However, cold texting is illegal. You must have permission from contacts to reach out.

Don’t let this put you off using text messaging as a marketing and sales tool. SMS marketing’s one-to-one nature gives you the chance to build relationships with your customers as long as you have their permission. As with any outreach channel, you just need to know how best to approach it.

Here’s everything you need to know about cold texting and the right way to initiate text conversations with prospects.

What is cold texting?

Cold texting is the practice of sending SMS messages to people you have no relationship with. It falls under the same umbrella as cold phone calls and cold emails. This mainly applies to anyone using a mass texting service. If you reach out to someone individually, through a peer-to-peer (P2P text message, you probably aren’t breaking any laws. However, once you start cold texting groups of people through an application, you’re on thin ice.

If you purchase a contact list or find a prospect’s phone number online, then any subsequent text messages you send them are “cold texts.” To reach out to prospective customers, you need their consent. To avoid cold texting, you need to convince people to opt in and receive your messages.

Why is cold texting illegal?

Texting laws like the United States’ Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) forbid businesses from texting customers without permission. While you have the ability to cold text people, you can face huge fines if you get caught. If you have customers or contacts in the European Union (EU), cold texting may also violate the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Some of the specific reasons behind this illegality include:

You need the right type of consent for your message

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requires businesses to gain consent from prospects to text them. CASL has the same requirement in Canada. This is different from cold emailing and cold calling, which don’t require the same explicit opt-in.

After I’ve mentioned consent so much, you’re probably wondering what it looks like. The type of consent you need for your texting depends on what kind of text you send. Let’s go over all three:

• Express written consent: When a customer gives written permission such as a signature, checked checkbox, or texting keyword, they give express written consent. US regulations require you to have express written consent before you send promotional texts like discounts or product announcements.
• Express consent: A customer can give express consent when they provide their phone number alongside a business transaction, such as scheduling an appointment. In this case, you can send informational messages closely related to the reason they gave you their number, such as an appointment reminder.
• Implied consent: You can assume implied consent to text back when a customer texts you first. But, your messages must directly relate to the topic the customer texted you about.

Customers must have a fair chance to opt in

United States texting regulations require businesses to offer the chance to opt-in to texts and explain what customers should expect. When you cold text, you don’t provide this opportunity. You can follow these rules by adding opt-in language where your customers sign up for texts and after they sign up.

There are quite a few details to include in these disclaimers, but you only have to write them once for each of your texting lists. Our guide to opt-in language will walk you through the process.

You should establish a way to opt-out from the start

Just as you need to give your customers a chance to opt in, you need to offer an easy way to opt out of your messages under U.S. law. This opt-out disclaimer should appear in both your signup language and text messages, so you can’t be completely compliant with this law if you cold text. Learn how to create an opt-out process when you check out these opt-out text message examples.

Can I legally text someone if I already have their phone number?

You might still be confused if you already have customers’ phone numbers through methods like importing contacts. These customers are okay with you having their number, but they haven’t explicitly given you permission to text.

In this scenario, I recommend starting your texting from scratch. Even if you already have someone’s phone number, only text it if you get the right type of permission for the message you want to send. Apps like SimpleTexting have a notes section for each contact where you can keep track of what kind of permission you have.

What can I do instead of cold texting?

There’s one clear alternative to cold texting: warm texting.

Seventy-nine percent of consumers signed up for business texts in 2024, so they are willing to hear from you – they just want to be able to opt in. Make use of this by making it easy for prospective customers to sign up for texts. Here’s how you can do this.

Encourage prospects to opt in with a keyword

A keyword is a relevant word that, when sent to the business’ number, subscribes customers to receiving future texts. You can create different keywords depending on the reasons your customers might text you.

For instance, let’s say you’re an accountant. You create a keyword like “TAXTEXTS” and when potential clients text it in, they’ll be added to your contact list. You can send them relevant information via text to help nurture them.

In SimpleTexting, click Keywords in the left-hand dashboard menu to create one of your own. Each of your keywords will come with a free compliance message to help you stay fully compliant with texting laws.

Throw a texting event

Give your customers an incentive to join your texting list with an event where they text your keyword to vote or join a contest. SimpleTexting has two features that make keywords fun:

• Text-to-vote poll: In a text-to-vote poll, participants text a keyword to vote on an option. This feature works well when you need customer feedback and more contacts on your list. You can also turn it into a competition like Postino WineCafé did with its Battle of the Bruschetta campaign.
• Text-to-win contest: You can also have customers text to enter a sweepstake with a text-to-win contest. When they text your keyword, they get entered into a drawing for a prize. This prize could be anything from a discount to a gift card.

If you plan on sending participants texts unrelated to the event, make sure to specify exactly what they’re signing up for wherever you advertise your keyword. And build in an easy opt-out process so customers who want to take part and then leave have the ability to do so.

Add a click-to-text button to your website

A click-to-text button automatically opens up your prospect’s native messaging app when clicked. When a website visitor taps on this button, the SMS app on their cell phone will launch with a pre-written message as well as a pre-filled phone number.

You can reply to their message, follow up the lead, and start the process of turning the prospect into a customer.

SimpleTexting’s click-to-text button generator gives you the tools to create one of these buttons for your website for free. You don’t even need to have a SimpleTexting account! Add your number, populate your message, and customize your button, and you’re good to go.

Publicize your phone number

It sounds obvious, but do prospective customers know how to get in touch with you? Have you made it easy for them to text you, or do they have to dig through the depths of your website to find a contact number?

Ensure your number is clear and available across your website, social media, and any other marketing materials you use. From flyers to email campaigns, don’t make finding your phone number an impossible task.

It can be as easy as adding a heads-up you have a textable number in your site footer or blog. For example, when the medical provider C.A.R.E.S. started accepting texts from customers, it announced the change on its blog.

Integrate with your current marketing tools

If you already have a method of collecting prospect information, the chances are your tool can be integrated with SimpleTexting.

One customer we did this for was Canadian Fertility Consulting (CFC). It relied on Salesforce to gather lead information but needed a smooth process to follow up with prospective clients based on their Salesforce information.

We built an integration that filters new contacts in Salesforce and puts them into different journeys within SimpleTexting, depending on the needs of the customer. CFC now has a smooth integration between both tools, which you can read about in their success story.

If you’re already using another application or software, take a look at your options on our integrations page. Once you’re ready to integrate, go to Integrations near the bottom of SimpleTexting’s dashboard menu to connect your preferred software. If you don’t see a direct integration to one of your tools, you can also use Zapier, Pabbly, or Integrately as a connector to your software.

Reach out to customers on other channels

If you have a newsletter or social media following, you already have a base of customers to share your texting list with. Advertise your keyword or phone number in your next email or post and invite customers to text.

For example, realtor Josh Avila encourages followers to text a keyword if they’re interested in a listing on an Instagram post:

Add an SMS opt-in to your onboarding process

Another way to get your customers’ permission to text them is to get that approval during onboarding. Chances are you already have a place to capture a customer’s name and contact info. Here, you can also add a field with the option to sign up for your texts and an opt-in disclaimer.

You can also use SMS as an alternate option to email or phone calls like Resy does. When you sign up for Resy, you can choose to use texts as your main communication instead of email.

What else should I do to keep my texting compliant?

Since texting has so much regulation, what else should you do to stay compliant as you text your customers? Here are a few practices to follow in your SMS marketing:

Register your business number

Before you text anything to your customers, register your number with the right national registry. In the U.S., carriers will filter out messages from unregistered numbers as spam, so you have everything to gain from this process. You can register one of three number types:

• Ten-digit long code: A ten-digit number that resembles the numbers customers use to text
• Toll-free number: A ten-digit number with a specific area code that is free for anyone to call
• Short code: A five- or six-digit number with higher throughput than other number types

Text the right things at the right times

Texting laws place some restrictions on what and when you can text. Prohibited content under texting regulations include drugs, hate speech, firearms, and gambling. And U.S. regulations require businesses to text between 8 a.m and 9 p.m.

Follow your state or province’s texting laws

Many states in the United States have their own texting laws that apply on top of federal laws. For instance, Florida, Oklahoma, and Virginia have slightly different texting hours than federal law.

With effective marketing, you don’t need to cold text

Yes, cold texting is illegal, but it’s also unnecessary. All you need is to make it easy for your prospects to get in touch.

Its direct nature makes text message marketing one of the most effective ways of turning your prospects into customers. You just need to make sure you have permission first. Sign up for your 14-day free trial and get a keyword for free, so you can start building your contact list right away.

The post Is cold texting illegal? Here’s what to do instead appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Chances are – your marketing team is either very small or you are the marketing team.

So, how do you get your company out there when you’re trying to do it all with few resources? Our social media strategy for small businesses will make content creation second nature, giving you more time and brainpower to focus on other parts of your business.

This social media framework came about when we helped a small business owner on our Shoestring podcast. Keep reading to learn how it started and how you can use it to power your strategy.

Meet Oriana of Sao New York

Oriana owns Sao New York, a home goods business featuring products from artisans across the world. As she puts it, “Every item has a story, has a purpose. Sao is kind of like a reflection of me and my values as a person, and I wanted to share that with people.”

That’s a promising place to start. Oriana offers products that have stories behind them. Her business has a purpose. She wants to share these things with her audience. What she needs are time and ideas.

Since she takes care of all of Sao’s operations on top of another job, it’s hard for Oriana to find time to do social media marketing. She teamed up with branding experts to put together a professional website and marketing strategy, but she’s often too busy to turn their advice into ongoing social content. So, she contacted Shoestring to for some advice.

Alfredo Salkeld, the host of Shoestring, had an idea to make it easier for Oriana to come up with social media content ideas.

Hear Oriana’s full story on Shoestring

CHEW: A small business social media framework

After seeing content based on “building in public” on his Instagram feed, Alfredo came up with the CHEW framework. “Building in public” posts showcase how a business runs and grows. CHEW is an acronym that outlines four ways to share this type of content.

• Challenges: Every good story has conflict. How do you overcome everyday obstacles?
• Highlights: What victories and successes can you celebrate on social media?
• Education: Can you share expertise and advice with your social media followers?
• Worries and Wishes: What can you tell people about your hopes, plans, and feelings about the future?

Check our our infographic for more on using the CHEW social media framework…

Using the CHEW framework, Oriana and businesses like yours can:

• Make authentic content that fits naturally with the posts customers see on their feeds
• Help your customers feel like insiders with behind-the-scenes sneak peeks
• Improve your connection with customers by giving them real anecdotes to respond to

Best of all, CHEW helps social media post ideas come more naturally. When you follow this framework, you can create a content bank from your day-to-day operations. “Filming things as they happen is way easier than meticulously planning each video frame by frame,” Alfredo says.

What you’re looking for is what Alfredo calls “micro stories.” Good social media content is all about little stories that resonate with the people you want to reach. When you apply the CHEW framework, you’ve got a small business social media strategy that has amazing ideas built right in.

Let’s break down each letter in the framework and what it looks like in real posts from other small businesses.

C = Challenges

Every small business has everyday challenges to face, and you can turn them into opportunities by sharing them with your audience. You’ll build authenticity through vulnerability and show how you can handle whatever entrepreneurship throws at you.

For example, Tacos Don Perez, a Mexican restaurant with catering services, shared how their team manages larger orders – in this case, one involving 200 people. One of their staff narrated the process that goes into such a big catering job and showed how the team works as a family to achieve their goals.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tacos Don Perez © (@tacosdonperez)

The cat rescue organization Flatbush Cats showed how this letter of the framework can work for nonprofits. It often tells the stories of the cats it rescues and the challenges the volunteers and those cats face throughout the process. These posts make a case for why Flatbush Cats needs support from donors and raises awareness about cats that need help in Brooklyn.

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A post shared by Flatbush Cats (@flatbushcats)

H = Highlights

You don’t always have to focus on the difficulties in your business, though – successes have a place in your content, too, as highlights. Showcase your wins and celebrate your accomplishments, whether you got new equipment for your kitchen or signed a contract with a big brand. This content type also serves as a great way to announce and promote new offerings.

