The Best Text Message Marketing Services of 2021

• Textedly
• SimpleTexting
• TextMarks
• Podium
• SlickText
• EZ Texting
• Twilio
• Tatango
• Zingle
• Thryv
• TextMagic
• Salesmsg

• Text message marketing makes it easy to communicate directly with customers and send out newsletters, coupons, special deals or announcements with just a few clicks.
• Look for a provider that offers a reasonable (for your business) number of monthly or annual text messages and free keywords.
• SimpleTexting is the best overall text message marketing service, SimpleTexting has the best pricing options, SlickText is the easiest to use, and Textedly is a featured sponsor.
• This article is for small businesses that are looking for an easy way to connect directly with their customers.

According to the Pew Research Center, 92% of adult Americans have a cell phone capable of receiving text messages. As time spent on phones continues to increase, it's no surprise that businesses are looking to implement text message marketing campaigns. There are dozens of quality services on the market, but a few stand out, especially for small businesses looking to please subscribers. We researched 12 different text message marketing services and chose four best picks based on the features they offered, pricing, ease of use, and customer service.

Text Message Marketing Review Summary

Text message marketing uses SMS (Short Message Service) or text messages to deliver promotional messages to customers and subscribers. Businesses use text message marketing to increase brand awareness, generate sales, provide news to subscribers, increase web traffic or run promotions. The terms "text message marketing" and "SMS marketing" are interchangeable.

Text message marketing works by allowing customers or subscribers to opt in to receive texts from your business, then you use the service to draft and send messages to those subscribers.

Key takeaway: Text message marketing delivers promotional messages to your customers and subscribers directly, giving you a one-to-one line of communication with them.

Pricing for text message marketing services depends on several factors: the vendor, how many messages you need to send monthly, how many custom keywords you need, and whether you expect to exceed your monthly limits at all.

Most texting plans include a per-text cost and the cost of renting keywords for campaigns. They typically allow you to pay for the texts and keywords together. Plans start for free and can go up to $4,000 per month, offering more features and keywords at higher price points. For example, most free or lowest-tier plans offer approximately 250 text messages and one custom keyword. In contrast, a plan that costs $4,000 per month might allow up to 250,000 text messages and unlimited keywords.

Some providers also offer pay-as-you-go plans, which allow you to pay only for what you use.

Text message marketing services are more than a way to send text messages. They are full-scale marketing solutions that help you engage with your audience, track results and improve your customer service.

When you're looking for a text message marketing provider, it can be challenging to know which of the many features you need. Below are the features we think are the most valuable for businesses to look for in a service.

• Analytics and reports: Analytics is a vital part of text message marketing. These numbers tell you which campaigns were successful and which ones were not. Analytics also provide insight into why they performed the way they did.

• Automation: Automation tools allow you to program messages to send automatically at the same time every day, week or month.

• Contact management: You can't have a text message marketing campaign without a strong base of subscribers to receive them. The contact management feature keeps your contacts organized, fresh and easy to access.

• Customization: Personalization goes a long way in customers' engagement with your messages. Some texting solutions capture customer data, such as the person's full name, birthday, and ZIP code, which opens up new possibilities for your company's marketing campaigns. For example, you could send a customer deals on their birthday or alert them to your sales in their area to show appreciation for them as unique customers.

• Drip campaigns: With this feature, you can send out automated messages based on conditions you set using if-then commands. Each step of the customer journey can trigger its own message, such as a greeting upon opt-in, a confirmation for each purchase, or a request for feedback after a customer service encounter.

• Free incoming text messages: The best text message marketing companies offer complimentary incoming text messages. This means you can allow your customers to reply to you without it bringing up your costs; you only pay for the messages you send.

• Integrations: Some text message companies integrate with other platforms, such as email marketing programs Mailchimp and Constant Contact. These integrations can significantly increase your productivity and capabilities, as you can automatically import and sync data across all your business software.

• Message templates: If you send the same text message frequently, look for a solution that lets you create and save templates so you can send messages faster.

• Multimedia messaging (MMS): Some services allow you to send pictures, videos and audio clips to make your messages stand out.

• Mobile keywords: You can build your contact list with mobile keywords, allowing customers to opt in to your messages simply by texting you a single word. The best solutions allow you to choose custom keywords and track the use of these keywords. Many plans require you to pay extra for more keywords, though.

• Scheduling: Scheduling text messages in advance can increase your productivity, because you won't have to remember to send texts out manually at certain times. The timing of text messages is important, especially if you have customers in various time zones, so it helps to automate this function.

• Surveys: You can gather customer feedback with polls and surveys. The best solutions make it easy to gather responses and adjust your campaigns or analytics with these tools.

• Text-to-landline: A text-to-landline feature lets you send and receive text messages through your business landline phone number with no changes to your voice service.

There are many ways you can use text message marketing to benefit your company. It's an easy way to communicate directly with your customers, and you learn more about what your audience wants from you. Here are some things you can do for your business with text message marketing:

• Send exclusive deals and discounts. The promise of special deals and discounts is why many people opt to receive text messages from companies. This makes it easy for your customers to redeem coupon codes and stay up to date with your company's news, and it gives you an easy way to attract new customers.

• Offer sneak peeks into new products or services. To drum up excitement for a new product or service, you can text out sneak peeks or free trials to your subscribers to keep your business fresh in their minds.

• Target past customers with news updates. If you have customers who haven't done business with you in a while, texting can be a great way to draw them back in. You can send news about goings-on within your company or updates on your products and services.

