Thinking about sending texts to your customers in 2026 as a small business? Watch this episode first!
This week on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are discussing text (SMS) marketing. We talk in depth about how to get started with text marketing, building a text list, and best practices.
Part of our discussion explores the intimacy of text communication, which is why this week’s MARKETING HOT TAKE is: it’s very easy to become spam when using text marketing. Disagree? Let us know in the comments.
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to our Marketing Cult! Please Leave Us a Review
02:45 Introduction to Text Marketing
03:38 Marketing HOT TAKE - Understanding the Intimacy of Text Marketing
05:56 Why Text Marketing is Worth Your Time
16:52 Getting Started with Text Marketing
26:35 Being Intentional with Text Marketing
34:03 Building Your Text List
36:47 Best Practices for Text Marketing
40:40 TLDL; Getting Started with Text Marketing
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Vivian: We ain't doing no rinky-dinky, "let me upload all of my customer's cell phone numbers into my cell, and then mass texting.
Chelsea: Yeah, no. Don't do that.
Vivian: That's a big no-no. You're going to go to jail. Do not do that.
*Intro*
Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: We're back and better than ever, it's your favorite marketing sisters. I don't know if you know any other marketing sisters, but if you do, tell me because I'm kind of interested in that. Hey guys, welcome back to the SOB Marketing Podcast, SOB as in Small Owned Business. We would never call you guys names. Before we get started, friendly reminder, we have a TLDL section.
Vivian: Yes. Too long didn't listen.
Chelsea: So at the end of this episode there is a TLDL chapter where I give you a brief summary of whatever topic we talked about today so if you are strapped for time you can go ahead and skip ahead to that but when you get the chance go back and listen to this entire episode. Also friendly reminder you know you want to subscribe. You want to follow. You want to make sure you're interacting with this podcast because it helps us get in front of other small business owners, and we are here to help the small business community, the SOB community, so that we can grow and thrive.
Vivian: Yes, we want to help take over the world, you guys. We want a world full of small owned businesses all over the place. Friendly reminder, if you also wanted to contribute to this podcast and help us out, you can certainly buy us a coffee. Coffee is a metaphor. We're not caffeinating Chelsea because she would get cray-cray. Literally just go to buymeacoffee.com/sob marketing and you can donate $5. You can donate $10. All of that will go to keeping this conversation going.
Chelsea: Yes. So Vivian, what are we talking about today?
Vivian: All right, Chelsea, I actually thought we had covered this topic before and it's kind of unusual that we have not. You reminded me. No, no, we have not.
Chelsea: If we have covered it, then I did not find the episode. So it's buried.
Vivian: It's buried somewhere. But we are talking about text marketing. All right. I know that some of you have a very strange relationship with text, because you feel like maybe it's something that's super intimate, that should only be family and friends. So you're like, I don't know that any business should be using text to reach out to me and to communicate. But it's the way of the world, you guys, and we always say it's not about our preferences, it's about our target audience. We're going to dive fully into that conversation today. But I'm sure Chelsea, you probably got a little hot take, don't you?
Chelsea: I do. That's why I kind of giggled because my marketing hot take this week, *pew, pew, pew, pew, pew*.
Vivian: You are back better than ever with the sound effects.
Chelsea: Thank you. Yes. I practiced and I'm feeling really confident about my pew, pew, pews. Okay. My marketing hot take, Vivian, is that text marketing is very intimate. I'm not saying don't do text marketing. I'm saying that you have to be very cognizant about how you are interacting and reaching with your audience because it is in my opinion, much easier when it comes to text marketing, it's much easier to come off as spam.
Vivian: Yes, and to really be able to tick people off real fast because there is something like, listen, I think we've all gotten used to getting spam in our emails. We are very protective of our text messages and ensuring that that spam doesn't transition over to flooding our phones. Because how offensive.
Chelsea: We're more, I don't want to say calm, but you get over the fact that you get spam emails. You're very pissed when you get all of these spam phone calls.
Vivian: Oh, 100%.
Chelsea: It's a different experience.
Vivian: Yes. It 100% is. It almost feels like somebody has, I don't know, has maybe overstepped a boundary. Right?
