What Is SMS Marketing? How to Do It the Right Way

Struggling to get your customers to return your calls or your emails?

You're not alone. Customers are becoming choosier about which businesses they connect with. If you're going to communicate with current or potential customers digitally, you need to find a way to rise above the noise. 

Email marketing is crowded, and social media is increasingly becoming trickier to navigate. For brands looking for a more direct way to speak to their customers, SMS marketing might be the answer.

SMS marketing is a small piece of a larger mobile marketing strategy your business should consider. With SMS marketing software, businesses can send direct texts to consumers who have opted in to receive messages from them about upcoming sales, new product information, and more. The benefit is that you can bypass the more complicated marketing strategies and reach your customers right where they are.

How to use SMS marketing

SMS marketing is a powerful tool for reaching customers directly on their mobile devices, and open rates are often much higher than those of email marketing.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to use SMS marketing effectively:

Define your goals

Clearly outline what you want to achieve, such as increasing sign-ups for a loyalty program or boosting sales during promotional campaigns. Set specific, measurable objectives (e.g., “Increase new subscriber sign-ups by 20% in three months”) to evaluate the success of your SMS marketing efforts.

Build an SMS subscriber list

Use enticing offers and clear messaging to encourage customers to opt in, ensuring they understand what to expect regarding frequency and content. For instance, you might promote a limited-time discount for new subscribers, emphasizing that they will receive exclusive offers and updates directly to their phones.

Choose the right SMS marketing platform

Select a user-friendly platform that offers robust analytics and automated workflows to help manage campaigns and track performance. Look for features like segmentation tools, scheduled messaging, and A/B testing capabilities, which can enhance your overall campaign effectiveness.

Segment your audience

Differentiate your audience based on factors like location, purchase history, or engagement level to send more relevant and personalized messages. For example, you could send localized promotions to customers in specific regions, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversion.

Craft engaging SMS content

Keep messages clear and concise, using strong calls to action to prompt immediate engagement and encourage specific actions. For example, a message like, “Get 20% off your next purchase! Use code SAVE20 at checkout. Limited time only!” encourages urgency and clarity.

Timing matters

Experiment with sending times to determine when your audience is most responsive, typically during business hours or early evenings. Use A/B testing to analyze open rates at different times and refine your strategy based on when customers engage most with your messages.

Track performance and optimize

Monitor key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and conversion rates to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns and make data-driven adjustments. Review this data regularly to identify trends and areas for improvement, allowing for more targeted future campaigns.

Compliance with regulations

Ensure all messages include opt-out instructions and comply with relevant regulations (such as the GDPR in Europe) to protect customer data and maintain trust. For example, every SMS should include a phrase like “Reply STOP to unsubscribe,” making it easy for recipients to opt-out.

Integrate with other marketing channels

Combine SMS marketing with other channels like email and social media to create cohesive campaigns that enhance overall customer engagement. For instance, if you’re running a promotion through email, follow up with an SMS reminder to reinforce the message and drive higher engagement across all platforms.

SMS marketing ideas

The universal nature of text messages makes SMS a valuable direct-to-consumer marketing channel for any type of business. There are many different ways to use SMS as a vehicle to reach your customers and clients.

Here are a few popular SMS marketing ideas you can use.

Discount codes, special offers, and coupons

One of the most popular uses of SMS marketing is to send text-based offers, discounts, and other promotional materials directly to customers. E-commerce companies, in particular, like this strategy because it’s the most direct way to deliver deals to their customers.

These messages aim to entice customers to visit an online store to claim their coupon and make a purchase. Every SMS marketing coupon campaign should have three things: 

• A clear message on what is being offered and for how long
• A direct call to action for the consumer to follow
• An easily clickable link that is linked to your SMS campaign

Because customers open SMS messages almost immediately, it's a good idea to experiment with time-sensitive offers. Time sensitivity creates a sense of urgency. Attaching a limited-time offer to a coupon might compel a customer to take action.

Appointment scheduling and reminders

Not every company relies on selling goods. Service-based businesses thrive on acquiring appointments or reservations and ensuring that their calendars are fully booked. SMS can be an excellent channel for alerting clients of upcoming meetings or appointments.

