Prohibited Phrases: What Not to Include in SMS Campaigns

SMS campaigns can draw attention to your offer and positively impact sales. However, certain phrases irritate recipients so much that your number immediately gets marked as spam. Which phrases scare off customers and how to replace them — read on.

Artificial Hype

The rule of scarcity and limited availability is one of the golden rules for marketing campaigns. However, certain phrases in SMS messages are inappropriate: it’s easy to see that the buyer is being pressured to quickly buy something they don’t need.

Examples of such phrases:

• “Only today!”
• “Last chance!”
• “Unbelievable discounts!”
• “Hurry to buy!”
• “Don’t delay!”
• “Buy or lose out!”
• “Urgent!”

People have long understood that they can’t catch all the discounts and tend to view such appeals with skepticism at best.

In an informative message, it’s better to remove emotions but add specifics:

“Starting October 5, we are forced to raise prices by 20%. Buy subscriptions at the old price”.

Here, the time for decision-making is limited, but there’s no sense of pressure.

Manipulative Offers

This type of phrase is closely related to the previous one but has its own negative nuances.

For example:

• “90% off” — this begs the question, why not 99%? Big discounts raise extra questions.
• “Come immediately to this address!” — a phrase more likely to scare than motivate, even if the address is next door.
• “Don’t miss your chance!” — a call to action without a clear explanation of what exactly you shouldn’t miss and why.
• “Exclusive offer” — a message that shouldn’t be overused so as not to devalue the concept of exclusivity. If such offers are sent almost monthly, customers will certainly start asking questions.

False Information

In sales, you need to press on the buyer’s pain points — this is an axiom. But this doesn’t mean that information about the product’s properties or its purchase should be distorted. The cost of this approach is the loss of customers and reputation.

Let’s look at these messaging mistakes with examples:

• “Lose 10 kg in two months with our diet”. Here, there’s specificity, but it feels exaggerated: the rate of weight loss is always individual. More trust would come from information like “Thanks to our proprietary method, people ‘Stop stress-eating’ or ‘Lose weight without restricting food and taking fat-burning pills'”.
• “Shorts made of wrinkle-free natural linen”. Here, the truth could be about either the natural fabric or that the product doesn’t wrinkle. Therefore, it’s better to include accurate information about the fabric’s properties in the message than to refund money later.
• “Courier delivery”. A great service if true. One store “forgot” to clarify in an SMS campaign that it was about delivery by Nova Poshta’s courier, and therefore, the delivery cost was significantly higher.

Scam-Style

Another category includes phrases commonly used to deceive people. Below is a selection of the most triggering phrases — the ones we subconsciously recognize as deceitful.

• “You won!” — it doesn’t matter if it’s a box of matches, a discount on a haircut, or a car.
• “Guaranteed result” and “Guaranteed income” — these are empty promises. Even if this phrase is accurate for your business, it’s better to replace it. A lawyer can’t guarantee a result — they can say, “I’ve won 82% of cases.”
• “100% safe” — seriously?
• “100% effective” — proven by whom?
• “0% interest loan” — so what’s your profit?
• “Click to receive” — most users know that such phrases often lead to phishing sites. It’s better to replace the sentence with something more neutral, like “Details on the website.”
• “Final warning” — a harsh manipulation. It feels like the message’s author is threatening.

Grammatical and Punctuation Errors 

Errors in text are always noticeable, even to non-professionals.

Below are some of the most common minor mistakes that can negatively impact the outcome of an entire advertising campaign.

Too Many Exclamation Marks 

This is a separate point because it is often overused. The role of an exclamation mark is to emphasize an important thought. One is enough in a text! If there are more than one, it feels like someone is shouting at you!!!!

Similarly, too many question marks in a message can convey an inappropriate level of emotion.

“Procrastinating until tomorrow??? Why????”

Incorrect Use of Punctuation Marks 

Commas often determine the meaning of a sentence — just think of the classic example, “Execute, not pardon” and “Execute not, pardon.”

Punctuation errors in advertising have the same effect. Compare these two sentences: “Discount drop, August 20, on ice cream, 50%” and “Discount drop on August 20! 50% off ice cream”.

Or:

“Friends, we invite you” and “Friends, we invite you”.

This also applies to quotation marks. For example, the message “Buy the ‘fresh’ fragrance” implies sarcasm, suggesting the fragrance isn’t really fresh.

There’s also a trend of sending messages without periods. The publication “LB” even researched this issue in 2022.

SMS messages without periods are perceived strangely, as they disrupt the reading rhythm: “Your discount Details at the link”.

Typos

It’s impossible to predict all possible grammatical errors. Most often, these are purely mechanical typos that slip into the text due to inattention: “dniscout”, “ppurchase”, “offe”, or due to an incorrect keyboard layout.

What to do? 

The simplest way to eliminate errors in texts is to check them on specialized editorial resources, such as Сorrector. 

However, there’s a nuance — even the best “checkers” don’t always catch errors in the content. For example: “Discount $10 on all items” or “10% discount on all items”.

Here are two tips that might help. First, always read the text out loud. Second, have a few other people review it as well.

In Conclusion

The worst campaign is the one that was sent to the wrong audience. Here, a negative reaction can come from any word. Let’s say your target audience is women aged 20-40, and the product is lingerie. There’s no guarantee that a call to action like “Please your beloved” won’t cause a wave of negativity, considering each person’s identification and personal choice of partner.

So, segment your audience very carefully. 

By the way, the SMS Club service offers the possibility to create targeted campaigns for maximum conversion. The rest will be determined by testing and trial.