Chelsea: All that to say, we are pro text marketing.
Vivian: Yes. But if you agree with Chelsea, that her hot take obviously was that text marketing is a little more intimate, and so you have to be super careful about that. Let us know down in the comments if you have a differing opinion, we want to hear it.
Chelsea: You could send us a voice message. I'm waiting to hear from you.
Vivian: That's right. All right. So where do you want to start the discussion about text marketing and how we can leverage it for our small business, Chels.
Chelsea: Well, Vivian, I know we're going to split up this conversation with why text marketing is worth your time and then how to get started with text marketing. Let's start with why text marketing is worth your time. I want to say this. Remember everyone how Vivian has 20 million emails that she hasn't opened. We all remember that.
Vivian: Y'all. I only have over 10, okay? It's not 20 million.
Chelsea: Over 10! That makes my stomach hurt. My God.
Vivian: It's all the spam! I don't know what y'all want me to do and I sign up for stuff all the time and then I forget to unsubscribe.
Chelsea: Just delete it! You're killing me. Okay. Vivian, how many unopened texts do you have?
Vivian: Well, is this something I can look at my phone?
Chelsea: Yeah, go ahead.
Vivian: Let's see. 14.
Chelsea: What? Okay. You know what? This was a bad example. I shouldn't have asked Vivian because what do you mean 14?
Vivian: How many do you have?
Chelsea: Zero.
Vivian: Okay. Well, but in my defense, sometimes, you know how sometimes people just don't know how to let a conversation die down. Literally they'll respond to the final text thing that you say, and then they'll respond with like, okay. Or a happy face emoji or something like that. Usually that's the, I see it pop up on my screen. I just don't physically click on the text.
Chelsea: Okay. So it's bad example. No, because I'm still going to click on it. I don't want that notification that it's unopened. That drives me crazy. Okay. My point was, let me use the statistics instead. So text marketing has an average 98% open rate. 98. That's crazy. 90% of messages are read within three minutes of delivery.
Vivian: Three minutes of delivery. So even the time on it is very concise.It's quick.
Chelsea: So not only is almost everyone except for Vivian opening the message, they're opening it almost immediately.
Vivian: That's awesome. Well, and I want you guys to think about where else you could find something similar. Nowhere. Nowhere. I mean, if you are sending someone an email, obviously there is no sense of urgency to open an email within three minutes of when someone sends it to you. The other one is phone calls. Either you get the person to pick up or then you have to wait for them to call you back. The other one is if you're using maybe social media and doing some of this inbox messaging now that you can automate, still doesn't have the urgency of like, hey, this needs to be opened very quickly.
Chelsea: No, absolutely. So people are opening these texts and they're opening them in a timely manner. Everyone except for Vivian. It's also pretty cost effective.
Vivian: Oh, do you tell?
Chelsea: Okay, many, I'm not going to say all, but most POS systems have text marketing options available.
Vivian: Yes, I love that you bring this up. We are big fans around here of using the tools that you have to their fullest capabilities. For a lot of you, either like she said, the POS system, which is your point of sale system, check and see if they have an option to add in text marketing. Or also your email platform may do this. MailChimp does this, OmniSend does this. There are lots of them that do. So for an additional cost, you can also upload the cell phone numbers and then send text messages from that same platform.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Text messages, Vivian, can range in cost anywhere from like, a penny to five cents per text. Then the ROI, I have to read this to you because this is crazy. The ROI for text marketing can range anywhere from $20 to $40 for every $1 spent.
Vivian: That's wild. Well, that kind of lines up with another statistic that I saw out there. So it says 68% of consumers spend over $50 on items purchased via text. So that lines up with what you're saying, which is that return on investment for every dollar spent. It's even better than email marketing right now.
Chelsea: You know, we love email marketing. So for us to be like, this R.O.I. is a little better than email marketing. The other thing, Vivian, is that text marketing is very direct, and it can be a great way to build loyalty because of the intimacy. It kind of feels like, I only text my friends and my family. If I give my phone number to a business and I give them consent, I give them consent to send me marketing messages, it kind of feels like they're a friend now, you know?