Mala, an independent candle company, often shares its accomplishments with its Instagram audience. When the brand shared a candle release at a Hong Kong luxury retailer, it also mentioned a loss that came with the win after that idea succeeded in another post. Don’t be afraid to mix content that matches different letters in the framework – in fact, it can add more dimension to your story.

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A post shared by Mala | Coconut Soy Candles (@malathebrand)

The regional restaurant chain Rasa offered an on-the-scene look at its appearance at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art for Diwali. This Reel celebrated their accomplishment and spread the word so customers could stop by to try their food.

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A post shared by RASA (@rasa)

E = Education

Running a small business involves a lot of learning as you go. Why not create some educational posts so your audience can learn with you? This content could explain what you learned from your experience as a small business owner or pass that knowledge onto the audience.

For instance, the noodle brand Omsom shared what its team learned when their business got acquired. Most of its audience won’t need to use this information, but it shows the human side of the experience.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Omsom (@omsom)

And in business coach Jenni Gritters’ case, many of the things she learns as a business owner also help her potential clients. Many of her LinkedIn posts share how she learns and grows and what you can take away from it. She’s also open about the fact that she repurposes her content, meaning you can follow her lead and repurpose your own CHEW posts.

W = Worries and Wishes

The first three letters in CHEW cover the past and present, but this last one centers around the future. What business goals could you share with your audience, and what are your feelings surrounding them? This content type provides a great opening for customer feedback, such as when the taiyaki business Rice Culture brought up the idea of returning to farmer’s market booths. It was able to learn what locations its followers wanted them to visit and stay transparent with them. Thanks to that planning, the booths became a hit.

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A post shared by Rice Culture (@riceculturex)

Another idea that comes to my mind doesn’t necessarily pop up on my social media video feeds, but it could work well for it. Some of the indie video games I follow also take a “building in public” approach by sharing roadmaps for future updates. Take Snacko, a game still preparing for official release, as an example.

This roadmap shows the features planned for the upcoming versions of the game. But even if you don’t sell a video game, you can make a roadmap for your business. What products, services, or expansions do you hope to release in the future? Walk your followers through your roadmap and keep the details a mystery to spark their curiosity.

Why you need a social media strategy for small business

With so many other tasks on your to-do list, it can be hard to justify investing some of your time in social media, especially when it can feel like a pay-to-win situation. As Mailjet mentioned in its report, organic social media reach is down due to the rise of ads. But that doesn’t mean social media is dead – it just has a new purpose now.

While lower reach makes it more difficult to send social media users to your website, you can still benefit from the connections you can make with them. In our 2024 study on small business marketing, we found that 31% of consumers use social media to find new small businesses. So, the reach you can get matters and so does your ability to be found on social media. It’s not just about your posts, it’s about your presence.

Plus, social media still has a huge number of users for you to reach. According to our 2024 small business marketing study, 68% of consumers use social media every day. And it’s Generation Z’s favorite channel by far, making it especially important for businesses looking to bring in younger customers.

Instead of writing off social media, small businesses like yours can focus on what SparkToro calls zero-click content. This content offers value on its own without the reader needing to click, hence the name. The CHEW framework can help you make this type of content to connect with your customers and build trust with them.

SMS marketing and the PASTA framework

Although social media works well for brand awareness and discovery, you can get the best results out of your marketing by adding more channels to the mix. SMS marketing complements social media well by filling in its gaps. It offers a direct line of communication to your customers where you don’t have to worry about an algorithm.

I know that adding another channel gives you another to-do to check off, but just like with social media, we have a framework for you to use with texting: PASTA. PASTA saves you time by spelling out the types of text messages you can send as a business:

• Prize texts
• Accessibility texts
• Suggestion texts
• Teaching texts
• Amusement texts

Another way to save time with SMS marketing is to use a service like SimpleTexting. SimpleTexting has features like scheduled texts and an AI writing assistant to put your texting on autopilot. Give it a try today in our 14-day free trial.

The post The CHEW framework: A social media strategy for small business appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Confusing, I know.

Fortunately, I can help. I’ll explain how carrier fees work and how much you can expect to pay. Plus, I’ll walk you through how it works for SimpleTexting customers and what other charges you should expect to pay for SMS marketing.

What’s the difference between SMS and MMS carrier fees?

The carrier fee you’ll pay per message depends on whether you’re sending a Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) text. Let’s break each type down:

• SMS: SMS messages are 160 characters or shorter and only contain text. Carriers charge lower fees for this message type.
• MMS: MMS texts can go up to a whopping 1600 characters and include media like videos, GIFs, or music. Because of these extra capabilities, carriers have higher fees for MMS messages.

So, it’s a matter of balancing complexity versus cost. Since SMS texts also tend to cost fewer credits in text messaging services, they can be the more economical choice. But, looking at our own tests, MMS messages with pictures can perform better than SMS, so consider how your strategy fits into your budget.

What other factors go into SMS fees?

The differences in carrier fees don’t stop at message type. Two more factors determine how much you’ll pay carriers to send a text:

• Carrier: Of course, carrier fees will depend on the carrier your message recipient uses. The differences are a fraction of a cent, but they do differ.
• Number type: The type of number you have also affects your carrier charges. Toll-free and local numbers tend to have lower charges than short codes. Short codes have a higher cost because they can send 400 messages per second versus the other two types’ 30 to 75 messages per second.

Most texting services track all of the fees for you, so you don’t have to do the math yourself. But it is helpful to know what goes into the charges you get every billing cycle.

SMS fees by carrier and number type

Now that you know everything that goes into carrier fees, you can find the exact carrier fees you can expect in the charts below. Find your number type and country to see what you would pay as a SimpleTexting user. All these rates are subject to change.

(Note: Canadian fees are listed in CAD, but SimpleTexting bills these fees in USD based on a trailing-average exchange rate.)

Local numbers

United States (USD)

The current U.S. fees for SMS and MMS are below. All rates are subject to change.

Canada (CAD)

The current Canadian fees for SMS and MMS are listed below. The fees below are listed in CAD, but will be charged in US Dollars (based on a trailing-average CAD to USD exchange rate). All rates are subject to change.

Toll-free numbers

United States (USD)

In July 1, 2021, several mobile carriers= introduced additional fees for toll-free numbers. This is an industry-wide change that affects all SMS service providers. We posted these surcharges here early to be as transparent as possible.

Canada (CAD)

In early 2021, Canadian carriers also applied surcharges on outgoing messages to Canadian phone numbers from toll-free numbers. Canadian carriers charge the below rates for SMS messages and twice the rate for MMS.

Short codes

Canada (CAD)

Note: SimpleTexting users only have to pay short code carrier fees for some Canadian carriers.

Do SimpleTexting users pay carrier fees?

SimpleTexting passes through the following carrier fees:

1. Outgoing messages from local and toll-free phone numbers in the U.S.
2. Outgoing messages from local and toll-free numbers to Canadian cell phones
3. Outgoing and incoming messages handled by some Canadian carriers

Each time SimpleTexting communicates with carriers to send out a message, they check what type of message it is and what kind of number it’s coming from—then charge us the applicable fees. SimpleTexting then passes on those fees with no extra markup.

In the United States, you don’t have to worry about carrier charges for shortcode numbers and incoming messages. Businesses that text Canadian numbers will have to deal with these charges for some carriers, though.

Most SimpleTexting users pay their carrier fees during their monthly or annual billing date. But if your charges add up to 500 USD before billing time, we’ll ask for payment once you reach that number.

What other fees do I need to pay for mass texting?

Phone carriers and your text messaging service have a stake in your business texting, so you’ll have to pay additional fees to them. Here are the other costs involved in mass texting:

Your texting service subscription

If you use an SMS marketing platform to send your mass texts, you’ll need to pay them a subscription to keep using it. This price covers the service the platform provides to you and operating costs like SMS aggregator fees.

Most services price these subscriptions based on the number of messaging credits you get per billing period. The credits you use per message depend on the message type. SimpleTexting, for example, charges one credit for SMS and three for MMS.

The exact price of your subscription will depend on how much you text per month and the service you choose. SimpleTexting charges $29.00/month for toll-free numbers, and local numbers pay $10 extra per month for the registration fee I mentioned before. Check out our Pricing page to estimate your monthly costs before SMS carrier fees are applied.

Platform fees

Certain texting services add platform fees to their subscription prices. SimpleTexting only charges you by the number of credits you need, but this isn’t always the case. Check a service’s pricing terms for a breakdown of its monthly fee before you sign up.

Number registration fees

In recent years, carriers started requiring number registration or verification for businesses to prevent disruptions for you and protect consumers. Businesses and local numbers have to pay initial and ongoing fees for this registration. Toll-free numbers go through a free verification process and don’t pay an ongoing fee.

Let’s look at the costs for registering local numbers and shortcodes as a SimpleTexting user:

• Local numbers: Businesses with local numbers pay a one-time activation fee of $4 during registration. From there, they’ll pay $10/month to maintain their registration.
• Short codes: Short codes have much higher fees. You’ll need to pay a one-time setup fee of $2,500 and a monthly fee that starts at $1,000. Vanity short codes – short codes you choose – tend to have higher monthly charges.

Advanced features and software

You may have to pay a higher subscription price or for additional software if you want advanced features in your texting.

For example, some texting services gate features like certain number types behind specific subscription plans. SimpleTexting only charges for credits and registration fees, meaning you’ll get all of its features on any plan.

But even with a service like SimpleTexting, you might need to pay extra costs for software that offers additional services, like Zapier and its automations. Zapier is free to use for up to 100 tasks per month. But if you use Zapier a lot, you’ll need to pay for one of its plans as well.

Fines and fees

Here’s a charge you’ll hopefully never have to pay. Businesses that don’t follow texting laws and rules can face big fines.

In the United States, for instance, businesses that don’t follow the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) can pay $500-$1500 per text. So, if you send a lot of noncompliant texts, you could reach 5 digits quickly.

Fortunately, it’s free to be compliant – you just have to do your due diligence. Some of the main principles of compliant texting are getting your customers’ consent to text them and communicating what kinds of messages you’ll send. Our guide to text message compliance will help you get started.

Do customer texting fees get passed onto businesses?

Businesses don’t have to worry about customers passing on any costs to them. You may see the phrase “message and data rates may apply” in texting-related materials and wonder what role businesses play. Good news – that message simply tells customers to expect to pay their phone plan’s texting fees when they receive texts from you.

Transparently priced SMS marketing with SimpleTexting

Long story short: There are quite a few charges involved in mass texting, including SMS and carrier fees. But a text messaging service with transparent pricing can make them easier to deal with.

SimpleTexting keeps its pricing straightforward so you can plan your texting budget clearly. It also has a two-week free trial for you to try all of its features before you buy. Start a free trial today – no credit card needed – and see it for yourself.

The post What Are SMS and MMS Carrier Fees? appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

When you’re working with a small business budget, you want to save where you can. This is especially true in the nonprofit sector. Even though the core part of SMS marketing – sending messages – costs money, you can minimize costs to get more out of your marketing funds.

In the end, affordable SMS marketing isn’t really about what you pay, it’s about how you use it to reach your customers and contacts to achieve a good return on investment (ROI).

Read on to learn about the return on investment of text message marketing and how to get the most bang for your buck.

Is SMS marketing worth the price?

While text message marketing requires a bit of an investment, businesses that use SMS for customer communication find it’s worth it. Consider these two factors:

The cost of SMS vs other marketing channels

SMS marketing costs are about on par with channels like email and cheaper than more extensive options like content marketing.

Let’s look at the price of texting first. SMS marketing messages cost a fraction of a cent each – between $0.01 and $0.05 per text – and services often bundle those messages into credit packages. For example, SimpleTexting charges $29 per month (plus a carrier charge of $10) for 500 credits and all features.

The cost of other channels varies depending on their complexity. Email has similar costs – take Sinch Mailjet as an example. This email service provider (ESP) offers a limited free plan. Then you can unlock more features as you grow. A premium Mailjet plan is $27/month.

