In Campaigns

As said earlier, if you don’t comply with regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you might face legal fines or customer dissatisfaction.

To be honest, cold SMS Outreach is illegal! So, what to do to avoid legal fines? You must reduce your business risk and run opt-in campaigns using various methods like:

• Use opt-in forms: Collect phone numbers and get SMS consent through online subscription forms on your site.

• Integrate opt-ins into sign-up flows: You can add a checkbox for SMS consent when collecting phone numbers.

• Leverage social media & email: Allow followers and subscribers to opt into SMS messaging.

• Provide opt-out options: Make it easy to unsubscribe, as required by law.

• Ensure compliance: Follow TCPA regulations to maintain subscribers and avoid penalties.

• Use keyword opt-ins: Run text-to-join campaigns where customers subscribe by texting a keyword. For example, send this “Text JOIN to 12345 to receive exclusive offers!“

Personalize Your Messages

People are highly likely to respond to messages that call them by their first name. Although you’re sending cold messages to people who you don’t know, try to collect as much data about them as possible and include them in the message.

Personalization can significantly improve engagement rates because it makes the message friendly.

So try to address the recipient by name and write the message according to their needs or interests.

A generic, robotic message will likely be ignored, while a well-personalized one can lead to better responses.

Take a look at the following personalization samples:

• Bad Example: “Buy our new product now!“
• Good Example: “Hi John, we noticed you’ve searched for fitness gear on our website. Check out our latest running shoes at 20% off!“

Please bear in mind that personalization is also subject to data protection regulations.

Create a Short & Clear Cold SMS Template

People receive numerous messages daily and don’t like to read lengthy texts. So, it’s essential to be concise and to the point when sending your cold SMS.

Try to avoid unnecessary details and clearly state the purpose of your message to grab the attention of your recipient.

Besides, SMS has a character limitation of 160 characters, and if you write more than that, you need to pay for two SMS.

Here is a good example of a short and clear cold SMS template:

Include a Clear Call to Action (CTA)

The purpose of your cold SMS outreach is to ask your customers to do something. So, you need to think of a creative way to write a compelling and short call to action to encourage them to take action.

Look at the following samples and try to come up with more ideas to write unique and grabbing CTAs:

• “Click here to learn more.”
• “Reply YES to claim your offer.”
• “Call us at (123) 456-7890 to get started.”

Send Cold SMS at the Best Time

Imagine you want to sleep, and suddenly, you hear the SMS alarm. What do you do? You’ll probably block the phone number, especially if it’s a promotional SMS from an unknown brand.

So try to respect the recipients and schedule your cold text messages at the best time to avoid annoyance and get the maximum engagement rate.

Of course, finding the best time to send cold SMS messages is not easy because it’s different in various industries and regions.

Overall, the best times for cold SMS campaigns are typically:

• Weekdays: 9 AM – 12 PM and 4 PM – 7 PM
• Weekends: 10 AM – 2 PM

Provide an Easy Opt-Out Option

This is critical in cold SMS campaigns. You should always include an opt-out method in your messages.

In fact, you must give recipients this choice to unsubscribe from your SMS list. Please bear in mind that if you continue sending cold text messages after receiving the unsubscription request, you might dent your brand identity.

People usually report your messages as SPAM in these situations, and this might be really dangerous for your business.

So try to include a simple opt-out choice like “Reply STOP to unsubscribe” to ensure compliance and prevent complaints.

Test and Optimize Your Messages

When you see a low engagement after running a cold SMS campaign, you need to find the reason.

One of the best methods is A/B tests. You must try different message variations to find what your audience likes most.

You can choose one of the following items for your A/B test:

• CTA
• Message length
• Personalization tactics
• Sending times

Use a Recognizable Sender Name

A great method to gain the trust of your audience and avoid being spammed or blocked is by using a Sender Name instead of your phone number.

This is especially important when it comes to cold SMS campaigns because the recipient hasn’t saved your phone number.