Source: Insight

Clients are likely already familiar with your company, even if it’s their first appointment. They are expecting information about their upcoming visit and are more willing to engage with your communications. Use the time you have their attention to take care of the most important details. This is also a great channel to follow up with customers after their visit.

Tracking and delivery updates

Companies that sell a physical product can benefit immensely from SMS marketing. As we mentioned earlier, a majority of consumers want delivery updates sent to them via text. Delivering quick and accurate shipping information via text is a great way to improve your customer experience.

It takes the pressure off your customers to track down information about their purchases. Sending them direct updates keeps them informed. Delivering this information to the customer directly also prevents your customer success team from getting swamped with the same questions over and over. This way, your team can spend their time fixing issues instead of chasing down tracking numbers.

Here are some text alerts you should automate for your customers: 

• Send SMS notifications and let your customers know when their packages will arrive
• Update your customers about possible changes or delays in delivery 
• Notify customers of when their package has been delivered

Benefits of SMS marketing

SMS marketing is more popular than you think. Here are just a few of the benefits of SMS marketing.

Higher open rates

Customers are increasingly willing to allow marketers to contact them via phone if they perceive the trade-off to be worth it. When done correctly, SMS messages can have a whopping 98% open rate.

More than anything, customers want convenience and are willing to reward businesses that make their lives easier. Focus on delivering high-quality content for your customers, and you’ll see the benefits.

Fast delivery directly to the consumer

It’s hard to find a more direct line of communication with your customer than SMS marketing. Not only that, but SMS marketing isn’t limited to mobile use. Even mobile users without internet access on their devices can receive text marketing messages through other SMS-enabled devices.

Marketers can also use SMS marketing segmentation and workflows to reach their target audience with virtually no supervision. Many SMS marketing tools allow your team to create and automate drip campaigns and bulk SMS messaging strategies within the platform.

This means you can set up your campaigns, create KPIs for measuring them, and watch as your messages and reports run automatically.

Improved customer relationships

Text messaging is a quick and instant communication channel, making it perfect for customer service communications. If you’re not using SMS marketing to communicate with your customers, you should be.

Here are a few ideas for how to use SMS marketing to improve customer relationships:

• Alert customers of important changes to their account
• Allow customers to communicate with customer service reps directly via text
• Update customers on product shipping and tracking
• Send bill reminders and payment confirmations to customers via text
• Directly communicate customer support ticket updates with customers

Challenges of SMS marketing

Though there are many benefits to adding SMS marketing to your digital marketing strategy, it doesn’t come without its challenges. Because cell phones are personal property belonging to the consumer, there are more rules and regulations than other marketing channels.

Here are a few challenges you might face when building your own text marketing strategy.

Strict privacy regulations

As we mentioned earlier, US-based companies' SMS marketing is subject to the FFC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act. But that’s not the only regulatory body you need to know about. If your business does marketing in the EU, EMEA, or APAC, your marketing strategy might be subject to additional digital privacy laws. 

Managing all of these legalities without a dedicated marketing operations manager or compliance officer can be tricky. Be sure to ensure all of your text marketing practices are compliant with local and national laws.

Less personalization than other marketing channels

Because SMS marketing is designed with quantity in mind, it lags behind other marketing channels in terms of personalization capabilities. SMS marketing is used more to deliver a specific message to a large audience.

That means SMS's focus is less on personalizing the individual consumer and more on delivering hyper-targeted deals and communications to users.

Upfront time commitment

Integrating an SMS marketing strategy into your existing digital marketing campaigns is a time commitment. Building contact lists, signing new users up, and connecting all of your SaaS tools together requires extensive planning.

Don’t expect to have your text marketing strategy up and running in a few weeks. Make sure to take the time to build the right processes and purchase the right equipment for your team's success.

SMS marketing best practices

If you’re thinking about investing in SMS marketing, now is the time. Text message marketing is quickly becoming one of the fastest-growing digital channels. Before you jump into creating your own SMS strategy, check out these must-know best practices.

