Can Timing Text Ads Make A Difference?
Written by Evan SchumanCharlotte Russe, a 500-store youth apparel chain, recently cited almost 100 percent read-rates on its text messages, which pretty much indicates the lack of understanding of text open-rates. In E-mail, an open-rate means someone has read the subject line and the from line, and then decided the message is worth exploring. In text, “opening” means far less, if anything at all. But that doesn’t mean there are no good ways to gauge message effectiveness—redemption rates do a wonderful job—and it also doesn’t mean there are not good ways to make those messages get read more often. Consider, for example, a customized honeypot approach—sort of CRM for texting.
Few retailers are using text timing as a means to send such messages more effectively. Most consumers tend to open and respond to texts during certain hours, based on their schedules. To determine those optimal times requires little more than sending some very deep discount offers—offers too good to resist—to get targeted shoppers to respond quickly. By sending two or three such honeypot messages over the same number of weeks (use different days to gather more data), you can map the best times to send messages to those shoppers. This approach goes beyond tailoring the message to the individual shoppers. It also tailors when to send that text.
-Marc
August 9th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
While I see your point about open rates with text messages, the truth is, getting someone to open anything marketing related is a feat unto itself – just look at today’s MediaPost article about email open rates hovering around 20.1. With a 98 receipt rate, I think the point was, and is, that this is a high response medium that can be utilized successfully by today’s marketers. I work for a text marketing company and we have many clients who utilize the data that text marketing provides to drive higher success – time testing is absolutely one option, geo-targeting is another (combine the two for even higher response). Brands looking to drive app downloads can even do platform specific marketing. As you note the more one knows about their customer base, the more they can tailored their approach eliciting a stronger response. This is why brands like Charlotte Russe do so well with text marketing, they understand exactly who their customer is, what they respond to and where they choose to interact with the brand.