According to Siege Media, outsourcing content marketing campaigns can cost $6,000 or more a month. That’s their estimate on the low-end. Many small business owners feel they lack the time to create their own content, but hiring an agency may not be in your budget.

It’s become much harder to reach people on social media in recent years as the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn changed their algorithms to keep users on their platforms instead of visiting your website. So, in what feels like a bait-and-switch, brands and small businesses must pay to reach people on social media.

How much are business paying? Quite a bit. According to research from WebFX, more than half of businesses (52%) pay between $100 and $5,000 per month on social media management. That’s on top of paying for social media advertisements, which around half of businesses pay between $1,000 annually to as much as $25,000 per year. The truth is, big brands are spending a whole lot more than that on social media promotion.

SMS marketing ROI (return on investment)

You want to make more money from any money you invest in marketing, including SMS marketing. Fortunately, text messaging has a great ROI (return on investment) for many businesses.

Take it from businesses themselves. In our 2024 SMS marketing study, 81% of businesses agreed that text message marketing was a useful option for driving revenue. On top of that, 40% of businesses reported that SMS marketing contributed to 11% to 20% of their revenue.

Plus, some returns from investing in affordable SMS marketing come in the form of savings and operational efficiency. For example, Vogel Heating cut 50% of its phone calls by communicating with customers over text messages.

How to find an affordable SMS marketing service

You can get even more out of your text message marketing by choosing an affordable SMS marketing tool that fits your needs. Follow these tips as you look for the right software:

• Compare cost per credit: As you check prices across tools, look at the price per credit in addition to the monthly price. Even if one service costs more than another, it could have a lower cost per credit overall.
• Factor in additional costs: Consider the costs of additional services and features like number registration, extra numbers, and extra teammates. (And if a tool doesn’t openly share them, that might say something about it.)
• Look for money-saving features: The SMS marketing services out there manage credits in different ways. Keep an eye out for tools that help you get the most use out of your credits. For example, SimpleTexting credits roll over until the end of the following month.

5 affordable text marketing services to try

With so many services out there to choose from, it can be hard to know where to get started. Here are a few lower-cost choices that appear in lists like our best services for small businesses:

1. SimpleTexting: Choose SimpleTexting for a well-rounded range of texting tools and flexible pricing for managing customer communications via SMS and MMS.
2. MessageMedia: This platform offers slightly higher pricing with the Basic plan along with a higher volume of monthly messages. You’ll also find MessageMedia integrates with lots of other applications and marketing platforms.
3. ClickSend: With ClickSend, customers are on a pay-as-you-go system. Your total costs will vary based on what you send each month (additional carrier fees apply). This can support affordable SMS marketing but could also make it trickier to have a set budget.
4. EZTexting: This platform is known as a great starting point for marketers, although it can have some technical issues.
5. Textedly: Textedly is another well-known, affordable service with the option to add voice calls to your plan, but its integrations often cost extra.

With most affordable SMS marketing platforms that have monthly allotments, you are able to exceed the limit and switch to a pay-as-you-go model for the remainder of the month.

5 tips for lower SMS marketing costs

Once you find an SMS marketing solution that fits your budget, you can also adjust your texting habits to save money. Here are seven strategies to make your text message marketing more affordable:

1. Use SMS and MMS wisely

Did you know that different types of messages have different costs? Text messaging services usually charge more for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) messages than Short Message Service (SMS) messages.

Here’s how SimpleTexting charges each type of message, for example:

• SMS (up to 160 characters): One credit
• Extended SMS (161-306 characters): Two credits
• MMS (up to 1600 characters): Three credits

The higher cost of MMS doesn’t necessarily mean you should only text with SMS, though. Since SMS supports up to 160 characters and MMS supports up to 1600, it depends on how much you have to say. MMS could actually save you money on campaigns longer than 480 characters (that’s three SMS messages).

2. Save on credits with AI

Sometimes, you’ll find your message getting just too long to count as a single SMS. If you find your text going over the 160-character limit, you can save credits by shortening it with AI.

SimpleTexting makes this process easy with the AI Message Rephraser feature of our AI Assist. Click the lightbulb icon when you draft a message in the Inbox and choose Short and sweet to shorten it.

Here’s a before and after example:

Before:

After:

The rephraser also has Expand, Friendly, and Formal options for you to lengthen your message, make it sound more friendly, or make it sound more formal. These choices can save you time on editing, which also saves you money in the long run.

3. Advertise your texting lists with free templates

You may have a text list you need to advertise to get more people to join, such as a deals and promotions list. But this advertising can cost money if you don’t have graphic design skills.

We made six sets of free Canva templates to help you save on these costs. They all include the necessary disclaimers under TCPA regulations to help to stay compliant, too. Dig into them here and customize them to fit your business.

If you haven’t used Canva before, it’s free to use most of its features. It’s perfect for marketing teams trying to reduce costs.

4. Make the most of free SMS marketing tools

While SMS marketing services – the tools you use to send texts – generally aren’t free, there are plenty of free tools out there to support your texting. We offer a variety of free text marketing tools, including:

• Text marketing plan builder: Take a short quiz to figure out what text marketing tactics could work for your business and how much they would cost.
• Graphic generator: Create graphics to promote your text lists and keywords.
• Click-to-text button: Add a button to your website for customers to text you.
• Mobile sign-up widget: Enable customers to sign up for your texting list from your website.

You can also get thrifty with your apps and look for free tools to organize your marketing. Some marketing tools also have surprisingly generous free plans – ask other folks in your industry for their picks. In some cases, you can use a spreadsheet instead of investing in a new app, too.

5. Follow text marketing laws

At SimpleTexting, we always encourage SMS marketers to comply with text messaging laws because it’s the right thing to do. But as a bonus, it also saves you money that you’d waste on:

• Fines for noncompliance
• Marketing costs on people who don’t want to be part of your list
• Texts lost to spam filters due to noncompliance

Texting compliance is fairly simple, too – it just takes a little attention to detail. The process involves steps like:

• Registering your number as a business number
• Adding a disclaimer to any materials promoting your texting list
• Creating clear opt-in and opt-out processes
• Texting appropriate content at reasonable times

You can learn more about following texting laws from our compliance guide. This isn’t legal advice, though – talk to a lawyer if you need advice specific to your business.

The bottom line on affordable SMS marketing

Findings from Sinch’s report The art and heart of customer communications reveal that U.S. consumers typically choose either SMS or email as they’re preferred channel for hearing from brands. Your customers want you to reach them via text messaging. So, the real question might be can you afford not to use affordable SMS marketing?

Think about it this way…. One SMS messages will cost you just a fraction of a penny. But that message might win you a customer’s loyalty for a lifetime. It could save you from losing their business. Using SMS connects you with your customers in a way that’s not just effective and reliable, it’s also personal and conversational.

As you look for an affordable SMS marketing service, give SimpleTexting a try. We outline all of our costs on our pricing page so you can make an informed decision.

Best of all, we offer a free 14-day trial – with no credit card required – for you to take all of the features for a spin. Give it a shot today.

The post Your guide to affordable SMS marketing: Tools, tips, and tactics appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

You’ve probably heard a lot about using generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) to help reduce your workload. The right AI tools can help you brainstorm new ideas and engage with your customers while saving you time. You just have to know how to use it. While you can use tools like ChatGPT to generate SMS messages for your business, you can also use custom AI-powered solutions that are built to do that specific job.

In this blog post, I’ll explain how to use AI text message generators to make your job easier while staying true to your creativity. Plus, you’ll learn about a new AI SMS tool you can try for free.

Two ways to use AI and text messaging

While there are many ways to use AI-powered SMS marketing, most people stick to the most well-known two options: brainstorming and chatbots. The first helps you come up with and refine the messages you’ll send to contacts. That’s where AI text message generators come in. The second use is more technical, it involves powering the entire conversation with artificial intelligence.

1. Use an AI assistant for text messaging ideas

AI assistants can write examples of texts for you or provide ideas of what to write about, depending on what prompts you give them. They do some of the “thinking” for you to give you more ideas to work with and save you time. The prompts you give the AI impact the results you get back. So, at the very lest, be sure to describe your business, your customers, and what you want your text messages to accomplish when you write the prompt.

Free and low-cost generative AI tools like ChatGPT are popular picks for this tactic. But, if you have a text messaging service with a built-in AI solution, you can skip a few extra steps. SimpleTexting and its AI Assist feature is one example.

Using an AI assistant in SMS marketing goes beyond simply asking it to write the text for you. You can also:

• Come up with new angles on an existing text campaign
• Find benefits or customer pain points to emphasize in your texts
• Think of selling tactics to use in your messages (such as fear of missing out)
• Generate multiple messages and combine their best elements
• Change your text’s tone for your target audience or campaign

Marketing consultant Nora Sudduth shared her process for creating SMS campaigns with generative AI for a business-to-business (B2B) software-as-a-service (SaaS) company. Before diving into the steps, she shared an important takeaway:

“AI is great for quickly brainstorming lots of different ideas around messaging and angles. Then you need to use your industry knowledge and expertise to pick and choose and refine.”

Nora Sudduth, Marketing Consultant

She took these actions to build a campaign for her client:

1. Start with a strategy: Nora and her client established the goals for the campaign, as well as details about the audience, tone, and offering.
2. Bring AI into the mix: Then, she input what she learned from the strategy session into a generative AI tool. “AI offered a variety of messaging options around time savings, ease of integration, increased productivity, and exclusive early-bird access,” Nora says.
3. Choose and adjust: After choosing the most effective options from the AI, Nora adjusted the AI output and rewrote texts to suit the client’s audience. Using data from customer surveys, she tailored each text to resonate with the audience’s needs.
4. Test (and test again): With the texts ready to go, Nora A/B tested different calls to action and customer pain points. Nora says, “Based on our conversion data, we continued to refine those messages until we hit numbers we were happy with.”

The results were texts like this one:

2. Develop an AI-powered SMS chatbot

AI can also automate simple one-to-one customer interactions. Building an AI-powered SMS chatbot is more complex than brainstorming with AI, but it offers a way for you to help your customers when you aren’t available. So, the extra work definitely pays off.

You can create an SMS chatbot without generative AI, such as how you can use Zapier to create a basic chatbot in SimpleTexting. This type of chatbot is built to recognize different questions or requests and then reply to people with a pre-defined answer. When building an SMS chatbot, you’d map out “conversational paths” that include auto-generated responses like this:

Chatbots built with generative AI can improve this process with more flexibility and personalization. That’s because they’re able to generate unique responses based on a “knowledge base” from which they are trained. The chatbot’s knowledge base could be anything from your support documentation to product manuals to your menu and hours of operation. If you’re worried that customers will be turned off by the experience, don’t be – 80% of customers told Sinch they’re open to using AI chatbots.

Already using Zapier? You can try out new features that allow you to create custom, AI-powered chatbots built on OpenAI’s technology. Train the AI on a specific knowledge source and connect it with SimpleTexting to start generating replies to texts from customers and contacts.

Be aware that genAI chatbots do have risks. As Sinch points out, generative AI sometimes provides incorrect information or “hallucinations,” completely nonsensical statements.

Meet SimpleTexting’s AI assistant for text messaging

Not every small business is ready to start building chatbots powered by generative AI. It’s new technology and even the biggest brands in the world are still figuring things out. AI text message generators, however, are an easy way to start taking advantage of generative artificial intelligence. For example, SimpleTexting’s AI Assist is an easy-to-use tool for text message generation and refinement.

AI Assist is built into every SimpleTexting plan – even the free trial – so you can use it whenever you need to write or improve a campaign text.

Using AI Assist’s text message generator

When you’re building a campaign and you need ideas that get your message across, SimpleTextings AI text message generator is there to help you brainstorm without ever leaving our platform.

