Mobile Marketing – How important is it that you include an opt out?

One of the areas that we focused on in our recently released ‘Consumer Attitudes to SMS Marketing‘ survey was the contentious issue of unsubscribing. We wanted to get people’s true feelings about the importance they put on being able to opt out from mobile marketing campaigns.

Before the results were in, our collective gut feel was that generally, opting out would be viewed as pretty important. We were slightly taken aback by the overwhelming strength of feeling about being able to unsubscribe from a mobile marketing list.

text bubble with cross to indicate opt out

Do you need to include an SMS opt out?

We asked the following simple question. ‘How important is it for you to be able to opt out from marketing messages?’ 92% of respondents stated that it was ‘very important’. When asked: ‘Would you ever buy a product or service from a company that didn’t include an opt out message in their marketing text?’ an overwhelming 85% of consumers said ‘no’. Additionally, companies that use an opt out in their mobile marketing campaigns are trusted more than those that don’t. 79% of consumers trust companies more if they include an opt out.

So while mobile marketing is undoubtedly the most responsive direct marketing channel available, it needs to be used with caution. Omitting an unsubscribe option is one of the seven deadly sins of mobile marketing which we highlighted in our ebook.

Text Marketer accounts come with an unsubscribe tool that makes it easy for customers to get off your list if they wish. Once unsubscribed, you are then unable to send a text to that person even if you tried. It’s a fail safe system that means you can’t mistakenly send a text to someone that has unsubscribed.

If you would like to see how the SMS unsubscribe tool works, please set up a free account. You will receive some free text credits for testing. There is no setup, monthly fee or contract; it’s a simple pay-as-you-go service. If you would like to speak to us, we’d love to hear from you. Our details are on the contacts page.