9 min read
Proven SMS marketing best practices that turn texts into sales
Here's something to think about: you check a text message on your phone within minutes, but those 47 unread emails in...
SMS MARKETING
SMS marketing that gets seen
Your customers open 98% of their texts. Text-Em-All helps you show up in that channel with promotional campaigns, loyalty offers, and time-sensitive updates sent to contacts who actually opted in.
- Two-way texting so customers can reply directly
- Built-in compliance that handles opt-ins, opt-outs, and 10DLC registration
- Real-time tracking for delivery, replies, and campaign performance
16,000+ organizations served
100% employee-owned
95%+ message deliverability
4.7★ 1,036 reviews on Trustpilot
What is SMS marketing?
SMS marketing is the practice of sending promotional text messages to customers, members, and supporters who opted in to hear from you. It covers offers, announcements, event reminders, and reactivation campaigns. Under U.S. law (TCPA), promotional SMS requires prior express written consent before the first message is sent. The difference between SMS marketing and spam is consent and relevance.
The straightforward solution to SMS marketing
Built-in compliance
We register your brand with carriers and automatically handle STOP and HELP keywords. Most accounts are approved for sending in 1-3 business days.
98% open rates
SMS open rates run 90-98% within three minutes of send, compared to email's 21% average over hours. When the message has to be seen, this is the channel.
Grow your opt-in list
Keywords, web forms, QR codes, and checkout opt-ins collect consent and build your list automatically. No third-party tools required.
98%
of text messages are opened
80%
are read within the first 5 minutes
79%
of customers opt-in to marketing texts
How SMS marketing works
01
Collect opt-in consent
The easiest ways to collect opt-ins are through your Text-Em-All web form, via a keyword (TEXT JOIN to 12345), or during checkout.
02
Build your list
Upload contacts or sync from your CRM. Group by audience type and segment by VIPs, lapsed customers, or event attendees.
03
Send your campaign
Write your message, schedule it, and include your opt-out language. Personalization tokens pull in first names or any custom field.
04
Track and reply
Every broadcast generates a delivery report. Replies land in your inbox. Opt-outs are honored automatically across every future send.
What does SMS marketing cost?
Text-Em-All offers two pricing models with no contracts. Pay-as-you-go credits for organizations that send occasionally. Monthly plans for organizations sending the same volume every month.
No per-contact fees, no setup fees, no minimum commitment. If you stop sending, you stop paying.
| Credits | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Senders with changing contacts | Senders with the same groups |
| Starting price | 9¢ per credit | $19/month |
| Message length | Up to 1,600 characters | Up to 320 characters (960 with Enhanced Texting) |
| All features included | Yes | Limited |
| Contracts | None | None |
| Carrier surcharges | None | None |
No added fees for users, phone numbers, or carrier registration — ever.
Who uses SMS marketing?
SMS marketing works for organizations with established audiences and real reasons to reach them. Promotions land. Events fill. Members show up.
Retail & e-commerce
Flash sales, promotional offers, order updates that actually get seen
4-10x higher conversion than email
Schools & education
Open house announcements, summer program promotion, parent communications, registration drives.
75% of parents prefer text
Religious organizations
Service reminders, event invitations, fundraising appeals, and member outreach.
40% average response rate
Hospitality & events
Event invitations, ticket sales, last-minute promotions, and attendee reminders.
Up to 40% CTR on time-sensitive offers
Nonprofits
Donor appeals, volunteer coordination, event reminders, and giving day campaigns.
98% open rate in three minutes
Property management
Resident promotions, amenity announcements, lease renewal incentives, community events.
60X faster than email
Real outcomes from SMS marketing campaigns
SMS marketing isn't theoretical. Organizations across retail, nonprofit, and church verticals run promotional campaigns through Text-Em-All every day. Here's what that looks like in practice.
RETAIL
30% increase in foot traffic
Marczyk Fine Foods discovered the power of visual messaging, turning food photos into sales and building stronger customer relationships with strategic communication.
WASTE & RECYCLING
2x response rates
Red Oak Sanitation replaced a costly, unreliable communication system with Text-Em-All, doubling customer response rates and finally gaining clear visibility into every message they send.
STAFFING
50% increase in applicants
Effex Management Solutions solved the challenge of reaching a large, multilingual workforce, turning reliable automated communication into faster placements and stronger applicant relationships.
SMS marketing platforms compared:
Who serves which buyer?
The SMS marketing category looks crowded until you sort by who each platform was built for. Most of the names that rank for "sms marketing" (Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript) were built for ecommerce brands on Shopify. Twilio was built for developers. Text-Em-All was built for organizations with established audiences who need both promotional and operational messaging in one place.
| Platform | Best for | Pricing model | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| ★ Text-Em-All | Retail, SMBs, property management, schools, nonprofits, churches | Credits or monthly, no contract | Organizations with established audiences |
| Klaviyo | Ecommerce brands on Shopify | Monthly, contact-tier pricing | Ecommerce list-growth marketers |
| Attentive | Enterprise ecommerce | Annual contract, custom pricing | Enterprise DTC brands |
| Postscript | Shopify DTC brands | Monthly, message-tier pricing | Shopify-native marketers |
| SimpleTexting | SMB marketers | Monthly tiers | General SMB SMS |
| Twilio | Developers building custom apps | Per-message API pricing | Software engineering teams |
A Shopify brand running flash sales should look at Klaviyo or Postscript. A local retailer promoting a flash sale to its loyal customers should not. The platform isn't built for that audience, and the pricing model punishes occasional senders.