Click Generate message under AI Assist when composing a campaign. A dialogue box will pop up where you enter a prompt describing the kind of text message you need for the campaign. Click Generate a message inside the window and SimpleTexting’s AI Assist will generate five options for you to review and choose from. Not quite what you need? Click Refresh suggestions for a new set of options, or try rewriting your prompt for different results.

Once AI Assist generates a text message you like, just click Select message and it will be added to the campaign building workflow. Of course, you can still change the text to meet your needs. For example, maybe you’d rather use an emoji at the end of your message than the hashtag the AI tool suggested.

Speaking of emojis in SMS campaigns… AI Assist can help you with that too! There are a lot of ways to use our AI text message generator as a creative partner in your customer communications and marketing. Here’s how a tax advisor might use our tool to keep in touch with clients during the holidays:

Using AI Assist to refine and rephrase your text messages

One of the most useful ways to take advantage of SimpleTexting is one-to-one communications and SMS conversations with your contacts. Our users do this directly from the Inbox where they can text back and forth with customers and clients without using their mobile device.

But finding the right words and striking the right tone isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve added AI Assist to the Inbox as well. You can use the AI Assist Rephraser Tool to refine your message. Just click the lightbulb icon after you compose a text. Then, you can choose from one of four tone adjusters:

• Short and sweet: Get the same message across with fewer words. This option can come in handy when you’d like to save message credits on longer messages.
• Expand: Ask the AI to elaborate on what you’ve already written to get more detailed with your message.
• Friendly: A user favorite – add a friendlier tone to your message to connect better with your customers.
• Formal: When it’s time to get down to business, you can choose this option to make your message sound more formal.

Get creative with AI and text messaging campaigns

AI can go even further than brainstorming, writing, and chatbots. Check out how these businesses use AI text messaging to create unique campaigns.

1. Blue Barn’s custom pet poems

When Blue Barn asked for our help on the Shoestring podcast, we were happy to oblige with plenty of text message marketing ideas. One of these suggestions combined AI’s image analysis and generative writing abilities.

Our campaign idea involved asking customers to text a cute photo of their pets to receive a text back with a custom poem. ChatGPT would analyze the pet in the photo and their surroundings, then reply with a fun poem based on that analysis. Here are a couple of examples:

Blue Barn used this creative AI-driven marketing strategy to accomplish two things:

1. It helped them encourage existing customers to opt in to their SMS marketing list.
2. It provided basic customer data for personalization because it indicated what type of pet the contact owns.

2. Window Factory’s personalized quotes

Home services businesses involve a lot of custom quotes, which can add time to the texting process. Window manufacturer and installer Window Factory saved time and increased quote requests by 25% by crafting personalized quotes with AI. General manager Nick Marshall and the Window Factory team used an AI tool to generate custom quote texts like this one:

3. Helix Sleep’s sleep quiz responses

AI can integrate texts into interactive processes like quizzes to create a full experience for customers. Helix Sleep, a mattress company, increased its conversion rate by 18% by sending AI-generated mattress suggestions to customers who took a sleep quiz. Here’s an example of one of those texts:

4. MagicProCleaning’s timeframe-based reminders

Services that should happen at regular intervals, such as healthcare, maintenance, or cleaning, can bring customers back through reminders, but the tone of those reminders is key. MagicProCleaning, a cleaning service provider, used tone suggestions from AI based on customer data to strike the right balance between urgency and value and saw a 20% increase in bookings within a week. Let’s look at an example text:

Try an AI text message generator for yourself

If you’re already using SimpleTexting, be sure to give our new AI Assist tool a try. And if you’re not taking advantage of our platform yet… AI SMS marketing is just a few clicks away!

Sign up for a free 14-day SimpleTexting trial to give all of our features a spin, including our AI Assist. And if you like what you see, we’ll offer flexible credit-based plans and guide you through the number registration process.

The post How to use an AI text message generator for SMS marketing appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

With social media algorithms constantly changing, more businesses are adding newsletters to their marketing mix. That’s because it gives more control over content distribution. Newsletters are an excellent way for small businesses and independent creators to stay in touch with the audience they’ve built.

While the newsletter world tends to focus on email, texting can also have a part in the mix. Sinch’s study on customer connections found that email and messaging are two of the strongest channels for communicating with customers. So, why not combine their powers?

Let’s explore the possibilities of SMS newsletters, whether you use texting as the main vehicle for your newsletter or to distribute your email newsletter.

Why should you create a text message newsletter?

SMS newsletters come in all sorts of forms that you can adapt to your business’s content strategy. Whichever type of newsletter you send, you’ll reap the benefits of business texting. Our 2024 report demonstrates the usefulness of sending texts to your customers:

• Many of your customers want to get text messages from you. Seventy-nine percent of consumers opted into a business text in 2024 – that’s an 11% increase from 2023.
• And that desire translates into growth for your business. Ninety-one percent of businesses have higher conversion rates when they integrate SMS into their marketing campaigns.
• Specifically, the most common response businesses had about their average SMS conversion rate was 21-30%, with 28% reporting that metric. And two groups making up 22% of the mix each had an average conversion rate of 11-20% and 31-40%.

SMS newsletters vs email newsletters

While email and text messaging are two effective channels for newsletter distribution, they have some clear differences. Because of that, you’ll want to carefully consider your newsletter strategy, such as what content you include, how often you send newsletters, and who you send them to.

Many email newsletters are sent to subscribers on a weekly or monthly basis. They’ll usually include a collection of items such as the latest articles from a blog, events, upcoming promotions, company news, and more. There will be images, call-to-action buttons, as well as logos and other branding.

With an SMS newsletter, you’ll be more limited. SMS stands for Short Message Service. Texts sent via SMS are restricted to 160 characters per message. While you can include links in an SMS newsletter, you can’t include images or graphics.

Despite these limitations, a text newsletter has some advantages. Because texts tend to have higher engagement than emails, your SMS newsletter will likely see higher open and click rates. Text message newsletters are also less common than email newsletters. It’s tough for email newsletters to stand out in crowded inboxes but receiving a text newsletter is somewhat unexpected.

3 options for text message newsletters

Since you can’t exactly send a monthly SMS newsletter with five different stories, a bunch of images, and multiple calls-to-action, you’ll need to think things through. Here are three effective ways to send text newsletters:

1. Send a link to your email newsletter via SMS

Most email newsletters include a version subscribers can view in their web browser. The easiest way to distribute your newsletter through SMS is to simply send a link to the web version of your email newsletter.

This way, your contacts have a similar newsletter experience on both email and SMS. Plus, you can schedule sends at the same time with the same newsletter frequency. Just send a brief text message to notify people when your latest newsletter is out.

2. Send more frequent SMS newsletters

Since SMS is limited to 160 characters, the channel is better suited for informing your audience about one topic at a time. Rather than an email newsletter featuring several pieces of content, your SMS newsletter features a single item – but gets sent more often.

For example, if you’re publishing blog posts on your website, you can notify subscribers via text every time a new article is published. If that seems like too much, a weekly SMS newsletter could deliver the most important piece of blog content that week.

You could also use text messaging to deliver other sorts of content such as regular tips and advice – anything that’s easily communicated in a short message with a link to learn more works great with SMS.

3. Send a concise MMS newsletter

If visuals are important to your newsletter experience, you can use MMS to include pictures, graphics, short videos, emojis, and a significantly higher character count. MMS allows for up to 1600 characters.

While you won’t exactly replicate the complete email newsletter experience, an MMS newsletter gives you more to work with. Get creative with this option. It’s a less formal way to deliver a newsletter than email. So, you may want to keep things light and conversational.

6 real examples of SMS newsletters to inspire yours

While text newsletters can contain just about anything you’d like, the huge range of possibilities can make it tricky to zoom in on one idea. Here are some real-life SMS newsletters that demonstrate what you can do with this channel.

1. Food and Meat Co-op

The Food and Meat Co-op consists of consumers in Utah and nearby states who order local produce and meat in bulk. It needs members to know order and pickup times to run smoothly, so it runs an SMS newsletter with updates on order sales and pickup events. As the newsletter  sign-up page puts it, “[We] want to make sure you don’t miss a thing because these good deals go FAST and if you don’t receive notification, you miss out.”

One example of messages the newsletter sends is this heads-up about a restock on certain products:

The Food and Meat Co-op newsletter shows that your texts don’t have to be intricate – they just need to communicate what your readers need to read.

2. Toby Prussman

When real estate agent Toby Prussman noticed his listing emails going to spam, he gave an SMS newsletter a shot. Thanks to this initiative, his customers could get alerts as soon as new properties went up on his website.

As a result, Toby’s clients felt happy and included again. If you’re having trouble with email deliverability, you can use texting as a second solution as you get your email working. And apps like SimpleTexting have automations you can use to send immediate alerts like Toby.

3. WLRN

WLRN, a public radio and television organization in South Florida, wants to keep its listeners and viewers informed on all news topics. As part of this mission, it sends out an environmental news SMS newsletter with the latest topics on our planet’s health.

For example, one of its September 2024 texts raises awareness about the pesticide paraquat:

This text linked out to an article on Earthjustice, the organization that runs WLRN’s text newsletter. You can use weekly texts to highlight your most important news or content just like WLRN and Earthjustice do.

4. Natural Born Organizers

Your text newsletter can become an integral part of your business – take it from Natural Born Organizers. Founder Tanisha Porter created a subscription program where clients get an organization prompt every day.

The instructions to text photo proof help subscribers stay accountable. Two-way texting lets you include these kinds of interactive elements in your newsletter, too. Thats an advantage text message newsletters have over email… they can be conversational!

5. Sydney McDonald

If that last example has you excited about monetizing your text newsletter, here’s another example for you. Sydney McDonald, a social media coach and strategist, uses an SMS newsletter to get thousands of dollars every month.

Every day, Sydney sends prompts for TikTok content based on the latest trends. Here are snippets of two such text newsletters:

Like Sydney, don’t be afraid to spruce up your texts with emojis. As you can see, you can use them to break up your text like you would with bullet points.

6. Mountain High Outfitters

E-commerce businesses can also get in on the fun. Mountain High Outfitters’ text message newsletter provides information on the latest discounts and inventory releases.

This welcome text shows that you can give new subscribers a warm welcome just as you can with an email newsletter or regular text list. Mountain High Outfitters sends an MMS message with a discount to start you on a high note.

Design your newsletter’s welcome text just as carefully as you create its other messages. This first text will help you make a good impression if you can nail it.

How to build and grow your text message subscribers list

So, how can you make a newsletter like the ones you saw above? The backbone of a successful text message newsletter is no different from that of a successful email one–you need an engaged subscriber list.

If you’ve been collecting phone numbers from your email subscribers and have not obtained express written consent to text these folks, we have some bad news: you can’t send these people an SMS with your newsletter out of the blue.

The good news is that it’s easy to build a list of engaged SMS subscribers. You can steal the following playbook to start your newsletter and grow your subscriber list in no time. Just follow these steps:

1. Determine your newsletter strategy

Before you think about sending your newsletter, create a plan to follow. Ask yourself these questions to build a basic strategy:

• Will you create an original text newsletter, or will you use your texts to distribute your email newsletter? The right answer depends on whether you already have an email newsletter and the length of content you’d be sharing.
• If you’re making an original text newsletter, what topics will you cover? Our 2024 business texting report found that customers subscribe to texts to get information on subjects like promotions (58%), new product/service offerings (23%), and event invitations (22%).
• How often will you send your newsletter? The same report shows that 48% of customers prefer to get texts every other week and 36% want to receive them every week.

2. Create a keyword

With your strategy ready to go, you can create ways for people to join your list. Keywords are a good starting point.

Let’s say we want to promote a newsletter focused on a roundup of all news related to startup funding rounds.

We could create a keyword called “DEALROOM” and–where it makes sense–include a call to action that goes something like, “Text DEALROOM to (833) 222-3059 if you want to receive a weekly roundup of all startup and VC funding news.”

When someone texts it into your number, they’ve subscribed to receive future updates.

This is the approach that The New York Times offers. Its readers can text the word “DAILY” to 63937 for a report that provides context, analysis, and thoughts on some of the biggest news stories. They promote it on their website and social media channels.

