Top 5 SMS Welcome Messages

One of the first things you should set up is your welcome message or series of messages.

Depending on your brand, it may make sense to send one or multiple messages. These messages are often short, sweet, and to the point. (After all, it is SMS. Since many platforms charge you by character limits, every letter counts!). Let’s walk through some of our favorite welcome messages from top brands.

Ban.do

Ban.do does a great job of making the shopping experience easy for their SMS subscribers. Upon subscribing, Ban.do’s audience receives a coupon code and a unique link that automatically applies their discount. As a bonus, subscribers don’t need to copy/paste or remember a code (which can be annoying, especially in texts that make it difficult to select one word vs. the entire message).

For Days

For Days does a great job telling subscribers what makes them unique in just a few characters. This is no easy feat in SMS marketing because (unlike in email) you’re up against strict character limits. Although these messages are brief, it’s important to incorporate your unique brand voice.

BANDIER

Clothing ecommerce brand BANDIER has two welcome messages in their welcome series. The second message conveys a sense of urgency by mentioning their discount welcome code will expire soon.

This is a great incentive for subscribers to shop now.

BANDIER also waits two days between these sends to avoid subscriber fatigue:

Blume

Skin and body care brand Blume kicks the character count up a notch (literally) with a more lengthy welcome message that incorporates emojis.

Many brands struggle to balance longer character length and emoji usage, as messages incorporating these elements are typically more expensive to send.

We recommend testing the overall message ROI to find the mix that’s right for you. For example, it may look like a message performed better because it had higher overall revenue, but it cost more to send.

Brooks Brothers

Brooks Brothers ask their subscribers to self-select whether they want to receive messages regarding men’s clothes, women’s clothes, or both. This information can be stored and used later to inform the type of content the company sends via email, making the marketing more personal and more effective.

More tips to get started

Now that you have some welcome message inspiration, it’s time to determine how many messages to send and when.

An SMS welcome flow typically contains one or two messages. This does not include the double opt-in message that’s standard across all brands. (For example, “Reply Y to subscribe to [Brand Name]! Standard data & msg rates apply.”)

You’ll want to also think about how these messages are sent and when. Typically, the welcome message comes right after a subscriber confirms their subscription. This may be slightly different than your email welcome flow, so it’s important to space out messages for subscribers who join both your SMS and email list, even if it’s just a few minutes of delay.

When in doubt, test! Not everything works for every brand (or else everything would be easy for email and SMS marketers). Look at ROI and overall message performance to determine the best path forward. Like email welcome messages, SMS welcome messages should be a solid revenue driver for your brand.