Wineries that get SMS marketing right see incredibly high ROI. It’s why we spend so much time talking about SMS marketing best practices.
Successful wine marketers can optimize their messages in many ways: from writing texts subscribers actually want to read to better analytics and testing.
It’s also helpful to know what not to do. Because a few common SMS marketing mistakes can stand in the way of your success.
To help you avoid them, we’ve compiled a list of the top ten mistakes that hurt your campaigns’ performance.
Sending Without Consent
Texting Outside of Business Hours
Not Sending a Welcome Message
Not Identifying Yourself
Not Staying On Brand
Forgetting to Include CTA’s in Your Messages
Sending the Same Offer or Message
Sending More Messages Than Expected
Ignoring List Growth
Being too Sales Focused
1. Sending Without Consent
Of all the text marketing mistakes you can make, this one is the most serious.
Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), when you send automated SMS marketing messages, you must first secure express written consent from all your recipients. And since wine is a federally regulated product, you can’t obtain the consent of anyone under 21 years of age.
So you can’t simply upload your contact list or even a list of your wine club members until they’ve opted-in to receive automated texts from you and you’ve put in place appropriate safeguards to not text minors.
If you don’t secure written consent before sending a bulk message or your winery sends text messages to minors, you may expose yourself to significant legal liability.
Solution: Wine marketers can use SMS keywords, mobile sign-up widgets, and compliant web forms or tasting room signs to help you obtain express written consent. Using FCC-approved disclaimers, age gates to protect your website, and collecting your customers’ DOB can help you legally text your winery’s followers.
Please note that this advice is for informational purposes only and is neither intended nor should be substituted for consultation with appropriate legal counsel and/or your organization’s regulatory compliance team.
2. Texting Outside of Business Hours
Texting outside of business hours is like receiving a call from a telemarketer right when you’re about to sit down for dinner. It’s not very pleasant and won’t win you any goodwill.
Unless it’s contextually appropriate — think transactional messages like order confirmation texts — it’s best to keep your marketing messages within the confines of regular business hours.
For more guidance, check out our article on the best times to send a text campaign.
Solution: By using a professional text marketing platform, bulk promotional texts, autoresponders, and one-on-one inbox messages can be scheduled in advance to avoid reaching customers when they don’t want to be bothered.
3. Not Sending a Welcome Text
If someone signs up to receive your text messages and they don’t hear from you for a week, or even a few days, when you do eventually get around to texting them, they might not remember why they signed up in the first place, then unsubscribe.
Solution: Take advantage of your ability to customize an automated response sent to every new subscriber. Use a welcome text to say thanks for signing up and remind them why they signed up.
Thanks for joining Our Winery’s text club! Look forward to hearing from us weekly with news from the tasting room and special wine deals available exclusively to you, our text club members!"
4. Not Identifying Yourself
One of the differences between personal SMS communications and promotional text messages sent by businesses is that most telecom carriers don’t currently offer businesses the opportunity to personalize their SenderID.
So personal texts might include a small picture or your name identifying you as the sender of your texts, while recipients of business texts often see only a text number. So unless customers recognize your phone number, they might not know who sent your message.
In the future, this situation will be resolved when telecom carriers adopt a new technology known as Custom Sender IDs. But until then, it’s important to identify yourself clearly when sending messages to your customers,.
Solution: Your first message to new text subscribers can include a logo image so new contacts can instantly see who is reaching out to them. But even a simple SMS message can highlight your winery as the sender by using this approach:
CHATEAU FELICE: Don’t miss our live entertainment at this weekend’s wine club pick-up party! Saturday & Sunday noon to 4 pm
5. Not Staying On Brand
Texting is an intimate way to connect with your customers — it’s how people communicate with family and friends.
Don’t be afraid to let your brand’s personality shine through in your texts so that your message doesn’t come across as awkward. The fear of fitting into a character count can often make brands sound robotic.