This is also the approach that America’s Beauty Show takes with text newsletter subscriptions. Beauty industry members can text the word “SIGNUP” to its number to get information on its events and offers.

3. Build a sign-up form

One of the tools marketers use to drive growth in their email newsletter subscribers is a simple sign-up form. You can apply a similar approach to growing the number of people signed up to receive your text message newsletter.

You could use Morehouse College’s approach and create a form for people to sign up for both your email and text newsletters.

SimpleTexting’s web form builder makes it easy to help your customers sign up for one or both of your newsletters. Add Contact field as one of the fields in your form to get both text and email signups. Once you finish, you can link to the web form from your website using the code SimpleTexting generates.

If you send both email and text newsletters, you could plug your text newsletter in its email counterpart. Include a graphic or line of copy that says something like:

“Hey, do you love our newsletter, but find it gets lost in your crowded inbox? You can sign up for the SMS version of our newsletter here: https://website.com/form”

Get the URL to your form by copying and pasting the full “app2.simpletexting.com” URL into your link,including the “webFormID” part of the URL that has a string of numbers and letters. In the above example, we direct someone to a web form, but you could also give your subscribers the option to text in your keyword.

4. Distribute your newsletter

Whether you choose to use your text newsletter to promote your email newsletter or run it as its own publication determines other ways you’ll distribute it.

The easiest way to promote your text message newsletter is to take the link to your email newsletter and include it in a text message.

If you’re entirely scrapping your email newsletter, you could create blog posts or web pages to host longer content.

If you want your texts to promote your email newsletter, you could integrate your email marketing platform and SimpleTexting.

For example, where you currently collect email addresses, you could add a field asking for a phone number and a checkbox asking for consent to send notifications when a newsletter goes out. Then you can send out a blast letting your subscribers know they should check their inbox.

Combine your email newsletter with a text newsletter

To drive the most ROI, your brand should offer your audience the option to sign up for your newsletter via email and SMS. As we’ve demonstrated, it’s easy to tailor the message to fit the channel.

By leveraging both the broad reach of your email lists and the high engagement of SMS, you can use both channels to turn your newsletter into a cornerstone of your marketing strategy.

One low-fuss way to use this strategy is to automatically send a text when your email newsletter comes out using SimpleTexting and Zapier. It just takes a few steps:

1. Connect your email newsletter app and SimpleTexting to Zapier.
2. Click the Create button in the upper-left corner of the Zapier dashboard and choose Zap.
3. Choose your newsletter releasing through your email app as the trigger for the Zap.
4. Make sending a SimpleTexting campaign as the action for your Zap.

If you don’t want to send the text at the same time as the email, you can add a step in between the trigger and action that uses Delay by Zapier to delay when the text sends.

Give text message newsletters a try

Text messaging is an excellent way to build on your email newsletter strategy. It’s likely there are contacts and customers who’d prefer hearing from you through text messaging. If you don’t have a newsletter strategy yet, consider starting out with SMS or MMS updates. Text messaging is an effective channel for distributing content – whether that’s an aritcle you wrote, a recipe you want to share, an upcoming promotion, a helpful tip, or the latest news from your business.

You can start sending text message newsletters to your subscribers today when you sign up for a 14-day free trial (no credit card required).

The post How to start sending a text message newsletter in 2024 appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Don’t worry – we’ve got your back. Let’s start with types of numbers and one you can use for mass texting known as a short code.

What is SMS short code?

An SMS short code is an abbreviated phone number that is 5 or 6 digits in length. These texting numbers are convenient, versatile, and short.

SMS short codes allow easy communication with customers ー most of whom prefer getting texts from businesses rather than emails or calls. 

They are also one of the optimal ways of reaching larger audiences, thanks to their capability of sending extremely high volumes of text messages within a short time period.

We’ll give you all the most important details on the world of short codes, including how they’re used, whether they’re right for you, and how you can get set up with one of your own.

Interested in using SMS short codes already? SimpleTexting’s dedicated short codes services allow you to easily set up SMS and MMS mobile marketing campaigns with zero hassle and expert help from our experienced team.

This hypothetical car wash flier shows what a short code looks like in the real world. The car wash uses the short code 711711 to make it easier for customers to text keywords.

What’s the difference between short codes and long codes?

Alongside short codes, you’ll likely see the two types of long codes mentioned when looking into business texting numbers. These numbers aren’t just longer, but they also fit different uses best. Here’s how each one works:

• Local numbers are 10-digit long codes that represent a local area. For example, 320-293-XXXX is a 10-digit long code number for central Minnesota in the St. Cloud region. They’re the same type of number that individual people use for texting, and now businesses can also text with them to establish trust.
• Toll-free numbers are another 10-digit long code format that works well for marketing purposes since businesses can run text messaging campaigns through them.

Compared to these number types, short codes have freer reign to send mass numbers of texts. You can learn more about the differences in our guide to short codes vs. long codes.

What are the benefits of a short code texting service?

Short code texting services offer a powerful and versatile tool for businesses to connect with their customers. Here’s a deep dive into the key benefits that make them stand out:

Enhanced deliverability: reaching your audience every time

• Bypass Carrier Filtering: Unlike long codes (10-digit phone numbers), short codes (typically 5 or 6 digits) are pre-approved by carriers, experiencing minimal filtering or blocking. This significantly increases the chances of your messages reaching their intended recipients.
• Dedicated Infrastructure: Short code providers maintain robust infrastructure specifically designed for high-volume SMS delivery. This ensures your messages get sent and received reliably, even during peak usage periods.

Superior throughput: sending messages at scale

• High Message Rates: Short codes are built to handle large volumes of messages per second, making them ideal for mass communication campaigns like marketing blasts, appointment reminders, or two-factor authentication (2FA).
• Scalability for Growth: As your business needs evolve, a short code texting service seamlessly scales to accommodate increasing message traffic. You won’t have to worry about limitations on sending capacity.

Boosted response rates: conversations made easy

• Memorable & Convenient: Short codes are easy to remember and type compared to long codes, encouraging customers to participate in SMS interactions.
• Two-Way Communication: Short code texting facilitates two-way conversations, allowing customers to respond to your messages, ask questions, or initiate transactions directly through SMS. This fosters deeper engagement and strengthens customer relationships.

Types of short codes

If short codes end up being the right choice for your business, you can choose between two types:

• Vanity short codes: You can pick a vanity short code that spells out a word that corresponds to the letters on a traditional telephone number pad. For example, a dance studio may choose the code 32623, which spells out DANCE when you look at the corresponding numbers on a phone dialer.
• Random short codes: If you choose a random short code, you’ll get a randomly chosen number to text from. These numbers cost less than vanity short codes, making them a friendlier option for your budget if you aren’t picky about what your number looks like.

Before 2022, there was also a third type of short code – shared short codes. Brands could share the same short code and split their contacts through texting keywords. But, you can’t choose this type anymore.

Short codes and geography

Short codes are not universal to every country. For example, text short codes acquired in the U.S. have a separate acquisition process from short codes in Canada. 

The CSCA (Common Short Code Administration) governs short codes in the United States. Canadian short codes are governed by the CWTA (Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association). 

A North America-based texting service like SimpleTexting can help you get set up with the right registry in both the United States and Canada. If you’re located outside either of these countries, you’ll work with another organization. SimpleTexting’s parent company, Sinch, provides short codes for texting and may be able to assist you in other countries for your business texting purposes.

Reived promotional SMS messages from five- or six-digit numbers? There’s a good chance that those texts are from short codes.

Ways you can use a short code texting app

Short code texting apps unlock a world of possibilities for businesses to connect and engage with their customers. Here are some key ways you can leverage this powerful tool:

Marketing messages

• Promotions & Offers: Drive sales and customer engagement by sending exclusive deals, coupons, and flash sales via text message. Short codes make it easy for customers to opt-in and receive these promotional messages directly on their mobile devices.
• Contests & Giveaways: Generate excitement and brand awareness by hosting text message contests and giveaways. Short codes simplify participation and allow you to collect valuable customer data during the process.
• Event Marketing: Promote upcoming events, share registration links, and send real-time updates directly to your audience’s mobile phones using a short code.

Transactional messages

• Order & Appointment Confirmations: Provide instant confirmation for online purchases, appointments, or reservations via SMS. Short codes ensure timely delivery and improve customer experience.
• Shipping & Delivery Updates: Keep customers informed about their orders with real-time shipping notifications and estimated delivery timelines. Short code texting allows for quick and convenient updates.
• Two-Factor Authentication: Enhance security by implementing two-factor authentication for logins or financial transactions. Short codes can be used to send one-time passcodes for added security.

Member notices

• Loyalty Programs & Rewards: Engage members of your loyalty program with exclusive updates, points reminders, and special offers delivered conveniently via text message.
• Important Announcements: Broadcast critical information or service updates to your members quickly and efficiently through short code texting.
• Surveys & Feedback: Gather valuable customer insights and feedback by sending surveys or polls directly to your members’ mobile phones using a short code.

Pros and cons of short codes in texting for business

Since short codes suit some uses better than others, you’ll get the most value out of them if their specific pros outweigh the cons for you.

Here are a few perks of using short codes:

• Short codes are easier than local and toll-free numbers (which are known as long codes) to remember when sending a text message.
• You’ll experience little to no carrier filtering with short codes, as long as you stick with the use cases you outlined in your application.
• Messages sent via short codes are delivered extremely quickly, meaning you can reach more people in less time.

But, you’ll also deal with these downsides:

• They’re more expensive to use than local and toll-free numbers.
• You can only send mass text messages with short codes (which means you should choose a different number type if you want to have two-way conversations).
• The approval time is higher for short codes (six to eight weeks) than 10-digit codes (one to 10 days, on average).

So, if you plan to invest in mass texting, you’ll mostly benefit from short codes. But they might not fit your business if you text on a smaller scale.

How much do SMS short codes cost?

Since short codes work at such a large scale, your texting provider will likely work with you to create a custom plan based on how many texts you plan to send per month. At SimpleTexting, we provide every short code customer with a unique setup, with prices starting at:

• $1,000 per month (with vanity short codes tending to cost more)
• One-time setup fee of $2,500

How to get an SMS short code

Dedicated short codes are leased, not sold. You’re paying for the exclusive right to use the number. 

When you partner with SimpleTexting to lease a short code, we’ll help you fill out the right forms to provision your number. Here’s how the process works:

1. Pick a short code. Choose your exact number with a higher-cost vanity short code, or save money by leaving it up to the short code registry with a random short code.
2. Complete the application. With your short code preference in mind, fill out the application for your country’s short code registry. If you have a SimpleTexting account, we will walk you through the process. Schedule a call through our pricing page by clicking Dedicated short code > Schedule a Call or click the blue button in the lower-right corner of the screen to chat with customer support.
3. Provision your new short code. After the registry approves your short code, you’ll need to provision it – in other words, connect it to the carrier network. This is another step we can handle for you. At this point, you’ll also need to create a compliance plan, which we can offer advice for.

You’ll have the easiest time completing these steps when you have professionals to help you like the SimpleTexting team. We can take care of the steps you don’t have to touch and guide you through the ones you have to complete yourself.

As far as the timeline to get started goes, dedicated short codes take 6–8 weeks to be approved by the CTIA and various telecom carriers. So, if you want to use an SMS short code for a specific seasonal campaign, make sure to apply at least two months ahead of time.

SMS short code compliance rules, restrictions, and regulations

We talk a lot about keeping your texts TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) compliant. Since short codes are governed by a different set of rules, there are a few specific things you need to know about short code compliance in addition to the usual TCPA regulations.

Like I mentioned earlier, the CTIA governs the usage of short codes, and they help manage the Short Code Registry (the database of all registered and available short codes).

That all might sound pretty intimidating, but there’s good news: The CTIA has a handy guide to help you navigate the do’s and don’ts of short codes. That’s the CTIA Short Code Monitoring Program Handbook.

