MMS Best Practices For Your Outreach

As we’ve discussed recently, there are many benefits to using MMS in your outreach strategy. Implementing MMS doesn’t have to be difficult, but it’s important to be thoughtful and follow some MMS best practices.

Get The Details Right

MMS is a great complement to existing SMS outreach, but it does come with some extra technical considerations. To maximize consumer experience and message deliverability, make sure your MMS media fits within these best practices:

• Images should use portrait orientation with a 9:16 aspect ratio.
• Fitting within 640 pixels x 1,138 pixels is ideal.
• Use JPEG format for still images and GIF format for animations.
• For animated GIFs, limit them to 3 or 4 frames per second to reduce file size and loading time.
• Keep file size under 500 KB.

500 KB may seem tiny, but you can still achieve a great visual experience with that size. If fact, if you can make your images even smaller, go for it! Smaller files download faster, which helps avoid impatient consumers navigating away and never coming back.

For designed graphics, using fewer colors and avoiding gradients can drastically reduce file size (MicroAssist). Bonus, it can make your image easier to understand, too! For photography, removing image noise, adding a blur effect, and adding an overlay of your brand color to a black and white photo are all ways to reduce file size while still ensuring your outreach leaves a big impression (Inkbot Design).

Design For MMS

Implementing MMS best practices goes beyond technical considerations. Just as social media, email, TV ads, and direct mail all get their own creative treatments, you should also give MMS its moment in the spotlight. Here are some best practices for designing your MMS creative.

Keep it simple. MMS is great at getting your message to stick, but it won’t work if your image is busy and hard to understand. Remember that phone screens are small, so use minimal design elements. Consider using a single illustration or photo that clearly relates to your message. Distill your copy down to a few words and use a large font size. Make sure to include your branding, but do so as minimally as you can (more on branding below).

Be relevant and urgent. Keep in mind the context of the consumer receiving an MMS message. They are on their phone, which means they have a lot of competition for their attention. On the other hand, their phone allows them to complete almost any call to action in just a few taps. Even more than usual, make sure every design element communicates why the consumer should act and points them to call, visit your website or app, add something to their calendar, or any other valuable action.

Use a fresh design. Designing for MMS is also critical to maximize your multi- or omnichannel outreach. MMS is likely to be opened and get consumers’ attention, so make sure to show them something they haven’t already seen in your emails or social media.

Leverage Your Brand

If your audience hasn’t saved your number (and unfortunately, most probably haven’t), there’s a good chance they will assume your message is spam. After all, the average American receives 14.7 spam texts per month (Statista).

Luckily, a strongly branded MMS message can help. Even if your phone number is unfamiliar, consumers should be able to recognize your brand immediately and know it’s safe to engage. Here are some best practices to make the most of MMS as a valuable branding touchpoint:

• Use plenty of your primary brand color (try using it as a background).
• Choose your brand’s most distinctive display font for your text.
• Use a simpler logo variation to avoid a cluttered look.
• Capitalize on recent brand awareness efforts. Is your brand currently plastered on TVs, billboards, or other paid channels? Reference elements from those campaigns to trigger brand recognition and boost engagement rates.

Craft A Consumer Experience

You should think of MMS as a completely different mode from SMS. Whereas SMS can inform and enable conversational marketing, MMS can create a visual experience that delights the consumer.

The key here is knowledge of your audience and plenty of creativity. Think about their needs and pain points. Where are they in the consumer journey? What aspect of your positioning can you drive home to them? Your goal with MMS is to think outside the box and leave your audience pleasantly surprised.

Keep It Easy

Drips offers a managed technology approach, which means our clients get a team of experts who can help creatively implement MMS best practices. We’d love to discuss the opportunities MMS can bring to your brand.

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