Your cold SMS should clearly show who is sending the message. So try to use a recognizable sender name to build trust and reduce the chance of your message being ignored.

Look at Regional SMS Regulations

If you’re running an international cold SMS campaign, you need to comply with regional regulations.

For example, CASL is Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation and requires your business to obtain express or implied consent before sending promotional texts.

The Don’ts of Cold SMS Outreach

Now, it’s time to review some of the greatest mistakes marketers make when sending cold SMS messages:

Don’t Sound Too Salesy or Pushy

Avoid using aggressive sales language in your cold messaging. Remember that unwanted ads already carry the risk of being flagged as SPAM. So, pushing recipients to buy immediately will only increase that risk. 

You must keep your approach conversational and offer value to your audience instead of forcing them to buy.

Here are examples of good and bad approaches in cold SMS campaigns:

• ❌ “Exclusive offer just for you! Buy NOW before it’s too late!!!”
• ✅ “Hi Mark, get 15% off your next purchase. Click here to claim: [link]” 

Don’t Overload with Links or Attachments

People might block your message when they see too many links or attachments in your cold SMS.

So you just have to include one clear, trustworthy link per message. It’s also essential to use URL shortener tools to make your link shorter and appear better.

Don’t Ignore Responses

If recipients take action or ask something from you and you don’t respond, you might lose a great chance.

Try to engage with them promptly because if you ignore them, you might seem unprofessional or unreliable.

It’s also important to use two-way messaging to enable interactions with your audience.

Don’t Fail to Follow Up

You can’t expect a response from your audience on the first try. So, you have to prepare an SMS template for following up and reminding the audience of the urgency of your offer.

Try to create FOMO in your second cold SMS to encourage people to take action.

Here are the cold SMS examples:

• First Message

• Follow-Up (Creating FOMO)

Don’t Use Generic or Robotic Language

People don’t like automatic messages that seem to be written by a machine. Instead, you must write friendly messages and talk to the recipients at a personal level to encourage them to engage with you.

Don’t Overwhelm Your Audience

If you send too many messages to your audience, you might annoy recipients. This will increase the chance of your messages being blocked by the recipients. So don’t send more than once a week to your audiences.

Don’t Use SMS as Your Only Outreach Channel

SMS is effective, but it’s not enough if you want to win the market. Your cold SMS strategy should be part of a larger omnichannel outreach plan.

Try to integrate cold SMS with email, social media, and phone calls. This way, you can make the most out of your marketing campaigns.

The Best SMS Platform for Cold SMS Outreach

The success of your cold SMS campaigns depends not only on the dos and don’ts we mentioned but also on the SMS platform you use.

For an efficient cold  SMS campaign, you need a tool with advanced automation features and also the ability to integrate with your current platforms.

For example, if you run an online store or a WordPress website, WP SMS is a great option. This powerful plugin supports 300+ SMS gateways, allowing seamless integration with your site.

With WP SMS, you can:

• Segment your audience for targeted cold messaging.
• Automate cold SMS campaigns without coding knowledge.
• Schedule your cold text messages for maximum exposure.
• Integrate with WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, and FluentCRM for better functionality.

Try the WP SMS demo to explore its features. Also, you can always reach out for expert guidance on optimizing your cold SMS marketing strategy!

Final Thoughts

Cold messaging is a risky method for reaching out to new customers. Sending SMS without getting consent from the recipients is illegal in many countries, so you need to be careful when sending your cold messages. 

You can reduce the risk by running opt-in campaigns and building a list of targeted audiences. 

Also, you have to include an option for unsubscription to reduce the risk of being flagged as SPAM. 

If you can create a compelling SMS template for your cold SMS and use an effective SMS tool to automate your cold campaigns, you can reach a high ROI. 

Here at WP SMS, we can help you run successful cold SMS campaigns at an affordable cost. So why wait? Get started right now!

FAQs