SMS marketing is the use of text messages to promote products and offers, announce events and keep customers engaged. Because texts are read on any phone within minutes, SMS is one of the most direct promotional channels a Zambian business has — provided every message goes to someone who agreed to receive it and can easily opt out.
What an SMS marketing campaign looks like
A campaign is one message (or two, if you are testing) sent to a defined group at a chosen time, and measured afterwards. On Ontech BulkSMS that breaks down into:
- Audience. A contact group — customers who opted in, optionally segmented by branch, product or how recently they bought. Contacts can be imported from CSV or a spreadsheet with custom fields.
- Message. A template with merge fields, so "Hi Mutale" rather than "Dear customer", plus a clear call to action and an opt-out instruction.
- Variants (optional). Two versions and a split percentage; each recipient gets one, and the campaign reports sent and delivered counts per variant.
- Timing. Send now or schedule for a specific date and time in Africa/Lusaka.
- Results. Delivery reports per recipient, per-variant performance, and replies in your inbox if you asked for a keyword response.
Consent, opt-out and Zambian rules
Marketing SMS is only lawful and only effective when the recipient wanted it. The platform's Acceptable Use terms require that promotional traffic goes to contacts who have consented, and Zambia's Data Protection Act 2021 treats phone numbers as personal data that must be processed for a purpose the person was told about. In practice:
- Collect consent at the point you collect the number — a sign-up form, a till-point opt-in, a keyword such as JOIN texted to the short code — and keep a record of it.
- Tell people how to stop in the message itself ("Reply STOP" or "Text STOP to 388").
- Honour opt-outs. When someone replies STOP (route the keyword to your inbox) or asks to stop, add the number to your blacklist; every future send then suppresses it, whichever staff member is sending.
- Send at reasonable hours. Business hours on weekdays perform best; nobody welcomes a promotion at 23:00.
Writing messages that get a response
You have 160 characters. Spend them on one offer, one action and one deadline:
Personalisation does real work here. A merge field for the customer's name, their nearest branch, or the product they last bought turns a broadcast into something that reads as intended for them. The composer shows a live preview of the merged message, and the credit cost is confirmed before you send — a message over 160 GSM characters (or 70 if it contains emoji or special symbols) is billed as more than one segment.
A/B testing an SMS campaign
Because SMS is cheap per message, you can afford to find out which wording works rather than guess. Create the campaign with two variants — a different offer, a different call to action, a different deadline — and set the split (for example 50/50, or 20/80 if you want to test on a minority before rolling out). The campaign report shows, per variant, how many were sent and delivered; pair that with a distinct keyword or code per variant and you can also count responses. Use the winner for the rest of the list, or for next month.
Scheduling and recurring sends
Compose in advance and let the platform send at the right moment: a payday promotion on the 25th at 08:00, a reminder the day before an event, a series of messages over a launch week. Scheduled sends work for individual messages and for uploaded lists, and each one still returns full delivery reports.
Measuring results
| Measure | Where it comes from | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered rate | Delivery reports | List quality — failed numbers should be cleaned out |
| Per-variant delivered | Campaign variants report | Whether one wording or offer performed differently |
| Replies / keyword responses | Inbox, conversations | Engagement and intent — and new opt-ins |
| Opt-outs | Blacklist additions | Frequency or relevance problems if it climbs |
| Redemptions | Your till or system, using a code in the message | Actual sales driven by the campaign |
Marketing SMS versus transactional SMS
Do not mix the two. A receipt or an OTP is transactional: the customer expects it and it must not carry a promotion. A campaign is marketing: it needs consent and an opt-out. Sending both from the same account is normal; sending both in the same message is not. Keep separate templates and, where you can, separate sender IDs so customers learn what to expect from each.