Vivian: It does, and there is something about kind of leaning into that. Let's not discount, I said something earlier in this conversation, which was, it's just kind of becoming the way of the world. It is you guys and I'll give you a perfect example. Recently we've had some medical appointments that needed to be scheduled for family members and in there, these facilities, they have made the process so simple in the sense that they're scheduling, let's say two different appointment types, for specialists for primary care and they're literally sending the appointment link check-in, the reminder goes to the text and so does the link to check in ahead of time. Now that creates a better experience for us because then for one, we're not having to call all over the place to confirm an appointment. It's sent directly to the texts, to our messages. Then the other one is literally checking in can be done from our phone instead of us sitting there in the office and doing all the paperwork then and there. You feel like you're kind of getting ahead a little bit, but for these organizations that are using text messages in that way, the loyalty kind of comes in where if you're making the process super simple for me, for one, I'm going to follow your direction, your instruction. Then two, I'm also going to remember that my experience was much easier with your organization than it was with somebody else.
Chelsea: Exactly. Okay, Vivian, that's a great example for like healthcare. Give us an example for a small business.
Vivian: Yeah, one of the, this isn't a small business, it's a bigger business, Uncommon James. that is, do you know who I'm talking about?
Chelsea: No.
Vivian: Okay, it's a girl that was on, what was it called, Laguna Beach back in the day?
Chelsea: I don't what that is.
Vivian: Okay, it was like the first start of reality TV.
Chelsea: Everyone in the comments tell Vivian that you know what she's talking about.
Vivian: Kristin Cavallari, she launched a brand and they sell jewelry and other stuff, I guess. so Uncommon James is the name of the brand. I signed up at some point to receive text messages from them. I love the way that they utilize it because for one, when we normally think of texts, like in the example that I gave earlier with healthcare, it's very much text oriented. Meaning you have to make sure you have certain characters in there and you don't want the text to be long. So you're trying to find the best, most effective way to concisely say what you want and then add a link. Uncommon James, what they do that's differently is they actually incorporate gifs and they utilize their imagery. So what it usually turns out to is they've created a GIF based off of images of their jewelry. Then it's embedded in the text. Then the next text I get from them is the sale or whatever they're pitching, right? The promotion. It's a really nice combination of getting something that's graphically appeasing, and then also knowing that they're only contacting me for a promotion.
Chelsea: Yeah. No, that makes sense. So it's kind of like your hook.
Vivian: Yeah.
Chelsea: Yeah. It's the hook. It's the thing that drives people in. So they see a fun GIF, and then they see the promotion.
Vivian: Well, and it's not even like a fun GIF. It's literally, they're just taking, they have new hoop earrings out or new rings out and they're wanting to promote it and they have a sale on rings or something. They'll then, they just literally rotate and turn into a GIF the images of the rings or whatever. So it is nice because it's kind of like giving you a look into the product that they're selling.
Chelsea: It's a nice visual.
Vivian: Yes, it is. It's a very nice visual. So I bring that up to say, great, if you are a small business owner that's going to utilize text marketing to help with some part of a process that improves your customer experience, or you can also just use it for promotional things. Just be sure, there's a caveat there where Chelsea earlier said, hey, just be sure that you're kind of making, don't do anything crazy because that's going to really tick people off.
Chelsea: Well, I love that you said it's kind of like, we're going to talk about this a little later, y'all. *deep breath* I don't know why I breathed like that. We're going to talk about this later, but you need to have a plan and an understanding of how you're going to be using text marketing. You can't just use it for everything and it's not perfect for everything. You also need to be utilizing different marketing channels. You can't just focus on one thing.
Kind of our segue, Vivian, we talked about why you should consider text marketing, why it's worth your time. Let's go ahead and talk about how you even get started.
Vivian: Yes. How do I get started with text marketing or at least start gathering the info to know exactly what I'm going to be doing?
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: Okay. So my first step, what I think you should start with and Vivian, I want to know what your opinion is. I think you're going to agree with me, but it's look at what you already have.
Vivian: You mean?
Chelsea: Look at your POS system. If you have an email marketing platform, look at that, look at the tools and the systems that you already have. Do they offer text marketing?
