While great content plays a part in the success of any SMS marketing campaign, timing is equally important. After all, even the best message can’t save a business from an <unsubscribe> if a text disturbs a customer in the middle of the night.
We’ve crunched the numbers at Esendex and have sampled some of our 46,000 strong customer base – who together send over 5 billion messages a year – to uncover some best times to send stats…
Healthcare had a consistent send rate across weekdays with a slight upturn on Tuesdays and a marked decline at weekends.
Monday was the winner for retail with Tuesday following close behind. Perhaps surprisingly there’s a drop in send rates at the weekend as it appears there’s less need for aggressive marketing as consumers are already browsing.
For financial services, Tuesday is again the most popular day to send SMS. The pattern is similar to retail, with a strong start to the week, a midweek drop and a small uptick before send rates fall at the weekend. Insurers are an interesting use case with send rates rising to 24% on Fridays, which can be partially explained by the need for temporary insurance cover for vans and other hire vehicles at weekends.
Thursday is the peak sending day for transport with a smooth send curve for staff communication.
Utility providers are one of the most balanced sectors when it comes to messaging with the lowest day’s send still sitting at a credible 9%.
Recruitment ramps up activity on a Tuesday with the most popular use case here for SMS texts about shift work availability.
Monday is entertainment’s preferred day with 40% of messages sent.
Midweek is best
Regardless of sector and use case, our customers send the bulk of their SMS messages on a Wednesday.
Nisha Singh, SVP at Esendex concludes: “While timing is important, getting business SMS right is down to intuition as much as to data and delivering value will always be important – so personalised recommendations, thoughtful…
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