What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing, also called text message marketing, means sending offers and news by text to customers who have agreed to receive them. A clothes shop, for example, might text its regular customers a discount code for a weekend sale. A text is a quick way to reach customers with an offer that can't wait.

How SMS marketing works

An SMS marketing platform does the sending for you. You add the contacts who signed up and write the message. Then you send it to the whole list or to a group you pick, such as customers who bought from you recently.

Plan each SMS campaign the way you plan any other marketing campaign. Decide who gets it, what you offer and when it goes out.

While a text is going out, a platform such as Mailchimp shows how many recipients have received it. What it brings you after that happens on your website, where a text with a link can help you gain traffic as well as sales. To see the visits from each campaign, add UTM parameters to the link: a short tracking code at its end that names the campaign. Google Analytics' URL builder creates the code for you. Google Analytics then shows the visits each text brought in, so you can keep the offers that work best for your customers.

The rules for marketing texts in the UK

SMS marketing in the UK falls under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). The rules for marketing emails cover texts too, because the regulations count a message sent by SMS as electronic mail. The Information Commission, formerly the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), oversees these rules and can fine businesses that break them.

The main rule is consent. You may only send a marketing text to someone who has told you they agree to receive texts from you. The consent has to be given to you, so you can't use a list of numbers you bought or found online.

There's one exception, often called the soft opt-in. You may text your own customers without asking first, but only when all four of these are true:

• you got their number while they bought from you or asked about buying
• the text is about your own similar products or services
• they could say no, free of charge apart from the cost of sending their reply, when you took their number
• they can say no again in every text you send

Every marketing text must also show who it's from and give a valid way to ask you to stop. Platforms such as Mailchimp let people unsubscribe by replying with a word like "STOP", or through an unsubscribe link in each text when the sender name can't take replies. When someone opts out, take them off your list straight away.

Service texts are different. A booking reminder, an order update or a message that a course is cancelled tells the customer something they need. Keep offers out of these texts. A cancelled course is a reason to text your students. The discount for the next course belongs in a marketing text, sent only to those who agreed to receive one or who fall under the soft opt-in.

Benefits of SMS marketing, and where email fits

Like email marketing, SMS marketing sends a message to a list of people who signed up. A text is short and quick to read, so it suits one clear point that can't wait, such as a flash sale or a table that has just come free. An email has room for products, pictures and several pieces of news at once, which makes it the place for your weekly newsletter.

Our advice: for most small businesses, email is the better place to start your online marketing. It has room for everything you want to say, while you pay for every text you send and each one holds a single short point. Add SMS for the few messages where speed matters, such as an offer that ends today.

What you need to start SMS marketing

• An SMS marketing service that sends your texts and handles opt-outs for you. Check its price list before you start: Mailchimp, for example, charges in credits per message, depending on the country you send to, the type of message, its length and any emojis or special characters.
• A list of people who agreed to receive texts, which you can build with a sign-up form on your website or a tick box at checkout. A small discount for signing up gives customers a reason to tick it.

You also need a page for your texts to send people to. Give each text one link that leads straight to the offer. If you sell online, that's usually a sale or a discount in your own online shop. For a salon or a restaurant, it's your booking page.

Create discount codes and time-limited flash sales in your own online shop.

SMS marketing examples for small businesses

Each of these texts gives the people who get it a reason to act now:

• A flash sale in your shop. If you run an online shop, send customers who signed up a discount code that only works today.
• A lunch offer from a restaurant. As part of your local marketing, text customers who signed up for offers shortly before lunchtime, with a discount on today's lunch. The reminder that you're nearby counts as much as the discount.
• Last-minute appointments at a salon. If your diary has gaps today, text customers who asked to hear about spare appointments. One text can fill a slot that would otherwise earn you nothing.
• A review request after a course. When a course ends, text the students who agreed to receive texts from you a link to leave a review. They can write it on their own phone while the course is fresh in their mind.

How to write a marketing text that works

• Keep it short. One text holds up to 160 characters, or 70 if it contains an emoji or a curly quotation mark (“ rather than the straight ").
• Remember that a longer text is split into several messages, and each one counts towards the cost.
• Start with your business name, so people know who the text is from.
• Put the offer first, as in any good content writing, then say what to do and add one link. A link shortener makes the link shorter, so it uses up fewer of your characters.
• End every marketing text with a short line that tells people how to stop your texts.
• Send a lunch offer shortly before lunch, while people may still be deciding where to eat, and avoid texting late at night, when people may not want to hear from you. If you're selling products or services online, try sending at different times and compare what each text brings in.

Getting started

With a platform and a list of people who agreed to hear from you, your first campaign needs one offer worth texting. If you sell products, build your online shop with us and create a discount code for your first text to lead to.