Vivian: Yes, I do agree. That is a great starting point because that is going to be the thing that either launches you into gathering more information or wanting to look and see if perhaps you don't want to go with that system and you want to use an entirely different platform. Some of the things that could drive you to make that decision are the cost. So if you go to your email platform, let's say you use Omnisend and you're like, great, Omnisend now allows me to send text messages out. Ooh, I think that's a little steep. I don't know if for the amount of people that I have on that text list, if it's going to be cost prohibitive, if it's going to be too much money for me to dish out. Do I maybe want to start researching and see if there's someone else that could do it cheaper?
Chelsea: Exactly. Remember, we discussed how text messages can range in cost anywhere from like a penny to five cents. Some places can be more expensive and it can be set up kind of like these email marketing platforms. The more numbers you have, the more the price goes up. So that's something to look at. While you are growing your text list, is that going to affect your cost? Is it going to drive it up? I mean, yes, it's going to drive it up overall because you have to pay for the texts, but is the individual cost going to drive up?
Vivian: Yes, and do not forget, though, this is where knowing that ROI, just how effective text messages are, comes into play. Remember we told you that there's information out there indicating that over 60% of people that buy from a text message are spending over $50 per item. I mean, that kind of offsets any of the costs that you guys are talking about, know, five cents per text or whatever on there. The other is don't underestimate the value of having all of your data and information on one platform, okay? The reason I say that is because even though it might be cheaper to use a different platform, do you really want to create a different profile, upload stuff in a different platform, have to log in there, learn how to send, not that's hard, but...
Chelsea: Learn the system. Learning the system is still time. You still have to take the time to learn that.
Vivian: So just when you're evaluating cost, how much and how valuable is it to you to just have everything maybe centrally located on one platform, right? Your emails and your text.
Chelsea: Yes. Also I want to point something out. Not that I think this would happen, but you never know. If there's a data breach. Having, your chances of a data breach goes up if you have two different platforms.
Vivian: Yes. I'm glad you, that is something you guys should be thinking about, right? Like ahead of time. If one of these platforms does contact you and say, Hey, by the way, we had a data breach. How are you then going to approach it with your customers? Great point, Chels.
Chelsea: Vivian, more about compliance. Something that you need to double check when you're picking a platform is do they have compliance at the forefront? Are they making sure that you're not spamming people or breaking any laws? Are they going to keep you accountable? Not that I think that you need someone to keep you accountable, but it's important.
Vivian: I almost wanted to start singing a Tim McGraw song about outlaws.
Chelsea: I don't know Tim McGraw.
Vivian: I was about to start singing it and then I was like, I don't know any of the words.
Chelsea: You don't know any of the words. Also, let's not get copyrighted. While we're talking about compliance let's not get in trouble. So that's really important. You don't want to be spamming people. You don't want to break any laws and you want to make sure that the platform is also going to be on top of that. If you are picking a new platform, you also want to look at the ease of use. Do they have keywords and shortcuts and how are they priced? So what I mean by that, Vivian, is when you sign up for text messages and they say text stop to unsubscribe. That's a keyword. Those can be priced differently, so you might get charged for that. That's important to know.
Vivian: Ooh, I like that, Chelsea. That is definitely something you should consider because I guess that's the thing is that's all automation on the back end. When someone tells you, Hey, want you to take my cell phone number off of this text message list thing that you have. It means the system is having to find or recognize the keyword, find the attached phone number it came from, take it and remove it from the list. So then you're compliant as a small business owner. That means they are going to charge you for something like that.
Chelsea: Yeah. So you want to know the pricing of that. I would suggest having keywords like that. I would suggest having that just to make sure that everyone's happy. No one's mad about being spammed.
Vivian: Also it makes your life easier because you guys, otherwise, if you're not doing something automated like that, it means you're going in there having to, at least on some type of a schedule, check to see who's unsubscribed or wants to unsubscribe, and then you physically have to go in and remove it. So that's a lot of work. Just let them do it.
Chelsea: Exactly. Personalization options. So dynamic fields. So like, hey, Vivian, we have this sale going on, do they offer that? Important to know.
Vivian, do they offer a dedicated phone number? I want to make this so very clear. Do not use your personal phone number to send texts.