Recipients must opt-in to text messaging

Before you start firing off texts to your entire contact list, take a beat. The FFC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act makes it unlawful to send promotional text messages to people unless they have voluntarily communicated their numbers to the sender and agreed to participate in the campaign.

Your SMS marketing campaign can only target people who have given you their number and permission to contact them via text. The easiest way to communicate this agreement clearly is to have your contacts opt-in to receiving communications from your business.

These restrictions can make it seem impossible to start an SMS campaign from the ground up. But there are plenty of ways to encourage your customers to opt-in to receiving communications from your business:

• Create exclusive discounts and coupons for signing up
• Create a loyalty program and VIP perks for SMS users
• Offer tracking updates or appointment reminders via text

Focus on delivering the right message 

The key to generating SMS marketing sign-ups is to provide value to the customer. Give them multiple ways to opt-in to your communications, and more importantly, give them a reason why they should. This means delivering the content your audience wants to receive, not just the stuff you want to send them.

When you focus on creating value for the customer, you’re also building trust. Customers will start associating your brand with being helpful to them. This makes them more likely to engage in communication with you in the future and more likely to purchase your products again.

Choose the right time to text

The timing of when you send your SMS messages is also important. It’s best to avoid the times of the day when people are commuting and unable to look at their phones. It’s also best not to send customers text messages in the middle of the night. If your alerts wake a customer up in the middle of the night, that might be the push to make them unsubscribe once and for all.

Along with avoiding certain times of the day when sending your SMS marketing messages, you should also consider how often you’re sending text-based promotions and offers. Customers don’t want to feel like they’re being spammed by your business. As a rule of thumb, limit your promotional text messages to once or twice a week.

Always allow the option to opt-out

Like any other communication channel, it’s important to offer your customers an easy way to opt out of receiving texts. Many global data regulations require businesses to specify that consumers must be able to cease communication with them easily.

Legality isn’t the only reason you need an efficient opt-out process. Making it difficult for customers to control the number of texts or emails they receive from you can aggravate them.

Bad customer experiences cost big bucks—89% of customers begin business with a competitor after a poor customer experience. Don’t drive your customers into the arms of a competitor because of a few text messages.

Best SMS marketing software

SMS marketing software allows marketers to plan, implement, and control all of their text-based communications with customers from a single platform. These bulk communications allow marketers to send promotional messages and campaigns directly to customers. It also allows sales teams to engage in direct communication and customer support via text messaging.

In order to be included in this list, a product must: 

• Allow marketers to target and reach mobile users via SMS devices
• Provide opt-in opportunities for marketing to reach new subscribers
• Track interaction data and provide analytics related to unique SMS campaigns

* Below are the top five leading SMS marketing software solutions from G2’s Fall 2024 Grid® Report. Some reviews may be edited for clarity.

1. Insider

Unlock the power of personalized communication with Insider, a cutting-edge SMS marketing tool designed to enhance customer engagement and drive conversions. With Insider, you can effortlessly create targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience, leveraging advanced segmentation and automation features.

What users like best:

"Insider helped us prioritize and create truly meaningful experiences for our loyal customers. Starting from automatically segmenting our VIPs and loyal customers with RFM and predictive segments to creating interactive, actionable, gorgeous campaigns on email and web suite optimized for conversion, Insider has helped us create a truly VIP experience that our customers deserve. The best part was that all our campaigns were designed to be actioned with fewer clicks right within channels like email. We were able to create gorgeous emails and take into account customer feedback and user preference at different touchpoints to make the experience truly unique and special."

– Insider Review, Miraç R.

What users dislike:

“One aspect of Insider that could be improved is the onboarding experience, as it can take some time to get fully acquainted with all the platform's advanced features. While it’s powerful, the breadth of tools available can feel a bit overwhelming initially. Additionally, the reporting customization could be more adaptable to meet unique business requirements, and integrating with certain legacy systems sometimes requires more technical workarounds than expected."

– Insider Review, Yuchen C.

