» What is SMS Marketing?
SMS marketing is a method of communicating with your customers via their phones. Unlike other ways to engage customers through their mobile devices, SMS marketing can reach customers almost instantly wherever they are, even without an online connection.
As a result, it enables businesses to engage customers and entice new leads more effectively and provide more convenient customer service options.
» What is SMS Marketing Software?
An SMS marketing software package makes it easy to text large numbers of customers at once and respond to them on time. However, most SMS marketing software does more than send texts in bulk. Instead, they provide a suite of tools that businesses can use to manage, schedule, and automate their text communications and marketing campaigns. As a result, they can greatly expand your options when it comes to mobile marketing, enabling you to support your marketing campaigns with a more varied approach.
Besides sending one-way and two-way messages, they also enable additional capabilities such as creating an SMS-based loyalty or referral scheme, conducting polls and surveys, running contests, and sending alerts, reminders, or notifications.
» How to Choose the Best SMS Marketing Software?
Most SMS marketing software services are designed to support a wide range of use cases. However, they do not all offer the same set of features. Accordingly, it is important to pick SMS marketing software that supports your intended uses with minimal hassle. Similarly, you should also research how easily the SMS marketing software you are looking at will integrate with your other apps and tools. In addition to integrations with services like Zapier and SalesForce, the availability of an SMS gateway API with great documentation and customer support can be a major factor for some businesses. While most organizations can rely solely on the thousands of integrations already available for the most popular SMS marketing software, if you need to create custom integrations (or might need to in the future), this is worth looking into.
Like any software your business employs, usability is also an important consideration. A tool that makes it quick and painless to do what you need saves valuable time in the long run and helps avoid costly mistakes such as failing to comply with telecommunication and data protection regulations.
» The Top 10 Software for SMS Marketing
1. TextMagic
With almost 15 years of operation in providing business text messaging services, TextMagic is one of the more well-established and experienced SMS marketing software providers. As a result, the TextMagic app offers one of the complete feature sets available. These include reporting and analytics functions, as well as a wide range of texting capabilities. The app also automatically ensures that your message scheduling is compliant with telecommunications regulations and cleans invalid contacts from your mailing list.
Thanks to its wide range of features, extensive integrations, and responsive customer support, this is a great option for businesses of all sizes looking for a robust and scalable solution.
TextMagic Features
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- Two-way SMS chat
- Zapier integrations
- Email to SMS
- Dedicated virtual mobile numbers
- Mailing list management and importing
- Multimedia file attachments
- Mail merge and text templates
- Carrier and email lookup and validation
- Incoming message automation
- SMS surveys
- Two-factor authentication
TextMagic Starting Price
Pay-As-You-Go
2. Slicktext
SlickText is a simple SMS marketing software solution that covers all the bases. It offers a full range of testing capabilities, including in-app tools for creating SMS surveys, contests, and loyalty programs.
SlickText also includes all of the tools you need to manage your mailing lists, review reports on your marketing campaign’s results, and create opt-in forms. However, it does not have the detailed team management features offered by some other texting apps.
SlickText Features
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- Mailing list management
- Web opt-in forms and links
- QR code opt-ins
- Email address capture
- SMS contests and surveys
- Discount coupons and loyalty rewards
- Automated replies
SlickText Starting Price
$29 per month
3. Textlocal
Textlocal offers the key features of SMS marketing software, including campaign scheduling, mailing list management, and SMS survey tools. The company also provides the option of a managed service, in which your SMS campaigns are created and managed by Textlocal. This is a useful option for businesses without the resources to create their own campaign.
The standout features of Textlocal are its integrations with popular instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and mobile wallet and payment platforms such as PayPal. The latter enables businesses to process payments from customers via SMS, which not all SMS marketing software is ready to fully support yet.
Textlocal Features
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- Instant messenger integrations
- Two-way SMS chat
- Customer service ticketing
- SMS surveys
Textlocal Starting Price
Textlocal only offers custom pricing plans.
4. TextRequest
TextRequest enables businesses to manage SMS marketing campaigns, talk to customers, and generate and follow up with leads. In addition, it also enables businesses to take payments via SMS through a wide range of payment processes.
TextRequest also has a particular benefit for US-based healthcare professionals. It offers accounts that are specialized in HIPAA-compliant texting and the additional security measures needed for handling patient data.