What’s most important is authenticity. If you’re a bubbly, energetic winery, make sure that comes across in your messages. On the other hand, if you’re more formal and highbrow, don’t feel pressure to stray from that. It’s all about meeting your customer expectations.
Solution: Check out our article about how wine marketers can learn to write text messages that make sense for their unique audiences.
6. Forgetting to Include a Call to Action (CTA) in Your Messages
How you wrap up your message will determine whether or not your recipient takes that critical next step.
Not including a clear CTA in each message means your subscribers are less likely to know what to do and receive value from your texts. The result is an increase in your unsubscribe rate.
Solution: The best way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to give people a clear idea of what you want them to do. Remember, the best marketing campaigns start with a clear goal of what your audience should feel, think, or do after receiving your message.
7. Sending the Same Offer or Message Again
When someone subscribes to receive your text messages, they expect those messages to be worthwhile. So, sending a message just because the calendar said so or repeatedly sending the same offer can give your audience what we like to call “subscriber’s remorse.”
Solution: Like social media, you need to keep your marketing content fresh. You can’t resend the same texts week in, week out. But if you’re already sending promotional emails and engaging your customers on Instagram, you probably already have a great source of new content for your SMS campaigns. And if you’re truly out of ideas, try running a survey or a poll of your text subscribers to learn what they’d like to see more of in the future.
8. Sending More Messages Than Expected
While some might advise that texting “too much” is a mistake. Instead, we urge you to avoid texting more than your subscribers expect.
For example, some wineries send weekly TGIF messages to their text subscribers. No one is offended by the volume because their invitation to join their list clearly states it’s a weekly update.
But if someone signs up for weekly updates and you text them daily, chances are they’ll be annoyed since they only expected one message a week.
The #1 reason consumers unsubscribe to text messaging is that they’re getting too many texts that don’t provide sufficient value. Since the latest research shows consumers are most comfortable with text messages sent by brands every two weeks, you might want to start with a bi-weekly cadence.
Solution: Whatever cadence you choose, make sure to be upfront with your customers about how much you plan on texting them and stick to it as best you can.
9. Not Focusing on SMS List Growth
One of the most common mistakes in SMS marketing is not focusing on list growth.
If you’re just starting with SMS marketing, the first step is to acquire subscribers who want to hear from you. Like any direct marketing list, the more contacts you have, the more results you’ll generate, whether it’s wine sales revenue or long-term brand loyalty.
Over the years, wine marketers learned the value of email marketing, so most winery websites prominently feature an email sign-up form. And many wineries even pay a bounty for each email address collected by winery staff.
Now that DTC wineries have learned that opt-in text messaging generates at least 20-times more customer engagement than email, savvy wine marketers should prioritize SMS list growth above just about anything else.
Solution: Many professional text messaging platforms now offer several ways for wine consumers to join text messaging lists from tasting rooms and winery websites. Read our article “The 7 Best Ways Wineries Can Grow Their Text Marketing Lists” for ideas on how you can quickly grow your SMS audience.
10. Being Too Sales Focused
SMS is a marketing channel we’ve seen our customers use to generate lots of sales. The problem with this is that nobody wants to communicate with someone continually trying to sell them something.
Any successful tasting room manager knows that story-telling is critical, so take a tip from your sales team and don’t always be selling bottles when you can profit from selling your story in words and images.
While your primary goal may be to generate sales, you must avoid being too salesy.
Solution: Your customers are human, so talk to them in a conversational, friendly tone. You should also mix up your strategy and offer your customers a chance to receive lifestyle content like recipes, educational articles about wine, or images from their favorite winery.
The Wrap on SMS Marketing Mistakes
The great thing about SMS marketing is how simple it is to execute. Thankfully, this also means most pitfalls are easy to avoid.
Like email, SMS marketing has its share of new vocabulary, but the concepts should be familiar: comply with the law and treat your SMS subscribers like any other valued guest.
And by learning from the mistakes of others, SMS marketing can quickly grow to become your most profitable communication channel.