Millennials and Gen Z prefer texting and SMS instead of cold calls.
Businesses should see this as an opportunity and capitalize on the mobile-millennial mindset.
With the growing use of SMS, the industry is expected to reach $12.5 billion by 2025.
If you are worried that the consumers won’t read your SMSs, let me tell you that SMS marketing has an impressive response rate of around 45%.
And what’s more important to note is that 90% of millennials open their messages within 90 seconds of receiving them.
Hence, if you are not doing SMS marketing, you are missing an ROI-effective marketing channel to engage consumers.
In this article, I will share the leading SMS marketing tools essential for businesses to build lasting customer relationships in today’s mobile-first world.
What is an SMS Marketing Platform?
An SMS marketing platform is a digital tool designed to facilitate businesses in creating, managing, and executing SMS (Short Message Service) marketing campaigns.
With SMS tools, you can:
- Send bulk text messages to a large consumer base simultaneously.
- Organize and manage contact lists for targeted messaging.
- Customize messages with recipient names for a personalized touch.
- Set up automated campaigns for scheduled and triggered messages.
- Track and analyze campaign performance with delivery reports and metrics.
- Utilize specific keywords to trigger automated responses or actions.
- Use shortcodes in messages for easy and memorable calls to action.
Also See: Best Marketing Analytics Tools & Services
Why Should Businesses Use SMS Marketing Apps?
Here are the top reasons for using SMS marketing platforms:
- Short message service marketing has exceptionally high open rates, averaging 98%.
- Conversational SMS marketing is an effective channel for time-sensitive promotions or urgent updates.
- Most of the global population owns a mobile phone, providing a broad audience reach for SMS marketing campaigns.
- SMS campaigns offer 4x higher engagement rates compared to other channels.
- SMS marketing is considered 50% more cost-effective than traditional advertising channels. It only costs around $0.012 per text message.
- Text message marketing relies on an opt-in approach, ensuring that messages are sent to individuals who have expressed interest, leading to more receptive audiences.
Best SMS Marketing Tools & Platforms: 2024 Review
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is a top-rated SMS marketing tool for sending personalized text messages.
The platform lets you target subscribers by location and manage SMS triggers using the same email dashboard.
Pros:
- Personalized messaging for customized customer communication.
- Automation features for triggered SMS campaigns.
- 22+ years of experience ensuring SMS regulation compliance.
Cons:
- Varying SMS credit costs may increase expenses.
- Standalone SMS marketing providers offer more specialized features.
Pricing: $20/month
Also See: Top SaaS Marketing Trends and Stats
Brevo
Brevo is an all-in-one CRM suite that offers SMS marketing capabilities alongside email, WhatsApp, chat, and more.
You can send promotional and transactional SMS messages directly from the platform, allowing real-time customer communication.
Additionally, Brevo provides features for tracking engagement across SMS and email campaigns.
Pros:
- Brevo offers SMS marketing, email, WhatsApp, and chat functionalities, allowing businesses to reach customers through multiple channels.
- Brevo provides a centralized platform for managing SMS and email marketing campaigns.
- Besides promotional campaigns, Brevo supports transactional information, like order confirmations or appointment reminders, enhancing customer communication.
Cons:
- Depending on the message volume, SMS marketing through Brevo may incur additional costs, particularly for businesses with large customer bases.
- SMS messages are limited to a certain number of characters, which may constrain the information conveyed in each message.
Pricing: Free
Slicktext
SlickText is a leading SMS marketing service trusted by over 15,000 brands.
Their powerful SMS software has a comprehensive toolset to help businesses grow, engage, and nurture their customers.
Pros:
- Balances a blend of sophistication and simplicity, ensuring a user-friendly experience for quick and easy adoption.
- Provides various tools for subscriber growth, such as website popups, landing pages, social opt-in links, and custom QR codes.
- Allows businesses to personalize and target messages effectively, leveraging factors like location, age, purchase history, and click behavior to enhance the impact of SMS campaigns.
Cons:
- While SlickText offers some integrations with other platforms, the selection may be limited compared to other SMS marketing services.
- Some users may find the reporting capabilities needing more depth or customization than other SMS marketing platforms.
