With an average open rate of 98% compared to roughly 20% for emails, the best marketing text messages have the potential to make a big impact on your marketing ROI. If you’re on board with the idea of SMS marketing, but need a little inspiration, check out these 10 examples of great SMS marketing. From software to clothing to the stock exchange, SMS marketing can be an important channel to add to your greater marketing strategy in any industry.

1. Text4Baby  

This one might be our absolute best SMS marketing example. It shows the power of content to build positive brand perception. Text4Baby provides updates and resources for families expecting a child. A few times a week, the service sends links to content, pregnancy milestones, and advice on staying healthy.

Sponsored by a coalition of mobile service providers, Text4Baby is a classic content marketing play. The focus is on providing something useful to the customer for its own sake, not on a transaction. However, the sign-up process and the Text4Baby website make clear that the service receives sponsorship from major mobile networks (T-Mobile, AT&T, Virgin, etc.). As a result, the unrelated service extends its brand halo to the customer’s cell phone provider. Brilliant!

2. Urban Outfitters 

Integrate a chatbot with your SMS marketing and watch the sales flow in!

Clothing retailer Urban Outfitters uses SMS messaging to connect customers with the UO ChatBot. Through a series of message options, it’s possible to check the status of an order, find out more about their returns and exchange policies, and connect with a customer service agent for more complex inquiries.

3. JUDY 

Some of the best SMS marketing examples integrate chatbots into the experience for real-time customer help.

JUDY supplies a range of emergency products, from ready-to-go survival kits to portable power stations, first aid essentials, and more. Sign up for their SMS alerts, and they’ll send you promotional and personalized SMS messages. Their chatbot will also reply to messages asking about disaster preparation, what to include in an emergency kit, and how to prepare if you and your family find yourselves in a real-time emergency. 

4. Microsoft

Microsoft 365 allows users to sign up for text alerts for lists and list alerts. It’s a great example of a use case for SMS in customer marketing, because Microsoft is using hyper-personalized SMS to help embed their product. Using the immediacy of SMS, Microsoft 365 is improving adoption, and providing a supportive, helpful push toward achievement, whether it’s a business, family, or student using their products. 

5. CVS Pharmacy

You’ll notice we don’t have an image for this one. And there’s good reason for that: CVS Pharmacy uses text messages to update customers on important personal medical information. So any example we picked would end up looking like a heavily redacted government document by the time we scrubbed it.

CVS customers can refill prescriptions, view resources on the medications they take (including videos), and communicate with their pharmacist…all simply by replying to automated SMS messages. Now that’s what we call a great customer experience!

6. Eagle Investors Stock Alert  

Have timely alerts to provide for customers? SMS marketing is the perfect channel for that!

Keeping up to date with the stock market can make trading more profitable, but it’s not always easy to follow those significant changes. With Eagle Investors real-time stock alerts, traders can stay in control of investments and options. The investment firm builds brand affinity by offering the chance to join a global community of traders who share their knowledge. 

7. Jenna Kutcher 

SMS marketing is a great way to solicit user-generated responses from your most engaged customers.

Marketing entrepreneur and beloved host of the Goal Digger podcast, Jenna Kutcher, has an SMS marketing program that nurtures her community with weekly inspirational messages, questions, and links to courses, podcast episodes, and more.  

8. Divi 

SMS marketing can keep customers updated on the status of popular products.

Divi is a health and wellness company from Instagram influencer Dani Austin. The beauty brand uses SMS marketing to launch new hair care products. Subscribers to their SMS alerts have the opportunity to purchase products on a pre-release basis, a tactic that proved so popular that their new Scalp Serum sold out in record time. 

9. Act-On 

We’re not afraid to make our own SMS marketing example on one of our lists, because the results speak for themselves!

One of our favorite examples is our own implementation of SMS marketing to improve webinar registrations and attendance, because it’s working. In fact, the attendance rate for our webinars grew by 80% after we implemented day-before and day-of reminders via SMS. Engagement also increased, because it’s personalized and convenient to learn about marketing and sales topics of all kinds. B2B SMS marketing can clearly be an important addition to your marketing efforts. 

10. USA Today, The

Short List 

Sometimes the news cycle can feel a little overwhelming, so with The Short List*, USA Today editor Ashley Shaffer sends out an SMS with the day’s most popular stories, condensed into a super-speedy format. If recipients want more, they can click through to the USA Today website, and get the full roundup of the day’s most popular news. 

This SMS marketing example from USA Today shows some of the required steps to signing someone up for text advertising.

We consider this one of the best marketing text messages we’ve seen because of how well it communicates the voice of the brand in such a short space. USA Today first became famous for its pithy, to-the-point style for readers on the move. This SMS example captures it perfectly.