In this handbook, you’ll find everything you need to know about how to responsibly and legally text on a short code. Highlights include:

• Make sure the opt-in method you use (like a keyword or web form) clearly states how many messages your customers can expect to receive, how to opt out of messages, your brand name, how to get help, and that they may incur data or messaging charges.
• Honor contact opt-outs.
• Send a confirmation message to contacts who opt in.

How do SMS short codes work?

Short codes work on three levels: The organizations and directories behind the scenes, the steps your customers take to sign up for short code messages, and the ways they unsubscribe from short code messages. Let’s look at each one:

The organizations behind short codes

To know how businesses can lease and use SMS short codes, you need to know the key players:

• CTIA — An organization that governs the U.S. wireless industry
• Short Code Registry — A database of registered short codes
• iconectiv — The official provider of the Short Code Registry

The CTIA partners with iconectiv to maintain the Short Code Registry, which keeps a record of which short codes are available for leasing. Businesses like yours sign up with the Short Code Registry to use short codes in a fair way to consumers.

Signing up for short code texts

Signing up for messages from a short code is easy ー all your customers need to do is text you the SMS keyword you give them or complete a web form.

Let’s take a look at an example with a keyword:

In this case, the keyword is “Burger” and the short code is “711711.” 

When you set up a keyword for your business, contacts who text in the word will automatically receive your confirmation message.

BURGER

Thank you for signing up for weekly discounts from Burger Bistro! Show this text to your server for a free side of fries.

When you set up a keyword for your business, contacts who text in the word will automatically receive your confirmation message.

Unsubscribing from short code texts

If your contacts no longer want to get texts from an SMS short code, they can stop receiving messages by replying with the word STOP. 

The sender will then have to stop texting them, just like when you unsubscribe from emails.

Stop

You have been unsubscribed from keyword BURGER.

Examples of SMS short codes in action

The uses for SMS codes go way beyond your typical text blast. Let’s check out some real-life examples of short codes in action:

Domino’s text offers

Domino’s invites customers to text PIZZA to 366466 to sign up for exclusive discounts. If you try this strategy, make sure to include the right opt-in disclaimer language in your promotional materials.

In-Telligent’s text-to-download links

In-Telligent, an emergency alert platform, used to have issues sharing download links with its clients. So, they partnered with SimpleTexting to enable clients’ employees to text a keyword to a short code to get a download link. Now, they’ll get the emergency alerts they need for safer workplaces.

Paypal’s two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security to app logins, which is especially important for a payment platform like PayPal. If you turn two-factor authentication on for your PayPal account, you’ll get a one-time passcode from one of PayPal’s short codes every time you log in.

Gifyyy’s text-enabled phonebooth

The team behind Gifyyy, a photo booth that creates GIFs for event attendees, needed a way to quickly share the GIFs with users. They turned to SimpleTexting when they started using short codes to make the process as fast as possible.

CVS’s order updates and reminders

CVS Pharmacy provides multiple ways for you to get your prescriptions, including pre-paid pickup, drive-through pickup, and shipping. Whichever method you prefer, you’ll get text updates on your order if you opt into the company’s SMS updates via short code.

Life Chapel’s anonymous texting

Life Chapel, a church in New Jersey, sends out texts reminding congregation members about upcoming events. The team enjoys using a short code to text these reminders and off-the-cuff communications because it adds an extra boundary compared to using personal devices. Church staff and families can feel safe in their communications through SimpleTexting.

Get packed for Winter Retreat!! Don’t forget Bible/Notebook/Pen and toothbrush Meeting at the church tomorrow at 4. See you all then!

Find the right number for your business with SimpleTexting

Short codes have a lot of attractive potential for businesses. 

They’re easy to remember and can be customized for your brand. You can use them for large campaigns or individual conversations, and they are ideal for keyword setup.

But, getting started with a short code might initially seem more complicated than the other number types you could choose from. 

Don’t worry. The SimpleTexting platform, along with our support team, makes the whole process smooth and easy. 

Step one: give SimpleTexting a free 14-day test drive. From there, you can add a short code number through your dashboard, and we’ll support you the whole way.

FAQs

The post SMS short codes explained appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

With the help of real users, I found seven of the best text messaging services for business to reduce the overwhelm for you. Let’s find a good fit for your company.

How I decided on these business texting apps

The best app recommendations come from extensive knowledge and use. So, I chose these apps based on stories from users like you and their ratings from professionals across the internet. I also curated these options with a varied selection of strengths in mind so businesses with all sorts of goals can find the right tool.

The 7 best text messaging services for your business to try

Here are the seven top texting apps for businesses like yours:

1. SimpleTexting
2. OpenPhone
3. EZTexting
4. Attentive
5. Google Voice
6. SendPulse
7. Podium

1. SimpleTexting: Straightforward and powerful texting

Let’s start with a familiar name – SimpleTexting. It offers everything you need to send bulk and one-on-one messages in an easy-to-use package. Thanks to its approachable interface, hundreds of integrations, and intuitive analytics, it’s one of the best text messaging services for small businesses. But, it can also scale up for users with advanced texting needs. 

Aiden Higgins of The Broke Backpacker vouches for SimpleTexting because of its affordable credits, integrations, and automation. For Aiden, it makes mass marketing campaigns simple to send.

Key features

• Bulk and one-on-one messaging for every texting situation
• Texting list signup options like text-to-join, text-to-vote, text-to-win, and web forms
• Data collection for personalizing your marketing campaigns
• Contact management with self-cleaning number lists
• Flexible plans with rollover texting credits

Pricing

SimpleTexting’s plans start at $39.99/month for 500 credits a month and three user seats and scale according to the number of credits and user seats you need every month.

Where to get it

Try SimpleTexting for free for 14 days here.

Download SimpleTexting for:

• PC 
• Android
• iOS 

2. OpenPhone: A comprehensive phone service

OpenPhone offers text messages, calls, contact management, and multiple phone numbers in one platform for better communication. It could suit your business if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution for team collaboration or smaller-scale communication with clients. Its native group messaging is limited to nine contacts at once, so it’s not a great fit for mass text marketing.

Many users brought up their preference for OpenPhone to me. Scrape-it.cloud’s Roman Milyushkevich considers it an ideal solution for startups because of its low price and unlimited calls and texts in North America. Dave Kerr from Merged Dental Marketing loves its location-based text scheduling and mobile app. Michael Chen of Notta can confirm OpenPhone’s stability after using it for over five years without any major technology failures.

Key features

• Group and one-on-one messaging
• Voice calls
• Unique phone numbers for each user
• Address book with customer info like role, phone, email, website, and lead status
• Internal collaboration features for coordinating messages with customers

Pricing

Pricing for OpenPhone begins at $15.00/user/month for unlimited calling and messaging in North America, with advanced plans starting at $23.00/user/month. Higher tiers include features like group calling and analytics.

Where to get it

Try OpenPhone for seven days by signing up here.

Download OpenPhone for:

• PC
• Android
• iOS 

3. EZTexting: Texting options for every business

As its name implies, EZTexting aims to make texting easy with a simple interface and straightforward service. Out of all the apps on this list, it has the widest range of pricing options to fit all sorts of businesses.

EZTexting was another popular option among the users I talked to. Instrumentl’s Gauri Manglik appreciates its intuitive UI and selection of integrations. On top of also vouching for its integrations, Brian David Crane of Spread Great Ideas attests to EZTexting’s affordable plans. At OSHA Outreach Courses, Farhan Siraj counts on this tool for its accessible pricing and use.

Key features

• One-on-one and bulk texting
• Text campaigns
• AI message authoring assistance
• Text marketing features like keywords and web signup forms
• Contact management, including segmentation
• Text message analytics

Pricing

EZTexting’s business texting plans start anywhere from $20.00 to $3000.00 a month depending on the message speed, cost, and delivery rate you want. Message cost varies by plan, with the Launch plan charging $0.027/message.

Where to get it

Give EZTexting’s starter Launch plan a shot for free for 14 days at this link.

Download EZTexting for:

• PC
• iOS

EZTexting does not have an Android app.

4. Attentive: Large-scale, personalized texting

Attentive offers conversational SMS and email marketing features that optimize every step of the process. In exchange for robust personalization and customer conversion options, you’ll have to schedule a demo to learn more about pricing and expect to pay more compared to many apps.

The users who brought up Attentive to me like it because of its powerful AI and automations. Best Price Nutrition’s John Frigo appreciates that its AI composer can lend a hand on days when he’s not feeling so creative.

At Bybrand, Bernardo Castro relies on features like its AI composer, automated customer support, and suggested best times to send messages.

Key features

• Personalized one-on-one and group messaging
• Automated customer service messaging
• Conversion-focused email marketing
• AI message drafting and audience segmentation
• Message analytics with customizable reports

Pricing

Attentive does not openly share its pricing on its website. In this Flowmium blog post, Andriy Boychuk claims that according to his network, Attentive charges $300.00/month and $0.01 per message, plus carrier fees.

Where to get it

Attentive offers access to a free trial and account signup after you participate in a free demo. It doesn’t have a mobile app.

5. Google Voice: Budget-friendly texting and voice

At an affordable price, Google Voice delivers fundamental calling and texting features from a virtual number. Since it doesn’t have any bulk texting features, it’s another app that suits businesses that need smaller-scale communication.

While Google Voice is the most straightforward service on this list, users did point out a few of its versatile points. At Ling, a language app, Simon Bacher works with folks all over the world, making the app’s affordable international rates a huge plus.

Erik Pham from Health Canal vouches for Google Voice’s integrations with other Google Services that streamline communications and collaboration.

Key features

• Unlimited texting and calling in the USA on all plans
• Unlimited calls between two North American numbers or two European numbers on all plans
• AI-powered voicemail transcription and spam blocking

Pricing

Google Voice’s plans (as seen on its main page) start at $10.00/user/month and scale up for features like unlimited users and an auto attendant.

Where to get it

Google Voice doesn’t offer a free trial, but it has one of the most approachable monthly prices on this list.

Download Google Voice for:

• PC
• Android
• iOS 

6. SendPulse: Multi-channel messaging

SendPulse has the most communication channels to choose from on this list. SMS is just one part of the tool’s offerings that include email, chatbots, LMS design, a CRM, and website management. It could work for your business if you have a large communications ecosystem that texting is just one part of.

Developer-minded users and users expecting an out-of-the-box solution can both appreciate SendPulse. According to Amy Kauffman of Let’s Tango, SendPulse is easy to integrate directly into web apps, and its API lets you adapt it to many use cases.

Meanwhile, Collen Clark from Schmidt & Clark finds it easy to use and set up in its native app.

Key features

• Bulk text messaging campaigns
• Drag-and-drop email marketing campaign designer
• Sales automation
• Customer relationship management
• Website builder
• Online course builder
• Chatbot builder
• Marketing pop-up windows

Pricing

SendPulse allows for free account signup and use and charges by the message for SMS services. Pricing per message is location-based – for example, it costs $0.022 to send a message to the United States.

Where to get it

The lowest plan tier for SendPulse is free, so you’ll always have access to your account. New SMS users can send 10 test messages for free.

Download it for:

• PC (Click Sign Up)
• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sendpulse.sendpulse 
• iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sendpulse/id945711525 

7. Podium: Versatile lead generation and communication

Podium calls itself a “lead conversion platform” and encompasses SMS, review management, web chat, voice calls, and social media messaging. If you’re trying to get more leads through text messaging, this app could help you integrate it into the rest of your lead generation strategies.

While it leans toward client communication over team communication, Podium works well for both use cases. VentureSmarter’s Jon Morgan uses the platform to coordinate among team members and clients and boost brand reputation through reviews.

When Gert Kulla needed a tool to organize communication at RedBat.Agency, Podium made it easy to stay on top of client conversations. And the review platform certainly does its job, too – SEO consultant Blake Smith acquired over 100 reviews for a client through it.

