Best SMS Marketing Platforms

SMS marketing is the act of running marketing campaigns through text messaging. Companies can send a quick message about sales, new products, or even customer-service-based messages to their loyal customers. 

Why is SMS marketing taking off? Because it’s convenient for customers and effective for companies. In fact, it can compete with the ease and impact of email marketing. 

While email marketing is essential to any business, SMS marketing can be cheaper and potentially even more effective. Customers who accept your texts are invested and engaged with your brand, so they’re primed to convert. The conversion rates of B2C text messages are high, and the responses are almost immediate. 

Furthermore, you can save time by scheduling out your SMS messaging in advance. By nature, texts are made of short copy. You can send the same simple copy to a large group of contacts instantly. Best of all, your texts are received immediately and are unlikely to be filtered as spam. 

You won’t pay aggressively high fees, either. There are plenty of SMS marketing platforms competing for your business. Moderately sized businesses that need powerful features should expect to pay $40 to $50 a month. Meanwhile, enterprise-level companies commonly pay around $1,000 per month because of their larger audiences. 

Some platforms also have a pay-as-you-go option or a basic plan priced around $20 per month. However, those may not have the features you need to support your business. Make sure you choose a platform and plan that actually meets your needs. ‌

If you’re considering SMS marketing, you have probably realized there are many platforms to choose from. These six platforms are excellent solutions for larger businesses. 

Attentive

Price: Starting at $299 USD per company per month

‌Major features: 

• ‌Built in sign-up units to collect phone numbers via desktop, mobile, social media, email, and even in brick-and-mortar stores

• Personalization settings to segment data

• Fast and flexible reporting to help with optimization

Attentive is a comprehensive SMS marketing service that allows you to drive revenue right from text messaging. There are options for SMS personalization, optimization, and more. Attentive works hard to help the customer as much as possible with support, check-ins, and a plethora of resources. Customers are also known to see an increase in open rates, click-through rates, and ROI. 

The service easily integrates with your tech stack, whether your eCommerce store uses Shopify or Salesforce. Attentive also connects with email service providers such as Mailchimp and Klaviyo, allowing you to combine email and SMS marketing seamlessly.

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Yotpo

Price: Plans start at $29/month

‌Major features:

• ‌Advanced automated flows

• ‌Two-way communication

• ‌Subscriber segmentation

Yotpo is an in-depth eCommerce support service with a robust SMS marketing service. You can segment customers based on everything from location to the amount they’ve spent at your business. You can also design advanced, automated text flows that will be sent when the platform identifies certain behaviors in a customer. ‌

The Yotpo platform can be integrated with many other eCommerce services, including Shopify and BigCommerce. You can notify your audience about product drops, sales, promos, and discounts directly. It’s a great choice if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution. Just note that the cost of plans increases dramatically as you add new features. ‌

Yotpo.com

Avochato 

Price: Plans start at $19 per month, custom for enterprise

‌Major features:

• ‌Two-way communication

• ‌Tag-based segmentation

• ‌Easy surveys

Avochato is a sleek SMS marketing platform that’s focused on letting companies communicate with customers through SMS. It prioritizes live text-based chats with customers by allowing you to respond to texts through a web-based shared inbox. It also makes text-based surveys simple, increasing the amount of information you can learn from your audience. 

The Avochato platform is excellent for companies that prioritize responsiveness. However, it focuses slightly less on campaigns and automation than other platforms. ‌

Avochato.com

Klaviyo 

Price: Free for the first 50 contacts or 150 messages, then pay per contact

‌Major features:

• ‌Advanced automation

• ‌Integrates email with SMS marketing

• ‌Images in texts

Klaviyo is an all-in-one marketing solution with advanced segmentation, automation, and analysis tools. The SMS marketing service is free to use until you expand beyond your initial 50 contacts or 150 monthly messages. From there, you pay for what you need. 

It’s easy to design in-depth automated messaging flows with the sleek visual builder. Your SMS campaigns can include images, unlike many other services. You can even include emails in your flow alongside texts for a comprehensive marketing program. 

If you want a single solution for all your eCommerce SMS marketing, Klaviyo is an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes. You’ll never risk paying for more services than you actually need.

Klaviyo.com

HeyMarket 

Price: Plans range from $49 to $200 per month, with custom enterprise pricing

‌Major features:

• ‌Instagram and Facebook integrations

• ‌Chat assignments

• ‌Shared inboxes

‌If your business uses Facebook messaging along with text marketing, HeyMarket is a great tool. It allows you to send Facebook messages alongside traditional SMS to reach your audience on their preferred platform. ‌

The online HeyMarket platform allows multiple people to respond to a message through a shared inbox. It also lets your team assign messages to themselves to keep conversations consistent. If you’re heavily reliant on Facebook, HeyMarket can help. Just note that the plans are more expensive than alternative services.

Heymarket.com

Start SMS Marketing Your eCommerce Business Today

SMS marketing is efficient, cost-effective, and accessible. Customers almost always have their phones nearby. With the right SMS marketing service, you can contact your customers instantly and make the most of their phone habits. Start your text marketing efforts today and see the difference that a friendly text can do for your company.