Vivian: Yeah, this is not, you guys, we ain't doing no rinky-dinky, let me upload all of my customers' cell phone numbers into my cell.
Chelsea: Yeah, no, don't do that.
Vivian: Then mass texting them. That is a big no-no. You will be going to go to jail. Do not do that.
Chelsea: Yeah, you will go to jail. Do not do that. So a good platform, a legit platform will give you a dedicated phone number. Automation and integration. So can you automate welcome messages? Can you automate birthday coupons? Can you integrate with other softwares? These are questions you need to be asking. I'm not saying that they need to offer that. You need to ask yourself as a small business owner, what are my priorities and what do I need from my text marketing platform? But make sure you're asking these questions.
Vivian: Sure.
Chelsea: My last one is my most important one. Y'all, reporting. What analytics are they going to show you? Big surprise. I want you guys to know what analytics you're going to get from this platform.
Vivian: Yeah, that's an important one because that's how you start to learn and understand how text marketing is a little different from email marketing and from social media marketing. That is how you start to connect the dots to see what works well with text marketing specifically, as opposed to these other marketing channels that you may be using. I think that's very important just because we always encourage you guys to experiment, especially when you're trying a new marketing channel. You guys know that it takes a little while for you to get used to it and then be like, this is definitely going to pop off. This is definitely going to work well as a text as opposed to this other thing I tried that was way too long, was unclear, didn't work well.
Chelsea: Exactly. So Vivian, we have picked a platform. We've asked ourselves all these questions. We've decided this is the best text marketing platform for our small business. Where do we go from here?
Vivian: Yeah, the next step is you want to be very strategic. What we mean by that is we want you to decide how you plan to use text marketing. Where does it fit in your small business and how does it fit into your overall marketing? So that means, are you going to be, what types of messages are you going to be sending out to people? Are they going to be strictly promotional? We talked about that, right? Or is it going to be something that is going to help you with a specific process, a check-in process? Is your goal to improve the customer experience, right? Perhaps, are you going to be using text messages to get Google reviews?
Chelsea: Love that.
Vivian: Are you going to be using them as ways to remind people about their hair appointment? All of these are very different.
Chelsea: I thought of one. Cart abandonment, and I can give an example of this. I just remembered this. I go to a nail salon in Summerville. I don't go very often. It's kind of a treat for me when I get my nails done. They are very good about every three weeks, if I haven't come back, they will text me, which fine, whatever. I'm not huge on getting texts, but it's okay. I'll let them do it. They'll text me, "hey, you haven't been in, in a while. Here's a coupon". That's cart abandonment. Even if it's not like, even if I'm not online abandoning a cart.
Vivian: A shopping cart.
Chelsea: A shopping cart, yes. Yes, a shopping cart. It's still abandonment, right? Because it's still trying to bring someone in who hasn't come in, in the allotted amount of time. Because you're supposed to get your nails done every two weeks. So they wait three weeks and they're like, you haven't come in. Here's a coupon.
Vivian: Yeah, this also reminds me, we have a community member who sells apparel. So she's using Shopify. She could potentially, I'm sure there's an app that will plug into the back of Shopify where you can send SMS, SMS you guys is another term for text, for people who have maybe left an item in the cart and have not finalized the purchase, have not put their credit card information in.
Chelsea: Cart abandonment.
Vivian: Yeah, cart abandonment. But my point being, there's an app that will allow them to identify that in Shopify and then take that person's cell phone number that they inputted and ping them to just say, hey, did you forget you have a shirt in your cart?
Chelsea: This is something that's pretty common with emails. If you shop with a specific online brand or online store a lot and you abandon your cart, your shopping cart a lot, you probably get a lot of these emails. This is now a thing that's happening with text as well.
Vivian: Yeah, and let me tell you who did this to me on Christmas during the holiday shopping. As you guys know, Chelsea here loves all things rock band, punk band, screamo music, all that stuff.
Chelsea: I haven't heard the phrase screamo in so long. It's metalcore now, but okay.
Vivian: Metalcore.
Chelsea: Okay, go ahead.
Vivian: Leave it to you youngsters to just repackage something that's already been out there. Screamo is too harsh for you. You gotta call it what? Metalcore? Okay. Anyways, moving on.