2. Birdeye

Birdeye is an all-in-one customer experience platform that helps businesses deliver a more seamless customer experience. Birdeye provides businesses with a number of customer service tools, such as online reputation management, SMS messaging, and ticketing tools.

What users like best:

“The user interface is very easy to use. It's intuitive, and the functionality is simple yet effective. The automated review function is also great. My team can just upload the contact details directly, and they don't have to do anything else. It's extremely time-efficient.

I also love the private feedback option for customers that weren't satisfied. This allows us to respond to these customers on a personal level, which is very effective for resolving any issues.”

– Birdeye Review, Wendy B.

What users dislike:

“Initially, we were hesitant to sign up due to the one-year commitment. I wish there would have been a 6-month commitment option or a way to try out the program before committing. It would have provided more peace of mind! However, I am very happy with the program and do not have any reservations about our one-year commitment now since I have been able to see how effectively it has worked for our business.”

– Birdeye Review, Taylor K.

3. SlickText 

Boost your customer engagement and drive sales with SlickText, a user-friendly SMS marketing platform designed for businesses of all sizes. With powerful features and intuitive tools, SlickText makes it easy to create, manage, and analyze your SMS campaigns.

What users like best:

"What I like best about SlickText is the ease of setting up a text campaign and creating a contest. It's just a few simple steps: set the dates for the contest to run, and you're done. It will even randomly pick and notify the winner. I really like being able to create a QR code tied to the keyword as well. Any time I've needed to contact customer support, they've been quick to respond and always very helpful!"

– SlickText Review, Pamela D.

What users dislike:

"One major downside is the inability to text applicants from outside of the US. We get a lot of international applicants and unfortunately cannot use SlickText to contact them currently."

– SlickText Review, Verified User in Higher Education

4. Attentive 

Transform your customer engagement with Attentive, a leading SMS marketing platform designed to deliver personalized, relevant messages at the right time. Perfect for eCommerce businesses and brands looking to build meaningful relationships, Attentive offers powerful features that drive results.

What users like best:

"Onboarding was generally painless and the pricing seems very reasonable. The interfacing for sending SMS messages is very easy to use, especially compared to the email-sending tools I am used to (albeit text messages are a much simpler format to work with). There are good analytics available on the platform, and I am able to see nearly everything I want to see (messages, costs, conversion rates). Other notable is their robust signup system and link tracking functions (every text gets unique trackable links). One of the reasons I went with Attentive is that they have done a lot of work to make sure everything is on the legal up-and-up, which is important as text messaging regulations can be messy."

– Attentive Review, Caleb S.

What users dislike:

"I do feel like some of the capabilities are lacking, especially with pop-ups. I feel like other platforms have stronger capabilities with triggering in cart or repeat site visitor targeted models that don't require custom-built cookies."

– Attentive Review, Elena W.

5. Podium

Podium helps businesses transform the way they interact with their customers. This tool allows teams to collect online customer reviews, collect customer feedback and payments with SMS tools, and more. Podium allows you to manage all of your customer communications in one central dashboard.

What users like best:

“The platform is used by our entire business. As suppliers of various products, we initially enrolled on the platform for the online reputation management tool. We quickly discovered that the text message function is also highly useful. Since then, we’ve packaged our history management, communication platforms, and automated services into Podium.”

– Podium Review, Alvaro A.

What users dislike:

“Sometimes the auto-generated responses are sent too often (i.e., when customers send multiple messages, it seems like a robot is responding, and it could be more personalized.) If there were a maximum limit of the auto-generated response, this would probably be more beneficial to our customers.

It would also be helpful to see what inbox the notifications are coming from so we know how urgent the message is or how much time we have that we can wait to get back to our customers, as we are often quite busy.”

– Podium Review, Ashley L.

Get your message across with mobile marketing

SMS marketing is the best way to deliver real-time communications with your customers directly through their mobile devices. Try integrating your text marketing strategy into a larger digital marketing plan and see how a few targeted texts can transform your customer experience.

Interested in creating a world-class SMS marketing strategy? Learn how customer marketing can help you create a personalized marketing experience for your customers.

This article was originally published in 2020. It has been updated with new information.