Key features

• One-on-one and bulk text messaging
• Automatic replies to customers reaching out through third-party inquiries
• Contact management integrated with other Podium features
• Web chat
• Voice calls
• Social media messaging

Pricing

Podium’s pricing plans start at $249.00/month for 1,000 contacts and up to three users.

Where to get it

Podium does not offer a free trial, but you can watch a demo at this link.

Download it for:

• PC: 
• Android 
• iOS

What’s the best SMS app for your business?

There’s no one-size-fits-all best tool for every business. As you browse the options in this guide, consider your:

• Messaging needs: How many texts do you want to send every month, how often, and to whom?
• Budget: How does your marketing or communications budget compare to the pricing the app offers? Remember to factor in number activation fees, carrier fees, international texting rates, and standard message rates.
• Buy-in to text messaging: Do you already use text messaging in your business, or do you just want to try it out? Pay attention to the minimum commitment each tool requires.

The post The 7 best text messaging services for businesses appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

The same principle applies to your texts. The most important step in the SMS marketing process is getting people to read your messages in the first place.

Just as the filmmaker might invite people to see their first screening, you can encourage others to join your SMS list with a text-to-subscribe service. Let me walk you through this technique.

What is text-to-subscribe?

Text-to-subscribe, sometimes called text-to-join or text-to-sign-up, is an easy way for your audience to opt in to your SMS messages or emails. They send a text to your number to automatically join your SMS or email list.

In a few simple steps, you’ll effectively increase your mass texting and email marketing lists and set yourself up for future success in communicating with those contacts.

Check out this example of what it looks like when someone joins a text-to-subscribe program:

How does text-to-join work?

Text-to-join programs are simple to set up and convenient for your audience to use.

Here’s what a typical text-to-subscribe campaign looks like:

1. You create your text-to-subscribe keyword.
2. You promote your keyword.
3. Your customer texts the keyword to your number.
4. They receive an auto-confirmation message that includes compliance information.
5. You send your first SMS campaign to your subscribers.

1. You create your text-to-subscribe keyword

A keyword is a word or phrase that customers text to your phone number to sign up for your SMS messages. It can consist of multiple words, but it’ll be written as one word (e.g., “join us” becomes “JOINUS”). Make it easy to spell and remember so your audience can easily message it to you.

For example, Holiday Stationstores uses the keyword HOLIDAY in its gas pump ads, making it a cinch to join its list:

2. You promote your text-to-join program

After creating the SMS keyword for your text-to-subscribe program, you’ll want to encourage customers to subscribe. 

Invite them via social media, email, and other marketing channels to text your keyword to your number, and watch your text-to-join mailing list grow before your eyes! This is also a great opportunity to use physical media, like Holiday’s gas pump ad above.

3. Your customer texts your keyword to your number

Now, the ball is in your customer’s court. They’ll send a message to your number that includes your keyword, which will trigger the signup. I wanted to see how Holiday Stationstores’ program works, so I sent “HOLIDAY” to the provided number.

4. They receive an auto-reply confirmation and compliance information

As part of your text-to-subscribe program, you’ll set up an automatic reply to confirm that someone has joined. In Holiday Stationstores’ case, they have an extra step for confirmation.

Here, you should also share information about what your customers should expect from your SMS program to comply with mass texting regulations. Mention who you are, what text content the recipient is signing up for, and opt-out instructions.

5. You send your first text marketing campaign

Once people sign up for your texts, you’re ready to send your first SMS marketing campaign: A single message or series of messages with a marketing goal behind them.

These campaigns can contain anything important or valuable to your contacts, so feel free to get creative! For instance, Holiday Stationstores’ main text campaign involves weekly deals.

Need inspiration? Bookmark these 16 SMS campaign ideas for later.

How to set up text-to-join

Now that you know how a text-to-join service works, how do you set one up in the first place? 

First, you’ll need an SMS marketing platform. If you don’t have one, you can sign up for SimpleTexting free for 14 days to test drive our text-to-subscribe service.

To set up a text-to-subscribe program:

1. Create your SMS keyword

Begin by creating your keyword using the text-to-join service of your choice. We’ll use SimpleTexting in this walkthrough.

Hover over the Keywords option in the left-hand menu of your SimpleTexting dashboard and click the + icon that appears. It’ll take you to the New Keyword page.

Let’s pretend that we’re creating a text-to-subscribe program for a pet grooming service called Fluff Stuff Grooming. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll make the keyword FLUFFSTUFF. So, we’ll enter FLUFFSTUFF into the Keyword name field, where you name your keyword.

Then, we’ll decide what list a person will join when they text that keyword. In this example, we’ll create a new list by choosing Add to new list and entering Fluff Stuff Grooming into the New list name field. But, you can also add to an existing list if you want to create separate text-to-join campaigns for the same list.

2. Write an auto-confirmation message

In SimpleTexting, you create your auto-confirmation message at the same time as your keyword, so you don’t have to move windows for this next step. Go down to the Auto-confirmation message and Free compliance message fields to continue the process.

In the Auto-confirmation message field, you can write up to 160 characters of text and include emoji, shortened links, and media. Use as much of this space as you can to share compliance-related information like the content of your upcoming texts and opt-out instructions.

Under Free compliance message, you’ll see the free compliance message that comes with your auto-confirmation text. We already set it up for you, so you just have to determine how many messages you’ll send per month. This message will cover opt-out instructions and a data rate disclaimer, so you’ll only need to mention your identity and what kinds of texts to expect in your auto-confirmation message for full compliance.

Recommended reading: Welcome text messages tips for new customers

If you’d like, you can set up a series of autoresponders to create an onboarding drip SMS campaign. Go to Autoresponders in your left-hand menu and click the + to make a new one. You’ll have similar options to the New Keyword menu plus the time you want to send it relative to when the recipient joined your list.

One best practice to follow when you set up your text-to-subscribe welcome experience is to share a contact card. Your recipient will get a text they can click on to automatically add you to their contacts so they know it’s you messaging them.

Set up a contact card in SimpleTexting by clicking the Settings option in the left-hand menu of your dashboard, then Numbers underneath. Click on Edit to the right of the number involved in your text-to-subscribe program, then select Edit in the upper-right corner of the Number settings box. Scroll down to the Contact card section to fill out your name, email, number, and other contact info.

3. Share your keyword with your audience.

Promote your keyword anywhere your customers will see it so they can easily sign up for your texts.

This article on ten places to advertise your keyword should give you some ideas, but for starters, consider placing your keyword on:

• Your website
• Your social media
• Your storefront
• Any paperwork you hand out to your customers
• Your business cards
• Direct mail
• Physical ads like billboards

Here’s what a flyer with the FLUFFSTUFF keyword could look like.

Note the compliance disclaimer at the bottom of the flyer. Any place you share your keyword should include the following details:

• The keyword and number to text it to
• A statement that the recipient agrees to receive text messages when they text the keyword
• The types of content you will include in your texts
• How often the recipient will receive texts
• A disclaimer that message and data rates apply
• Your terms and conditions and privacy policy (or links to them, as you can see in the flyer)

4. Analyze your success

After you run your new text list sign-up program for a little while, check your text-to-join service’s analytics to see how effective your marketing efforts are. SimpleTexting links analytics directly to keywords, so it’s a snap to see the connection between your keyword and results.

Click Analytics in SimpleTexting’s left-hand menu to find your SMS messages’ stats. You’ll see tabs for analytics on messaging and subscribers at the top.

Go to the Detailed breakdown section of your preferred tab and click Keywords to analyze performance by keywords.

5. Send marketing campaigns to your new subscribers

Now that you have a list full of subscribers, start sending texts to your new and improved text list. They should fit the description you gave in your compliance messages, but otherwise, your creativity’s the limit.

Send a new campaign in SimpleTexting by hovering over Campaigns in the left-hand menu, then clicking the + that appears. After you name your campaign in the Campaign name field and choose whether you want to send an SMS or MMS message, write the content of your message in the Text message field. Choose the list linked to your keyword and schedule the time you want to send it.

Recommended reading: 11 SMS marketing use cases

Collect email addresses with text-to-subscribe

Now that you know how text-to-join works, let’s look at how you would gather your contacts’ email addresses as well. You have two options in SimpleTexting: The data collection app and email integrations.

How to collect emails with data collection in SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting’s data collection app adds another message to your auto-confirmation sequence that asks the subscriber for information. Set your requested info as an email address, and SimpleTexting will store it in the contact’s information. Read our Help Center guide to get the full rundown. 

Tip: You can get more than just phone numbers or email addresses from new contacts who sign up using your text-to-join program. You can also collect customer details like first names, last names, zip codes, or even specific product preferences through the data collection app.

How to collect emails through SimpleTexting’s email integrations

SimpleTexting’s Zapier integration allows you to add new text message contacts to your favorite email marketing platform, like Constant Contact and Drip. We also have a native Mailchimp SMS integration. 

Here’s how a text-to-join email integration works:

1. Your customer texts your keyword to your number.
2. They receive a confirmation message requesting their email address.
3. Zapier or Mailchimp automatically adds their address to your email marketing platform

What to prepare before implementing text-to-subscribe

Before you start your text-to-join program, check these tasks off of your list:

• Brainstorm what you’ll send: Create an idea bank in advance for more consistent texting in the future. Filter our success stories by the Text to Join use case for inspiration.
• Create a schedule or calendar: Build a calendar for your texts so you can schedule them in advance.
• Choose your text-to-signup platform: Get a texting platform that fits your business needs. Here are some good choices for small businesses.
• Set up your business texting number: You have a variety of number formats to choose from, including short codes, A2P DLC, text-to-landline, and toll-free.
• Understand the essentials of business texting compliance: Brush up on our guide to text message compliance to ensure you’re following the law.

3 text-to-join examples from real business owners

Need some inspiration for your text-to-join program? Here are three real-world examples of successful text-to-join campaigns:

1. Artist Couture

The team at Artist Couture noticed that though they received a substantial amount of website traffic, most didn’t follow them on social or subscribe to their email list They needed a convenient way to keep in touch with potential customers.After setting up a text-to-subscribe keyword, the team added a mobile sign-up widget to collect sign-ups.

A day after a contact subscribes, they receive an automated message with a 10% off coupon. The result? Artist Couture’s SMS subscriber list grew by 670% and generated $4,000 in sales.

2. Mendocino Farms

Mendocino Farms searched for an easy way to announce the launch of online ordering across its 27 restaurant locations. 

Their biggest question, though, was how to let all of their customers know when online ordering was available at their favorite location.

The team created text-to-join keywords for each location and invited customers to subscribe. Then, new subscribers received an automated message asking for their email address. The whole set-up process only took the Mendocino Farms team a day to complete.

3. Blu Moon Design

After moving her children’s clothing business from eBay to a dedicated website, Kristi Brady of Blu Moon Design wanted her marketing to stand out from other online stores.

Kristi knew that her primary customer base — busy moms — almost always have their phones close by, so she turned to SMS marketing. 

To build her list, she created the keyword “blumoon” and invited people to text it to her number to learn about upcoming sales and promotions. She offers new subscribers a 10% off coupon to boost sales, and she’s seen a 15% redemption rate.

7 real examples of text-to-subscribe programs

Since you can share a keyword, a number, and compliance information over any medium you can think of, SMS marketers can get creative with their promotions. Here are seven real-life examples of text-to-subscribe program promotions to inspire yours.

1. Holiday Stationstores window cleaning station ad

Your storefront covers wherever you do business. For Holiday Stationstores, that makes its gas pumping area fair game. It posts this ad for its truck fleet fuel card above its window cleaning station:

2. Holiday Stationstores bathroom mirror notice

Your indoor spaces work well for advertising your text-to-join keyword, too. Holiday Stationstores posts this text-to-subscribe notice in its bathrooms to give human trafficking survivors discretion when they ask for help:

3. Fargodome display

As you learned in the previous example, not all text-to-subscribe programs need to be promotional. Fargodome has a text-to-join function for people who need to report an incident at its stadium, which it promotes in its hallways:

4. Bob Bentz’s book presentations

Bob Bentz, the CEO of the mobile-first marketing agency Purplegator, regularly performs public speaking to promote his books on mobile marketing. When he talks about his newest book, he asks the audience to text “Relevance” to the number he provides for a chance to win his book.

