Text message marketing strategy: a plan for small businesses

The short answer

A text message marketing strategy is a written plan that answers six questions: who you will text, how you will get their permission, what you will send, how often you will send it, at what times, and how you will tell whether it is working. Settling those questions before the first send keeps a small business out of the most common trouble, such as texting people who never agreed, sending offers late in the evening, or losing subscribers because texts arrive too often.

This guide takes the six questions in order, with one more step on answering replies. Each step ends with how to set it up in CampaignCNX+. The plan fits a salon, a plumbing company, a dental office, a restaurant or a shop, and each section links to a post with ready-to-copy texts for that part of the plan. For an overview of what a business texting account includes, see our page on texting for small businesses.

Marketing texts and transactional texts.

Every text a business sends is one of two kinds, and the rules for each are different.

• Marketing texts promote something: an offer, a new product, an event, a loyalty reward, or an invitation to come back. They need the customer's prior express written consent. That means a clear, written agreement to receive marketing texts from your business, given before you send the first one.
• Transactional texts carry information about something the customer already arranged with you: a booking confirmation, a reminder they asked for, an "order ready" notice or a payment reminder. They still need the customer's agreement to receive texts. They must also stay transactional, so a reminder should not carry a coupon or a sales message.

A good plan covers both kinds, because the same customers often receive both from the same number. A customer who agreed to appointment reminders has not agreed to promotions, so your plan should keep the two apart from the start.

Step 1

Decide who to text.

Start with the people who already know your business and have agreed to hear from you by text: current customers, past customers, and people who signed up at your counter or on your website. Then sort them by what they want to hear about. A text that suits one group of customers can feel like clutter to another, and sorting is how you avoid sending it to them.

Groups that suit many small businesses include:

• New customers, who receive a thank-you and a welcome in their first weeks.
• Regular customers, who receive loyalty rewards and early notice of new products.
• Lapsed customers, who have not been back in longer than usual and receive a friendly invitation to return.
• Reminder recipients, who agreed to appointment or service reminders.
• A waiting list, for customers who asked to hear about openings or restocked items.
• Location or service groups, such as "north store" or "snow removal", when your offers differ by place or service.

Keep employees off your customer lists entirely. Texts to staff about shifts and schedule changes belong in their own groups, with their own agreement, and never carry marketing. Our guide to texting employees covers that side of business texting.

In CampaignCNX+: add the customers who agreed to receive texts, and place each one in the groups that fit. Texts are sent to groups, so set up groups that match the messages you plan to send. Use tags for facts you may want to sort by later, such as "first visit" or "referral". Use custom fields for details such as the date of the last visit, a birthday month, the date the customer agreed to texts, and where they agreed.

Step 2

Get consent and keep a record.

Consent has to be in place before the first text, so set up the way you collect it before you add anyone to your account.

How to collect consent

Ask for consent wherever customers already give you their details:

• A checkbox on your website's contact or sign-up form.
• A checkbox on your booking or intake form, with one box for reminders and a separate box for marketing texts.
• A paper sign-up sheet at the counter, with the consent wording printed at the top and a place for the date.
• A question at checkout, recorded in your sales system with the date.

The wording should name your business, say what kind of texts the customer will receive and about how often, mention that message and data rates may apply, and explain how to stop. The sample below is for a marketing checkbox. Have your attorney review your final wording before you use it.

By checking this box, I agree to receive marketing text messages from [Business] at the number I provided, up to [4] a month. Consent is not a condition of purchase. Message and data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help or STOP to opt out.

What does not count as consent

• A phone number a customer gave you for billing, delivery or booking is not, by itself, consent to marketing texts.
• A purchased or borrowed list is not consent from anyone on it.
• Numbers saved in an employee's phone, or copied from business cards, are not consent.
• Agreement to receive reminders covers reminders. It does not cover promotions.

Keep a record

For each customer, record the date they agreed, where they agreed (which form or sheet), and the wording they agreed to. If a question about a text ever comes up, that record shows when and how the person said yes. Our post on SMS opt-in requirements explains the rules in more detail.