• Send appointment or reservation confirmations. If reservations or appointments are part of your business, this is a no-brainer. It's a faster, easier way to confirm appointments with customers than calling or emailing. It's also an easy way for customers to reference the appointment information, making them less likely to forget or show up at the wrong time.

• Provide order updates. If a customer orders something from you, you can send order notifications or updates by text rather than email to keep your buyers in the loop. These updates also provide customers a direct line of communication to your business should anything go wrong with their order.

Why should businesses use text message marketing?

Text message marketing is a great way to connect with your customers personally and provide custom messaging. Texting is also faster than other communication methods, allowing you to resolve issues and connect with customers without making them wait long.

When should businesses use text message marketing?

Business owners and text message marketers should abide by standard business communications etiquette. Limit your messaging to business hours (i.e., weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.), being mindful of different time zones where your subscribers live, and avoid sending too many messages at once.

What industries benefit the most from text message marketing?

Any business that needs or wants to communicate directly with customers can benefit from text message marketing. It's a great way to connect with your consumer base, adding a personal touch to your business communications and customer support. That said, some specific types of companies that often need to text customers are those in the hospitality and service industries, appointment-based businesses, and retailers that run frequent sales and special deals.

Is text message marketing effective?

Yes, text message marketing can be a highly effective way to reach your customers and connect with them on a personal level, because most people check their text messages far more often than their email. It is also cost-effective, allowing you to reach a large number of customers for a generally low monthly or annual fee.

How can you send bulk text messages?

While the exact method for sending bulk text messages varies by provider, you must generally import the list of contacts you want to message. Then, you would draft a bulk text message to be sent to this contact list and schedule it for the appropriate time.

Is it legal to send marketing messages via text?

Businesses can legally send marketing text messages to customers if they follow practices outlined in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the CAN-SPAM Act. Enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), these laws ensure that businesses cannot send marketing messages to any consumers who do not wish to receive them. Businesses can be fined up to $1,500 per willful violation if they don't adhere to laws like TCPA.

How do you get consent to send text messages to your customers?

The TCPA requires companies to get express written consent to send SMS marketing messages to any customer. The best way to obtain consent is by spelling out your communication terms in a clear and conspicuous manner on a form or advertisement. With this type of language, the customer can then provide their phone number (either directly on the form or by texting a number listed on your ad) with the intention of giving permission to be contacted by your company.

How many people open text messages?

The answer may be more than you’d expect! Generally speaking, 98 percent of SMS messages are opened. This is great news for text message marketing strategies, as this data predicts a high success rate. Even better, three-quarters of consumers prefer text message marketing offers as opposed to seeing ads on websites.

What is the best way to track the results of text message marketing campaigns?

Tracking your text message marketing campaigns is an important step in the process. It’s important to know whether your potential customers are engaging with the content you’re sending. To track your campaign and know its success rate, start by confirming that the SMS messages you’re sending are delivered. There are digital tools to help track this. Then, look at how many people engaged with the content you sent, leading them to your site. These two steps are simple ways to see how your campaign is being received. 

We expect continued growth for text message marketing as an industry and practice, but it's essential to understand where the service falls in line with your other marketing channels before you jump on board. Some customers feel more comfortable with email marketing or social media marketing. Those forms of marketing require a potential customer to go somewhere – either to their email inbox or a social media platform. Text messages show up without the customer navigating anywhere, which can be beneficial or harmful for businesses.

Ensure that you only send messages once you receive opt-in approval. Companies like Ralph Lauren have learned that poorly run text message marketing campaigns can lead to legal trouble. The fashion retail company recently wrapped up a dispute that it sent a customer 188 texts. The customer claims he consented to six texts per month and that the company routinely sent more messages. The plaintiff said Ralph Lauren failed to send opt-out messages for roughly 80% of the texts they sent.

The best practice is to have clear agreements with a customer and then follow them. It's one thing to receive an opt-in confirmation for a few messages; it's another to send dozens of texts without the customer's consent. You must provide a clear way for consumers to opt out of receiving your text messages at any time.

If 2020 trends continue throughout 2021, the data suggests that businesses will see a boost in their text message marketing campaigns. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported the average daily number of people signing up for texts between March 30 and April 12 was 53% higher than the average for both January and February. This trend could hold as in-person interactions continue to be limited in many states. Even as storefronts open back up, many customers will continue to err on the side of e-commerce. On the other hand, businesses can take advantage of loosening regulations with new deals and incentives, such as "reopening specials."

Rachelle Gordon contributed to the reporting and writing in this article.

To determine the top text message marketing solutions, we spent weeks researching the options. Here is an explanation of our selection process.

Locating the Best Services

We started with over 20 reputable companies offering text message marketing services. We found these companies based on detailed internet research and online customer reviews.

Choosing the Best Services

We eliminated vendors that didn't offer drip campaigns, automation and customization. We also eliminated companies with old websites or user dashboards that we believed would be overly confusing for businesses, especially smaller companies. We looked for businesses that could deliver effective text campaigns for companies in a range of industries.

Researching Each Service

Once we narrowed our list, we took a deep dive into the features, customer reviews and pricing of each service. It was imperative that the platform's interface was user-friendly and that the service offered flexible pricing so that small businesses can take advantage of text message marketing. We signed up for free trials and contacted a few of the top companies on our list, posing as small business owners. This gave us a more authentic feel for the customer service teams of each business.

Analyzing Each Service

We selected EZ Texting, SlickText and SimpleTexting as the best text messaging services available to small businesses. We analyzed key features, pricing and customer service when making our best pick selections.