Chelsea: I'm not going to explain the genres to you.
Vivian: One of the places that I went to look for gifts for her was Hot Topic because they had a lot of great shirts and you know, all that stuff. Hot Topic is on top of SMS text marketing because not only did they see that I had left a shirt in the cart and they were like, hey, by the way, did you intend to leave this there or, go ahead and purchase? They were also pushing out a lot of these, whether it was a Black Friday sale or whatever sale they were running for the day to say like, hey, hurry up, the sale ends in an hour. You could get this item for, you know, half the price or whatever. The other thing is they targeted based off of what I was looking for. What's the name of that band you like?
Chelsea: Sleep Token?
Vivian: Sleep Token. I was looking at Sleep Token shirts that they had. It then said, we have new Sleep Token stuff. So it was showing me other items, which is the customization that we talk about now in 2026.
Chelsea: Yes, the customization and the personalization. Yes.
Vivian: So it was like, hey, by the way, we noticed you like this one thing. Here are other things that are very similar to it that you may be interested in purchasing. Hot Topic, congrats. You guys are doing the text marketing thing very, very well. Was it a little annoying? Maybe it was a little much, but I allowed it because it was during the holidays, and so I was like, if something does pop up that could be a nice stocking stuff or something, then, you know.
Chelsea: That's a good point, y'all. It was almost annoying. See where you need to toe the line. This is where, well, we say this almost every episode, but you need to know your target audience. You need to know what they're comfortable with. That's where deciding how you're going to use your text marketing and also where it aligns with the rest of your marketing plan and the other marketing channels that you're going to be using. Text marketing cannot be the only thing that you're doing. I'm going to send out emails specifically for this and then I'm going to send out text specifically for this. You need to align yourself and make it very clear so that your consumers know, when I get a text, it's going to be one of these kind of messages. When I get an email, it's going to be for this. You want to be very clear to your audience of who you are and what you're doing.
Vivian: Well, and I think having some strategy behind it also allows you to fully look at your analytics and decide if that's how you want to continue using that moving forward, or if there are other opportunities for it. If you see that text marketing is working so well in one area and you potentially have another area that's very similar that you can do that, then you know, that's good fit.
Chelsea: Yeah, don't just stick with something because we told you that you can't make changes. Please make changes.
So we've decided that we're going to focus on text marketing for cart abandonment. Now we have to do, I think the hardest part, which is build your text list. Actually get the phone numbers.
Vivian: That's right.
Chelsea: Not as difficult as you think it is guys. For one, well, actually the first thing I want to say is remember to always get consent. If there is one thing you leave this episode with, it's that consent is the most important thing.
Vivian: Always is.
Chelsea: In every scenario, consent is the most important thing, right? Okay. Easiest way, Vivian, to get phone numbers, add it to your checkout. Say, hey, do you want to input your phone number? In the little box, check yes if you want to receive promotional texts.
Vivian: Or the disclaimer can be, "by providing your phone number, you're opting into receiving text messages from us, blah, blah, blah". But I do think that's a perfect way. We're used to it already so much for the emails. You know, just add a cell phone number field in there for the text.
Chelsea: Exactly. Another great thing that you can do, landing pages, If you're already collecting emails, do the same thing with phone numbers. You could even just add in a phone number field to your landing pages. Send out an email to your subscribers already and say, hey, you know, we're starting a text list too. Maybe give them incentive. You don't have to whatever, however you want to word it, but inform the people who are already loyal to you.
I think the most important thing that I want to stress and the thing that I think we forget about is you have to actually tell everybody.
Vivian: Tell them what, that you have a text list?
Chelsea: Well, no, because my next thing is, tell everyone on social media, like marking through and going through all of your target audience, everywhere that you can connect with them and just informing them that you have a text list and giving them the option to opt in.
Vivian: Well, just look at it the same way that you do for promoting your email list, right? Typically you're saying, hey, go ahead and sign up for our email list in order to receive promotions or in order to receive discounts. It would be the same type of thing for text messages. If you want the best discounts, go ahead and sign up for our text messages, right? I think that works great.