In CampaignCNX+: store the consent date and source in custom fields as you add each customer. STOP, HELP and START replies are handled automatically. A customer who replies STOP receives no further texts from your number. A customer who replies HELP receives your help message. A customer who opted out can reply START to receive texts again.

Register your number

The carriers (the mobile phone companies, such as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile) require a business to register its number before texting customers. CampaignCNX+ files the registration for you. For a toll-free number, the carrier review usually takes about three business days. 10DLC registration, which registers a standard local-style number for business texting, has a one-time $75 fee for your first local line. Your number is $5 a month on every plan. Build the review time into your start date, so the number is approved before your first planned send.

Step 3

Decide what to send.

List the texts your business will send in a typical month, and mark each one as marketing or transactional. Most small business plans draw from the same short list.

Transactional texts

Appointment texts are where most businesses start. Our appointment confirmation and missed-appointment templates cover the text sent at booking, the "please confirm" request and the follow-up after a missed visit. Our appointment reminder texts cover the day-before and morning-of reminders for six kinds of businesses. For bills and invoices, our payment and service reminder texts give friendly reminders with a link to pay, along with service-due reminders for trades and other repeat services.

Marketing texts

Marketing texts keep customers coming back. Our guide to customer retention texts has thank-you, loyalty, review request and win-back messages. For a broader list of offers, events and other uses, see our 15 small business texting ideas.

How to write each text

• Put your business name at the start, so the customer knows who is writing.
• Give each text one purpose and one clear action, such as "Reply C to confirm" or "Book at [Link]".
• Keep each text under 160 characters where you can. A standard text message (SMS) holds 160 characters. A longer message is sent in parts, called segments, and each part is billed as one text. Emoji and some special characters, such as curly quotation marks pasted from a word processor, reduce each part to 70 characters, so check the length after you paste.
• End the first text each customer receives with "Reply STOP to opt out". Adding the same line to later marketing texts from time to time is a sensible habit.
• Write in plain sentences, with no words in all capitals and no more than one link.
• In healthcare and dental texts, leave out health details: no reason for the visit, no procedure and no diagnosis.

Two examples follow. The first is a welcome text for a new subscriber, and the second is a monthly offer.

Thanks for joining [Business] texts. You'll get up to 4 texts a month with offers and news. Reply HELP for help. Reply STOP to opt out.

[Business]: [Name], this week only, [offer]. Book at [Link] or show this text at the counter.

In CampaignCNX+: a merge field fills in each customer's first name, so one text addresses each person by name. Picture messages (MMS) are available when a photo helps, such as a new menu item or a finished project. Each picture message uses 3 credits, so save them for texts where the photo matters.

Step 4

Decide how often to text.

Tell customers how often to expect texts when they sign up, and keep to that number. Transactional texts go out as each booking, order or bill requires. For marketing texts, a reasonable starting point is two to four a month. Adjust from there based on what you see: if STOP replies rise after a send, send less often or make the texts more useful.

A monthly calendar keeps the number steady. List the dates that matter to your business that month, such as a holiday, the start of a season or a local event, and assign each marketing text to a week. The example below is for a made-up heating and cooling company in October.

In CampaignCNX+: three tools cover most plans.

• Scheduled texts. Write a text once, choose the group, and set the date and time it sends. Use these for monthly offers, event invitations and holiday notices.
• Repeating texts. Send the same text to a group on a repeating schedule, such as every Friday morning. A bakery's weekend specials or a studio's weekly class list suit this well.
• Drip sequences. A drip sequence is a series of texts sent on a schedule. You write each text in order and set how long to wait between them, and each person you add to the sequence receives them in turn. Welcome series, new customer follow-up and win-back messages work well as drips. Our SMS drip campaign examples include sequences you can copy.

Step 5

Decide when to send.

In CampaignCNX+: texts send only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the recipient's time zone. Plan every send inside that window, and remember that customers in other time zones may be an hour or more ahead of or behind you.

Within those hours, choose the time by what you want the customer to do.