Text Request Features
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- Secure SMS payment system
- Webchat to SMS
- Automated HIPAA compliance
- Landline and voice texting
Text Request Starting Price
$59 per month
5. BurstSMS
Burst SMS allows your business to manage and send SMS marketing campaigns to your mailing list easily and have two-way conversations with your customers and leads. Besides the typical SMS automation features and Zapier integrations, BurstSMS also offers a white-label service enabling businesses to rebrand and distribute the software, which can make it easier to manage SMS marketing accounts across a franchise, agency, or large organization.
BurstSMS Features
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- Email to SMS
- Marketing campaign automation and management
- Direct and Zapier integration
- White label service package
BurstSMS Starting Price
$5 per month
6. Simple Texting
As the name implies, SimpleTexting aims to make its SMS marketing software easy and intuitive to use, making it a great option for small businesses and teams who are just getting started with SMS marketing.
SimpleTexting provides all of the tools you need to create and manage simple SMS marketing campaigns and a basic set of tools to follow up with leads and track your results. However, its more limited set of features can restrict the SMS marketing methods you can use to engage customers. For example, it does not offer an in-app method of running polls or surveys, and you will need to rely on external tools to do this.
As a result, SimpleTexting is a good solution for businesses that only need a simple SMS marketing tool. Organizations that want to use more advanced mobile marketing approaches may feel somewhat constrained by the simplicity of the platform.
Simple Texting Features
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- Two-way texting
- Text-to-landline
- Mailing list importing
- Opt-in web forms
- Assign contacts and messages to team members
- Zapier integrations
- Automated responses
Simple Texting Starting Price
$29 per month
7. EZ Texting
EZ Texting provides all of the expected features of an SMS marketing software service and a few extras that are not available with every service. These include access to a library of Shutterstock images for use in multimedia messages and a tool for creating QR codes. While having this feature as part of the app is convenient, it should be noted that free QR code generators are available online for use with any texting platform.
A major drawback of EZ Texting is its mobile app, which is only available for iOS devices. This can be a significant convenience if you want all of your team members to have easy access to your SMS marketing tools from their mobile devices.
EZ Texting Features
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- Mailing list management
- Two-way texting
- Group texting
- Shutterstock library access and design templates
- Web opt-in forms
- QR codes
- Automated responses and reminders
- Team management tools
EZ Texting Starting Price
$19 per month
8. Heymarket
Heymarket offers a variety of tools to create SMS marketing and customer service programs.
In addition to scheduling and managing SMS marketing campaigns, Heymarket offers integrations that allow businesses to combine SMS and other mobile messaging channels into a single inbox, making it easier to provide a consistent customer experience across every communication channel.
Heymarket’s APIs allow you to integrate the app with your existing workflows in HubSpot, SalesForce, etc.
Heymarket Features
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- Shared inboxes between SMS and other channels
- Automated replies
- Personalized templates
- Text-to-landline
- Sentiment and intent analysis
- Salesforce integrations
- Hubspot integrations
- Apple Business Chat integrations
- Zapier integrations
- Facebook Messenger integrations
Heymarket Starting Price
$28 per month
9. ClickSend
ClickSend is a multi-channel marketing tool that also supports email, fax, and direct mail marketing and sends and receives text messages. It is also one of the few SMS marketing software available that enables businesses to send Rich Content Service (RCS) messages, an alternative to MMS.
ClickSend Features
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- Two-way SMS
- IM, MMS, and RCS support
- Email, fax, and direct mail support
- Text-to-speech
ClickSend Starting Price
£2.81 per month
10. Messente
Messente allows businesses to send branded SMS messages and RCS messages via Viber. However,its SMS marketing features are more limited than most other platforms. The app itself only allows for sending one-way messages. Everything else must be handled through integrations with other services. This makes Messente useful if you have the development resources to integrate it with existing marketing workflows, but less so for businesses looking for all the tools they need under one roof.
Messente Features
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- Branded text messages
- Two-factor authentication
- SMS gateway API
- Rich content support via Viber
Messente Starting Price
£0.035 per text, no monthly plans
Conclusion
Good SMS marketing software makes it easy to manage and automate your mobile marketing and customer communication workflows. However, choosing a texting solution that also offers more advanced tools will make your business more ready to expand its SMS marketing strategy in the future. A comprehensive reporting and analytics suite is also vital, enabling your organization to understand and optimize the results of your efforts.