Pricing: Free
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Twilio
Twilio is a popular SMS marketing tool offering features like message scheduling, link shortening, and click tracking.
The SMS marketing platform delivers the right message on the right channel to boost your ROAS. They offer SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Google’s Business Messaging services.
Pros:
- Create ongoing and seasonal SMS marketing campaigns.
- Popups, landing pages, and QR codes for more subscribers.
- Personalized targeting boosts SMS effectiveness.
Cons:
- Pay-as-you-go pricing can become expensive for large campaigns.
- Integrating with third-party platforms needs technical expertise and extra resources.
Pricing: $0.0079 per SMS
Textmagic
Textmagic offers a comprehensive business text messaging solution for startups and enterprises.
Over 25,000 users trust their SMS service, which offers enterprise-grade security to safeguard your data.
Pros:
- Includes mass texting, two-way SMS chat, automation workflows, SMS surveys, and integration with over 1,000 business apps.
- SOC2-certified and GDPR compliant, prioritizing protecting sensitive information sent via SMS.
Cons:
- Free trial and pay-as-you-go costs can surge for extensive use or advanced features.
- Allows branding with limited customization affecting brand alignment.
- Claims GDPR compliance, yet businesses must ensure continuous adherence, requiring extra effort.
Pricing: $49/Month
HubSpot
HubSpot is a popular SMS marketing service to engage target buyers instantly on mobile devices.
You can use this platform to perform personalized conversations at scale. The tool offers easy SMS scheduling with automated workflows for easier text messaging campaign management.
Pros:
- The tool enables businesses to send personalized and targeted SMS messages.
- Businesses can send timely messages with powerful SMS scheduling and automation features.
- HubSpot’s SMS Marketing tool is suitable for businesses of all sizes, offering scalability to accommodate growing marketing needs.
- Businesses can track the performance of their SMS campaigns through built-in analytics.
Cons:
- While HubSpot offers a comprehensive suite of marketing automation tools, including SMS marketing, it may come at a higher cost than standalone SMS marketing solutions.
- Businesses with advanced SMS marketing needs may find that HubSpot’s SMS tool lacks certain features or customization options.
Pricing: $800/Month
Ez Texting
EZ Texting is an SMS marketing tool that offers powerful features like MMS picture messaging and list growth tools.
The platform has dedicated shortcodes for group texting and two-way texting capabilities. Moreover, built-in analytics and reporting help companies track their SMS marketing ROI.
Pros:
- Easy-to-use platform for creating, managing, and tracking SMS campaigns.
- Include dedicated short codes, group texting, two-way texting, and MMS picture messaging.
- Contact management tools for message personalization and targeted campaigns.
- Analytics and reporting features for measuring campaign success and optimizing future strategies.
Cons:
- While valuable, costs may vary based on packages and usage, potentially straining some budgets.
- SMS marketing requires opt-in, limiting campaign reach compared to channels like email.
- Despite optimization, there’s a risk of messages not reaching recipients or landing in spam folders.
- SMS has character limits and lacks multimedia capabilities, restricting content types.
Pricing: $20/Month
Omnisend
Omnisend is a mobile marketing tool for small and mid-sized ecommerce stores.
You can send segmented SMS campaigns and bulk SMS blasts to engage customers throughout their journey.
Pros:
- Tailored for ecommerce.
- Provides an intuitive interface with easy creation and customization of SMS campaigns.
- Advanced segmentation to target specific customer segments.
- Free SMS credits on certain plans.
- Offers round-the-clock customer support.
- Supports international texting, enabling businesses to reach customers globally.
Cons:
- The limited number of SMS available may lead to additional costs for businesses with high SMS usage.
- Less suitable for businesses seeking a broader range of marketing channels as it only focussed on SMS and MMS.
Pricing: $59/Month
SimpleTexting
SimpleTexting is one of the trusted text messaging services to reach large groups with bulk SMS marketing.
The best part of the service is that it helps you register as a vendor before you start so that your text messages reach the consumers and are not marked as spam.
Pros:
- Allows businesses to reach large groups or engage in personalized two-way messaging.
- You can start texting using a new number or connecting an existing landline.