• Send when the customer can act. A lunch special belongs in the late morning, before people decide where to eat. A weekend offer belongs on Thursday or Friday, while people are making plans.
• Send appointment reminders the day before. Late afternoon or early evening gives the customer time to reschedule and gives you time to fill the slot. Customers with appointments before about 9 a.m. should get their reminder the evening before, because texts do not send before 8 a.m.
• Send holiday and seasonal offers a few days ahead, so customers have time to plan a visit or an order.
• Send when someone can answer. A marketing text often brings questions. A text sent as you close for the weekend can leave those questions unanswered until Monday.
• Stay away from the edges of the window for marketing. A promotion at 8 a.m. or 8:45 p.m. is allowed, but most customers would rather receive it at a more ordinary hour.

Step 6

Answer replies and handle opt-outs.

Customers reply to business texts with questions, confirmations, requests to reschedule and the occasional complaint. Decide who answers them, and during which hours, before you send your first marketing text.

In CampaignCNX+:

• The shared reply inbox ($12.49 a month, included on Enterprise) collects replies in one place, where you and your staff can read and answer them from the business number. Staff members see the inbox once you, the account owner, turn that on.
• The keywords add-on ($20 a month) answers common requests automatically. When a customer texts a single word you choose, such as HOURS, CampaignCNX+ sends the reply you wrote for it.

[Business] is open Mon to Fri 8 to 6 and Sat 9 to 2 at [Address]. Reply here if you have a question.

• STOP, HELP and START are handled automatically, as described in Step 2. Do not add back a customer who opted out. If they want texts again, they can reply START.

Step 7

Measure what happens.

Decide before each send what you want the customer to do, so you know what to count afterward. Then use the simplest measure that fits the text.

• Bookings and sales. Compare bookings or sales in the days after a send with a similar week without one, using your own booking or sales records.
• A code word. Ask customers to show the text or mention a word at the counter, and have staff keep a tally.
• A page used only in texts. Link to a web page that you share only in your texts, so every visit to that page came from a text.
• Replies. Read the replies in your inbox, and note any question that comes up more than once. A repeated question usually means the text left out a detail.
• Opt-outs. Count the STOP replies after each send. A rise after one kind of text shows you which texts customers do not want.
• Cost. Multiply the number of segments sent by your rate. At $0.06 a segment on pay as you go, one text to 300 customers costs $18 as a single segment and $36 if it runs to two.

Once a month, look at the month's sends side by side. Keep the texts that brought bookings, visits or useful replies, and rewrite or drop the rest. Give a change two or three sends before you judge it, because one text can do well or poorly for reasons that have nothing to do with the wording, such as the weather.

What a texting plan costs.

On CampaignCNX+, pay as you go costs $0.06 per SMS segment, and a picture message uses 3 credits ($0.18). Monthly plans are Basic at $55 a month with 1,000 texts, Pro at $225 with 5,000 and Enterprise at $695 with 20,000, and annual plans cost less per month. Unused plan texts roll over, and pay-as-you-go credits never expire. Your number is $5 a month on every plan, and 10DLC registration is a one-time $75 for the first local line.

As an example, a made-up salon that sends 400 reminders and two marketing texts to 100 customers each month sends 600 texts. On pay as you go, that is $36 for the texts plus $5 for the number, or $41 a month. A business that sends more than about 900 texts a month pays less on Basic. Our guide to what SMS marketing costs has more worked examples.

Your first month, step by step.

1. Week 1. Write down your groups and the texts you plan to send. Add consent wording to your website, booking form and counter sign-up sheet. Open your CampaignCNX+ account and buy your number, and CampaignCNX+ files the carrier registration (about three business days for a toll-free number).
2. Week 2. Add the customers who agreed to receive texts, with their groups, tags, consent date and source. Start your transactional texts, such as booking confirmations and reminders.
3. Week 3. Set up a welcome drip sequence for new subscribers. If you plan to answer texts, add the reply inbox, and add a keyword reply for your hours if customers often ask.
4. Week 4. Send your first scheduled marketing text to your promotions group, and count the results using the measures in Step 7.
5. Month 2. Add a repeating text or a win-back sequence, and review the first month's numbers before you add anything else.