What makes Text-Em-All different
Text-Em-All is 100% employee-owned and has operated without outside investment since 2005. Most competing platforms are VC-backed and optimizing for acquisition, which means pricing changes, support quality drops, and product decisions get made for investors, not customers.
Text-Em-All has no plans to sell. We're building for the next 100 years. No exit roadmap.
✓ 100% employee-owned
Every person on the team owns a piece of the platform. That changes the quality of support, the honesty of pricing, and the bias toward real product decisions.
✓ Independent since 2005
No outside investment. No acquisition plans. While competitors get bought, sold, repositioned, and repriced, Text-Em-All has been doing this same job, the same way, for two decades.
✓ Responsible use, enforced
Text-Em-All actively refuses spam-adjacent campaigns. Customers send more because they aren't sharing a sender pool with bad actors, and recipients aren't blocking texts from our short codes.
Smart SMS marketing strategies to grow your reach
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Planning SMS marketing campaigns without a clear schedule leads to missed opportunities, over-messaging, and frustrated...
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Frequently asked questions
-
Is SMS marketing legal?
Yes, when senders follow the TCPA and CTIA carrier guidelines. The core requirements are prior express written consent for promotional messages, clear sender identification, a working opt-out on every send, and registered 10DLC sending numbers. Here's how contacts can opt out of your messages
Violations carry statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per message under the TCPA, which is how class-action suits against SMS senders reach seven and eight figures.
Sources: FCC TCPA guidance; CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices
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Do I need consent to send SMS marketing?
Yes. Under the TCPA, promotional SMS requires prior express written consent before the first message. Consent must be specific to SMS (not bundled with email opt-in), disclose message frequency and data rates, and be auditable. Text-Em-All stores consent records automatically when collected through our opt-in flows.
Here's how to use your SMS sign-up form.
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What is 10DLC and do I need it?
10DLC is the carrier framework for sending application-to-person messages from standard 10-digit phone numbers. Any business sending promotional SMS in volume needs to register a brand and campaigns through The Campaign Registry. Unregistered senders get filtered or blocked by carriers. Text-Em-All handles 10DLC registration during onboarding at no additional cost.
Learn more about text registration with Text-Em-All
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How is SMS marketing different from email marketing?
SMS averages 90-98% open rates within three minutes. Email averages 20-28% over hours or days. SMS is shorter, more personal, and harder to ignore, but recipients are less tolerant of frequency. Most organizations use both: SMS for time-sensitive or high-priority messages, email for longer-form content.
Learn more about SMS vs. email marketing.
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Can I send SMS marketing for free?
Free SMS tools exist with low monthly caps and shared sender numbers. Useful for testing, but they fail at scale or under compliance scrutiny. Most credible platforms (including Text-Em-All) offer a free trial with included credits rather than a permanent free tier, because deliverable SMS requires carrier registration and compliance infrastructure that cost real money to maintain.
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What are typical SMS marketing response rates?
Industry click-through rates on SMS marketing average 19-36%, depending on industry and offer relevance, compared to 2-3% for email. Time-sensitive triggers like flash sales, abandoned cart, and back-in-stock produce the highest results.
One of our retail customers saw a 59% click-through rate for their promotional text campaign vs. a .0.04 click-through rate for their email campaign.
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How often should I send SMS marketing messages?
Most organizations land between two and eight messages per month. Higher frequency risks opt-outs. Lower frequency risks the audience forgetting they subscribed. Disclose expected frequency at opt-in and stick to it.
See more texting best practices.
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What about HIPAA and healthcare SMS marketing?
Standard SMS isn't encrypted and isn't appropriate for protected health information. Healthcare organizations use Text-Em-All for non-PHI promotional and operational messages: wellness program announcements, office closures, staff communications.
For PHI-containing messages, you need a HIPAA-compliant patient communication tool, which is a different category. However, with Text-Em-All, you can share the link to your HIPAA-compliant patient communication tool.
Learn more about HIPAA-compliant texting.
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Will SMS marketing work for my church, nonprofit, or school?
Yes. Churches, nonprofits, and schools are among Text-Em-All's largest customer segments. The use cases differ from ecommerce SMS (fundraisers, event reminders, volunteer coordination, parent notifications), but the channel mechanics are the same. See the churches, nonprofits, and schools pages for vertical examples.
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What types of messages can I send?
Promotional offers, event invitations, fundraising appeals, member outreach, abandoned-cart recovery, reactivation campaigns, loyalty program updates, exclusive previews.
What you cannot send: messages to unverified or harvested lists, content prohibited by carrier policies (SHAFT, plus certain financial and political categories). Text-Em-All enforces these on the platform, which protects your sender reputation.
Learn more about SMS compliance.
16,000+ organizations are already sending. Yours can be next.
No contracts, no setup fees, and a support team that answers when you need them. Create your free account in minutes, and we'll handle registration so you can start sending.