- Businesses can efficiently drive sales, replies, clicks, and more through targeted text blasts.
- Features like templates, auto-replies, and scheduled messages enhance the communication experience.
- Enables businesses to set up automated messages, such as welcome messages, out-of-office responses, and behavior-based texts.
- Offers integration with over 1,000 tools like Zapier, Mailchimp, and Slack.
Cons:
- Setting up more complex automation flows is challenging.
- The effectiveness of two-way communication is contingent on explicit consent from recipients, which may limit spontaneous or unsolicited interactions.
Pricing: $39/Month
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Manychat
Manychat is a leading SMS marketing tool that empowers businesses to engage with customers effectively through personalized conversations.
Some of the top features provided by the platform are automated messaging, omnichannel integration, and personalized drip campaigns.
They focus on boosting conversions, collecting feedback, and nurturing customer relationships.
Pros:
- Offers various messaging channels, like Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS.
- Utilizes Flow Builder to create automated and personalized texting journeys.
- Incorporates Live Chat for human intervention when needed, enhancing the user experience.
- Collects reviews and feedback efficiently, allowing businesses to gain insights and improve customer satisfaction.
- Lets you create SMS drip campaigns for customer nurturing, from challenges to newsletters, keeping customers engaged and moving towards conversion.
- Facilitates the collection of customer phone numbers directly from the eCommerce site, enabling businesses to send order updates or abandoned cart reminders.
- Supports multimedia messaging, enabling businesses to share photos and coupon QR codes and engage customers with rich content, enhancing storytelling.
Cons:
- The ability to have a consolidated view of all live automation in a single location is lacking, making it challenging for users to monitor and manage their active processes effectively.
- They don’t offer reliable support, and most of the questions are tackled by the user community on Facebook.
Pricing: Free
Yotpo
Yotpo is a text message marketing service offering ROI-first SMS marketing solutions.
The tool lets you deliver amazing SMS experiences using data from your ecommerce store.
With multi-channel campaign managers, you can save time and boost your productivity.
The waste management engine also lets you cap your campaigns and excludes inactive subscribers.
Pros:
- The platform offers data-driven recommendations, AI-driven planning, and 180+ shopper engagement data points for intelligent segmentation and messaging strategy.
- Delivers relevant and personalized messages at the right moments, ensuring messages are not ignored and engagement is maximized.
- Provides smart spending recommendations, maintains a lean subscriber list, and supports global expansion with 200+ supported countries worldwide.
- Offers enhanced performance analytics beyond revenue, including spending insights, click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates (CVR), and month-over-month growth.
- The retention marketing platform integrates SMS with Email, Loyalty, Subscription, and Reviews, providing a seamless and connected experience.
Cons:
- While it’s an advantage for Shopify users, it may limit business options on other eCommerce platforms.
- There is no privacy compliance for cookies.
Pricing: $79/Month
Moengage
MoEngage is a powerful SMS marketing platform driving results through personalized conversations.
The platform’s scalability, security compliance, and comprehensive analytics ensure businesses can achieve their goals efficiently and effectively in today’s competitive landscape.
Pros:
- Enhances personalized conversations and engagement.
- Integrates SMS marketing into omnichannel strategy.
- Personalized onboarding, retention, and reactivation journeys.
- Dynamic messaging and Smart Triggers for impactful campaigns.
- Real-time transactional messages build customer trust.
- Facilitates 2-way conversations and opt-in/opt-out opportunities.
- Automated SMS campaigns with personalized triggers.
- Enterprise-ready scale, security, and reliable delivery. Impressive track record with leading brands worldwide.
Cons:
- Detailed analytics require additional setup.
- The SMS marketing platform’s scalability is only suitable for some large enterprises.
Pricing: Free
Conclusion
SMS marketing tools provide brands with a direct way to engage with their audience, drive sales, and enhance customer relationships.
While text message marketing can be highly beneficial, businesses must adhere to regulations, maintain opt-in consent, and ensure that their messages are relevant and valuable to recipients.
With proper strategy and execution, bulk SMS marketing tools can be valuable in any company’s marketing toolkit, helping them reach customers effectively and achieve their business goals.
