Last Updated on October 10, 2025 by Damien Hurwitz
We’re all glued to our mobile devices these days. According to the BBC, we spend a third of our waking lives on our smartphones. Our smartphone obsession may be why SMS marketing, a.k.a. text messages, is so effective.
SMS marketing sends promotions to your customers via the same channel you’ve used for decades to chat with your friends. With a 98% open rate, it is one of the most effective ways to reach customers. However, getting SMS marketing wrong is surprisingly easy, costing your business money, customers, and potentially even fines. To reap the benefits of SMS marketing, it’s essential that you follow some fundamental guidelines.
In this post, we’ll discuss the benefits of SMS marketing and provide tips on how to use it effectively.
The Benefits of SMS Marketing
High Open Rates: As mentioned earlier, SMS marketing has an incredibly high open rate. People open 98% of text messages within 3 minutes. That means your target audience almost always sees your brand’s message.
Instant Communication: SMS marketing is an instant form of communication. People might take hours or even days to check their email inbox, but read text messages within minutes. This means that you can quickly communicate with your customers about time-sensitive offers and promotions.
High Conversion Rates: SMS marketing has conversion rates as high as 45%, much higher than email marketing’s 6%. Text messages can be highly effective in driving sales and increasing revenue. This is doubly true for initiatives like an abandoned cart flow, which can help capture lost revenue.
Cost-Effective: SMS marketing is an efficient way to reach your customers. SMS marketing is comparatively inexpensive, unlike traditional advertising channels such as TV or radio ads. It can cost as little as a few cents per message.
Highly Targeted: With SMS marketing, you can target specific groups of customers based on their interests, location, and other factors. This ability to micro-target means you can tailor your messages to your target audience. This increases their chances of engaging with your brand.
How to Use SMS Marketing Effectively
Send Valuable Content to Users
Provide Value: When sending text messages to your customers, it’s essential to provide value. Communications should offer something they want, such as a special offer, discount, or exclusive content. By providing value, you can increase your customers’ chances of engaging with your message and taking action.
Keep it Short and Sweet: It’s essential to keep your text messages short and to the point. Most mobile carriers limit the length of text messages to 160 characters. Get your message across in as few words as possible. Industry jargon or complex language can confuse your customers.
Personalize Your Messages: Personalization is paramount in SMS marketing messages. Personalizing your messages with your customers’ names, locations, or interests can increase their chances of engaging with your brand. You can customize with many different tools. These incluse merge tags, which allow you to insert customer information into your messages automatically.
Make Sure Your SMS Strategy Is Strong
Get Permission: Before you send text messages to your customers, you need their permission. Sending unsolicited text messages is not just bad business, it may also be illegal. A U.S. federal law called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is important to know. It requires users to give written consent before sending a marketing text message. Violating TCPA regulations can result in crippling fines for your business. You can get consent easily this through many methods, such as online sign-up forms, in-store sign-up sheets, or social media.
Timing is Everything: When it comes to SMS marketing, timing is everything. It’s vital to send your messages at the right time when your customers are most likely to engage with them. Consider factors such as time zones, work schedules, and customer behavior. For example, send a message about a lunchtime deal mid-morning to give your customers time to plan their lunch.
Test Everything: As with any marketing strategy, testing and iterating your SMS marketing campaigns is essential to ensure they are effective. Try different messaging tactics like offers or calls to action. Then track the results to see what works best for your business. By doing this, you can improve the effectiveness of your campaigns and drive better results.
Don’t Overdo It: While SMS marketing can be highly effective, it’s important not to overdo it. Sending too many messages can annoy your customers and lead to opt-outs, hurting your campaign. It’s essential to balance sending enough messages to be effective but not so many that you annoy your customers.
Conclusion
SMS marketing is an increasingly efficient way to reach customers and drive sales. It offers high open rates, instant communication, and high conversion rates. However, it’s critical to use SMS marketing effectively to reap its benefits. You can easily get permission, provide value, personalize your messages, and testing your campaigns. From there, you can create highly effective text message campaigns that drive results for your business. Now is the time to kick off your SMS campaigns and see how they can help your business grow.
So what’s next? Klaviyo and Attentive are two of the more well-known SMS marketing platforms and are a great place to begin.
If you need help getting started, we at Sandhill Digital can help. Fill out the form below and someone from our team will contact you for a free SMS marketing strategy consultation.