Alright Chelsea, I think the very last component of this is we do have to acknowledge that texting is very different from sending an email or from any other form of communication. So there are some rules or some best practices that you want to...
Chelsea: Limitations.
Vivian: Limitations that you want to implement. What are those exactly?
Chelsea: Well, the number one thing is most of the time your standard for text marketing messages is going to be 160 characters, including spaces.
Vivian: Yes. If you guys need, you're like, I don't know how many characters this is. Open up a Word document, literally type out what you think and go to the character count. There is a thing on there that will actually tell you the amount of characters. Remember, a character includes spaces. A character includes periods. A character includes commas. It's not just the letters. It includes everything
Chelsea: Well, and here's the thing. When you include an emoji, that cuts down your character count. 70. That's the number that I found. Your character count when you include an emoji cuts down to 70. So if you're going to use an emoji, just make sure you really want to use that emoji.
Vivian: Yes, and the other thing is when we were discussing platforms earlier, because you're utilizing a platform to do this because you ain't no honky tonk sending stuff from your personal phone. Yeah, we're not doing that in 2026. You're using a platform to help you with this, meaning look in the platform because a lot of times they will tell you very clearly the character length and as you type it out, it will tell you how many characters you have left. A lot of times it will not let you go over it So it's like, hey, you've exceeded the character limit on here. It'll require that you sent another text, which means that's more money. So these are things that you need to think about, but utilize that platform. Look at it. See how it's structured. See how it helps to guide you into these best practices because they want you to be successful in it so that you continue using their platform for text messages. So they're not going to guide you wrong. They're going to try to make sure that they give you this information upfront.
Chelsea: Yeah, Vivian, text marketing can be a little difficult when it comes to writing the messages because you still need a hook. You still need to get people to read the message, but you also need to be very cognizant of the space that you're taking. So being concise, being clear, making sure you're getting the message across while still maybe being a little fun about it.
Vivian: Also remember too, the one thing we haven't really mentioned is, what you're allowed to do in texting is a little different. Okay, so we give you a little more wiggle room to like Chelsea said, be a little fun or cheeky or to use emojis or maybe to shorten words down just because we do understand that texting means it's a shortened abbreviation of a message. So front loading your message to where the most important part is at the beginning and then maybe kind of structuring it like that. These are all things that you want to take into account.
Chelsea: Yeah. I love that. Okay. Vivian, are we ready for the TLDL?
Vivian: Give it to us.
Chelsea: Ooh. Okay. So if you skipped ahead, this is the TLDL chapter. Too long, didn't listen. I'm going to give you a brief summary of what we talked about today because you're strapped for time. That's fine. When you get the chance, come back and listen to this entire conversation because that's where the good stuff is. So today we talked about text marketing, why it is worth your time and how to get started if you've never done text marketing before.
So text marketing is great because people open their texts. So you get great open rates, cost effective, between one cent and five cents is usually going to be what you're paying. So it's cost effective, great ROI, you're building loyalty. If you're going to get started with text marketing, you want to start with looking at what you already have. If you don't have a platform that you can use, then you need to choose a platform to use. You need to then decide how you plan on using text marketing, how it fits in with your marketing plan. You need to build your text list, and then we also talk about at the very end, some best practices for your text marketing. That was really quick and concise. That was kind of like a text. Do you think that was under 160 characters?
Vivian: That was an SMS version of the whole conversation we had today.
Chelsea: Exactly. That's exactly what it was.
Vivian: Yeah. Friendly reminder, you guys, as we mentioned, go ahead and hit that subscribe button so that you could get a notification every time a new episode is released. If you guys have any topics or discussions that you want us to have here on this podcast, go ahead and send us a voice note. Go to sobmarketing.com. Navigate to contact us. Mid-screen you'll see a purple button that says record. Hit record and send it.
Chelsea: Okay, y'all. I think it's finally time to say it. Vivian. It's not purple.
Vivian: What is it?
Chelsea: I think it's just like regular color. I don't remember what color it is off the top of my head. It's not purple. I always forget to tell you that.
Vivian: Fine, it's not purple, but it's gray apparently. Anyways, just hit that record button so that we can hear your voice.
Chelsea: Absolutely, and you know what? Go be the best SOB you can be.