“This not only gets the audience engaged in my presentation, but it also gives me a database that I can market to later. Moreover, it promotes the book signing that I will be doing after the presentation,” Bob says.

5. Smartify’s social media promotions

At the smart tech company Smartify, the marketing team promotes their text-to-join keyword everywhere their customers interact with the brand. On top of packaging and receipts, Smartify also promotes its keyword on social media. Here’s a carousel image sharing its text-to-subscribe list for customers interested in a home visit:

6. Blume’s Instagram post

Sharing your keyword on social media presents a conundrum: How will you split the information you need to share between your image and caption? Blume strikes a good balance in this Instagram post promoting its giveaway. This skincare brand gets a gold star for highlighting the most important info in its image and listing all of the necessary compliance details in its caption:

7. DC Batman’s tweet

A touch of meta humor never hurts. DC’s Batman parodies the text-to-join signup process in this Tweet promoting the keyword for the DC Community:

Start your text-to-join program in minutes

Not ready to commit to a text-to-join service just yet? We get it. That’s why we offer a risk-free trial of SimpleTexting.

It’s completely free for 14 days — no credit card or contract needed, so you can try out a text-to-join campaign for yourself.

The post How to set up a text-to-join service to collect more contacts appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Or this one?

Whether you like it or not, people discover and buy from you based on what others are saying about you on review sites.

According to B2B SaaS Reviews, 61% of business-to-business buyers consider review scores very important, and 52% of business-to-consumer customers think ratings under four out of five stars are suspicious.

You can either take a passive approach and risk never getting reviews, or you can actively incentivize happy customers to leave reviews.

Our guide will walk you through how to ask customers for reviews with 11 tactics and an automation process using SimpleTexting.

11 ways to encourage your customers to write reviews

Stumped on how to get more reviews? Try one of these strategies to encourage ratings on your favorite online review platforms, like Google and Facebook.

How to ask for Google reviews [playbook]

1. Make it as easy as possible

Imagine two hotels with different approaches to getting customer reviews:

Which hotel is likely to generate more reviews?

But, an iPad on a front desk might not work for your business if you sell digital products, for example. So, how can you make it easy for your customers, regardless of your industry? 

Send an SMS asking them to leave a review, and include a link. Texting platforms like SimpleTexting make the process easy by formatting your links for you.

People ignore emails, turn off push notifications, and throw away paper forms, but they almost always read their texts. Not to mention that 80% of consumers check text notifications in five minutes.

Here’s an example of a text you can send:

Remember, any friction will decrease the likelihood of a review.

Here’s another example text that the Cleartail Marketing team uses, according to CEO Magee Clegg. Note that it clearly lists what platform to expect and shares the review link.

2. Offer an incentive

By simply making it easy for customers to leave a review, you’ll see a bump in the number you collect.

But if you want to take it up a notch, offer incentives. Research suggests that no matter the interaction with a product, customers are more likely to leave a review if offered an incentive or reward.

You can find ways to do this without breaking the bank, such as offering a discount on their next purchase with you. This way you are protecting your cash flow while also motivating repeat customers.

Before you set up an incentive program, double-check your review platform’s terms and services. Some platforms, like Trustpilot, don’t allow incentives, so look up the rules for any review system you use. 

After you make sure you’re in the clear, you can provide incentives by:

• Tapping into an existing loyalty or reward program (i.e., offer additional loyalty rewards to people who leave reviews)
• Offer free shipping or discounts
• Share a sneak peek of upcoming products in return for reviews

Be clear that the reward is simply a thank you for feedback — it’s not payment for a positive review. Keep everything fair by offering everyone the same incentive, regardless of the review they leave.

Here’s a customer review template that incentivizes reviews with a discount:

Thank you for being a customer! If you have a minute we would love it if you filled out a review. Sharing your honest opinion would mean a lot! In exchange for your feedback, we’d love to give you 15% off next month. You can leave one here: [link]

We hope you enjoyed your meal today! If you’d like to leave a short review of your experience we’d love to offer you 15% off your next meal. Use this link! [lnk]

3. Personalize your message

Customers catch on when you use a copy-paste message to ask for reviews. It’s okay to use a template — after all, that’s why we’re sharing some — but adding custom touches like the customer’s name can really make a difference.

Aktug Dogan’s team at Refermate personalizes review request texts. “Pay attention to these small details because you don’t want to come across as if you’re sending a generic, templated message,” Aktug advises. Here’s one template Refermate uses:

4. Get the timing right

You know what they say, timing is everything — in life, in business, and particularly, when it comes to asking customers for reviews.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: If you buy something online and a month later receive a request to leave a review, how likely are you to do it?

On the other hand, if you bought a pair of running shoes and are asked for a review before you get home, you won’t have had a chance to run in them and benefit from the purchase.

The right timing will depend on the product or service you sell. For a restaurant, the sooner the better. However, if you sell a product that requires a complicated set-up, it might be best to wait several days after it’s delivered or purchased.

When in doubt, test a few timing windows and check out their performance using link tracking analytics. Try a certain waiting period for a while, then record how many people clicked on your review link. Then, try another waiting period for the same amount of time, and monitor the clicks you get for that strategy. Compare the two test runs’ results to see which works better.

5. Keep it simple

You only have so much space to request a review, and your customers only have so much time to read your request. A standard text goes up to just 160 characters. Your email asking for a review shouldn’t overstay its welcome, either.

So, keep your text short and straightforward. Many businesses follow this rule.

Michael Power, the CMO at DTF Transfers, shares this text that the company uses to request reviews: 

“I would never write ‘5-minutes’ in a professional setting, but over text, it’s an easy way to convey just how fast and simple reviewing can be. If the customer delays this, they’ll never come back. You need them to hop on now, from their phone, and leave the review,” Michael says.

At the party lighting company Festoon House, Matt Little uses this text template for requesting reviews:

Here’s how Nihan Colak Erol asks customers for reviews at Wingie:

According to marketing director Sarah Blocksidge, Sixth City Marketing also keeps review requests short and sweet:

Starget’s Geoff Newman offers one of the most succinct examples in this blog post:

6. Tell them why their review matters

As we’ve said from the start of this article, reviews matter. You know it, we know it, and the customer knows it too. 

That being said, sometimes all you need to do is express the importance of a review on your business. Reviews can be make or break, so it’s no exaggeration to say this to your customers.

Tugging at the heartstrings a little (without too much pressure — that’s key here) is a great way to encourage customers to leave a review.

Don’t scare them away with intensity, but do let them know why you care so much about their opinions. Give this template a shot:

Like Tom Golubovich from Ninja Transfers, you could also mention that the reason their reviews matter is that you care about them:

Or, you could simply state “your opinion is important to us,” like in this example from David Owen of Dozy:

Another angle to come from is your customer’s importance to your community, like Marshal Davis of Ascendly Marketing:

7. Use a casual tone

Asking for reviews puts you in a vulnerable spot since you’re asking for an honest opinion of your work. Relieve some of the tension of this situation by using a casual tone relevant to your audience. If you already use really casual language, here’s your chance to go further, and if you stay formal, loosen things up just a bit.

For example, Zach Dannett from Tumble asks customers for reviews by addressing each text directly from himself:

At Smartify, Abhi Bavishi checks in with the reader and uses emoji to lighten the mood of this template:

Hey, hope you’re doing great. In case you’ve 2 minutes, I wanted to ask for a small favour. Would you be willing to post a short review about working with me on this link: [link]

It would help me build trust with other clients like you. Would highly appreciate your feedback!

As CEO Lou Reverchuk shares, EchoGlobal takes a casual approach to requesting reviews that involves reminding the reader of the specific project: 

8. Consider the customer

As you plan out your customer review requests, consider your customers themselves. Their history with your business affects their likelihood to leave a review and reaction to certain approaches. The tactics explored in this blog post work differently depending on your customer’s relationship to your business.

If you want good reviews — and who doesn’t — then ask customers who are likely to praise your business. You can look at social media mentions to see who is saying things about you already, or reach out to repeat purchasers.

You can also consider the customer’s place in the marketing funnel if they’re a first-time customer or their purchase history with you if they’ve done business before. According to Corey Donovan, the Alta Technologies team heavily considers a customer’s order size and purchase history when requesting a review.

For example, they use incentives with first-time customers with small orders to get them to come back:

Recurring customers with large orders get highly personalized texts. Sometimes, the Alta Technologies team will recommend new products based on a customer’s order history, like so:

Note how both approaches touch on tactics we’ve already explored — incentives and personalization.

9. Follow up on your review request

Life is busy — people may just forget to leave a review even when they really want to. This is why post-purchase campaigns are a great idea, but we want to emphasize the importance of following up. 

Even if it’s just one text message or email, sending out a quick reminder to leave a review is an easy way to get back onto the radar of customers. If you go about it in the right way (and don’t pester too much), your follow-up could get even more results than a first try.

Here’s what we suggest: 

It’s easy to set up follow-up texts in advance so you never forget to check in. As you send your first review request, schedule a follow-up text for a few days afterward.

10. Offer outstanding service

Here’s the thing: if you offer an outstanding service or product, it’s way harder for customers to ignore review requests.

While there’s a consensus that negative reviews are more common than positive ones, people do want to share their positive experiences.

While this isn’t an example per se, we do think it’s one of the most important points to make when it comes to requesting reviews. How can you expect customers to want to leave a review if their experience has been less than ideal?

Occasionally, instead of a specific review request, all you need to do is check in with your customers. Show them you care about their experience in order for them to take it upon themselves to leave a review.

Sending a message like the one below can encourage more reviews simply because you’ve taken the time to show you care about them (and reminded them that you exist!). A text-based customer service program gives you another way to keep your customers happy.

11. Build a post-purchase/visit process

We did say it will take time and effort to encourage reviews from customers. We always recommend building a process rather than sending out messages haphazardly halfway through the year.

There’s nothing worse than realizing your review numbers are taking a dip and scrambling to bring them up again. Instead, have a thorough process that lets you send out post-purchase/visit messages following up on their meal and asking for a review.

These campaigns only need to be two or three texts long, but having them in place as part of your general marketing strategy will reap the benefits long term.

We recommend using a business texting platform to build the process out and write each message accordingly. You can even create a campaign specifically for those who have recently visited your restaurant and trigger post-purchase/visit messages to be sent out automatically.

 Bookmark for later: How to ask for a referral [+ persuasion tips and templates]

How to automatically ask customers for reviews with SimpleTexting

On top of building a post-purchase/visit campaign in SimpleTexting, you can schedule it automatically using its Zapier integration. This process involves similar steps to automating your order confirmation text messages, but your first step doesn’t have to be an order.

As you can see in the process for automating order confirmation text messages, Zapier lets you set up a trigger — an action that starts your automation — and an action — the event that happens as part of your automation. After you create a Zapier account, set up a “Zap” (automation) that starts with a trigger indicating that someone has finished doing business with you. This could be a confirmed order, but it could also be a project marked as closed if you perform services.

From there, set the action as your SimpleTexting review request campaign. Create it first in SimpleTexting, and then select it in Zapier when you set up your action.

Now, remember how we said to time your review request just right? You might not want to send your review request right away.

In this case, click the plus sign in between your trigger and action and choose Delay by Zapier. This function lets you delay your action for up to 31 days after your trigger happens.

Closing thoughts

Positive reviews don’t just happen — they come from businesses that provide a great customer experience.

If you’re doing all the right things, but not seeing the volume of reviews you’d like, the tips listed above will help. It’s not a one-off project though. As we’ve mentioned, collecting reviews needs to be part of your overall marketing and sales strategy.

If you’re a business looking to find new ways to reach your customers and get more reviews, why not try a two-week free SimpleTexting trial? No credit card is required, and you can use our service to test the water before sending out those review requests via text!

The post How to ask customers for reviews: 11 tactics with real-life examples appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.