SMS gives you very little room, and that is its strength. Customers read texts quickly and decide in seconds whether to act. Every character has to earn its place.
Here is how to write messages that get results, and avoid the technical traps that quietly double your costs.
Know the limits
A standard SMS holds 160 characters using the basic GSM alphabet: Latin letters, digits and common punctuation. If your message is longer, it is split into parts of 153 characters each, and you pay for every part.
Some characters force the whole message into Unicode encoding, which cuts the limit to 70 characters (67 per part in a longer message). The usual culprits are:
- emoji 😊;
- curly quotes and apostrophes (’ “ ”), often pasted in from Word or a phone keyboard;
- accented or special letters outside the GSM set.
One stray curly apostrophe can turn a one-part message into a three-part one. Also, not every network handles special characters reliably, and some can arrive garbled. Stick to plain characters, and check the character count before you send.
Lead with who you are
If you use an alphanumeric sender ID, your brand already appears at the top. Still, starting the message with your name ("Ballo Store:") removes any doubt, especially when the message is forwarded or read in a notification preview.
One message, one action
Decide what you want the reader to do, then make it obvious:
- Visit: include a short, full link that starts with
https://so it can be tapped and tracked. - Call: include the number in a format the phone recognises.
- Reply: say exactly what to reply ("Reply YES to confirm").
- Remember: put the key date or code where it is easy to find.
Messages that ask for two or three things usually get none of them done.
Be specific
Vague messages get ignored. Compare:
Big sale this weekend! Visit us.
Ballo Store: 30% off all school shoes, Fri–Sun only, at our Cairo Rd and Manda Hill branches. Reply STOP to opt out.
The second tells the reader what, how much, when and where, in under 160 characters.
Personalise with care
Inserting a customer's first name is easy and effective, but only if your data is clean. "Hi MWAPE BANDA" or "Hi ," does more harm than good. Make sure every personalised field has a sensible fallback, so the message still reads naturally when the data is missing.
Create real urgency
Deadlines work when they are true. "Offer ends Sunday" is effective. "Last chance!!!" every week is not, because customers notice.
Always include an opt-out
"Reply STOP to opt out" costs about 20 characters and protects your sender reputation, your list quality and your compliance. Leave room for it from the start.
Test before you send
Send the message to yourself and a few colleagues on different networks. Check that it fits in one part, the link works, the personalisation fills in correctly and the sender ID displays as expected.
Writing SMS in BalloAds
In BalloAds you write, personalise and schedule SMS from one place, and send a test before the campaign goes out. Brutus, the BalloAds AI assistant, can help you draft a message and tighten it when it runs long.
