It’s amazing how often marketers accept being ignored and rely on truly lousy techniques to acquire customers.
- Display ads? Microscopic click-through-rates.
- Print ads? There’s a growth platform for you.
- Social? Great job getting all those likes. Now pay up to reach them.
Years ago, marketers realized the value of 1st party data and an owned audience, and committed to bulking up newsletter offerings. That’s great, except open rates on email are an average of 20%. Building a business on an 80% “ignore you” rate is hard.
Thankfully, the cheat code has arrived. It actually came in 1992 when the first SMS was sent. Today, it’s the most powerful marketing platform on earth.
After all, 98% of people text, and best of all, they’re almost always seen within a minute or two. It’s not just a random stat: When was the last time you ignored a text from someone? What’s more, people normally feel a small sense of joy when the phone makes that dinging sound because the message is usually from friends, family, or someone/something they love.
The challenge is, for any marketer, the vital importance of doing it well. If you don’t, you’ll annoy people you’re trying to influence. Anyone who has donated to a political candidate can vouch for that. But when done right? There’s no greater tool. You can see the engagement and retention on phenomenal campaigns like the Good Vibes Messenger from Starbucks, Carly Rae Jepsen bringing fans along with her to Coachella, and a truly brilliant approach the New York Times took to acquire mid-funnel interest in the premium cooking section.
The SMS Landmines
Text is easy to do but hard to do well, and unknowing mistakes can add up in ways marketers don’t expect. Most texting platforms charge by something called a “message segment,” a confusing standard that isn’t what most would consider a text. Message segments are composed of character count, images, or other creative assets like emojis and GIFs. For example, one message that includes 159 characters but includes one emoji would be charged as 2 message segments. If it were 161, it would be three, and you can see how it can get expensive. So, how do you avoid those landmines?
At Subtext, we work with Twilio, and this is how Twilio describes message segments, but every platform measures it that way. For that reason, if you choose to dive into SMS, consider putting a draft of every text into a Message Segment Calculator to be sure you don’t make potentially expensive mistakes.
It’s because of these landmines that we at Subtext offer what I think of as “all-inclusive” pricing that isn’t measured by segments. Our approach provides flexibility and simplifies predictable budgeting for marketers.
How To Prepare For SMS Budgeting
Generally, with pricing, a marketer should always ask questions like these when seeking a solution:
- What is the price per message segment, not “per text”? Text is a more generic term (like ‘hits’ was in measuring early web traffic), but message segment is what will determine the ultimate costs.
- Is there two-way communication with the audience? Seek that out, because when someone signs up for a text, they are inviting the marketer into their lives on the most intimate platform. Leverage it and build a relationship, not just an opportunity to send transactional links.
- If there is two-way communication, are inbound messages segments paid for by you?
These are important questions to ask, because while SMS is massively effective, you don’t want to use it incorrectly and suddenly have big bills to pay.
In 1992, the first text read “Merry Christmas.” In 2025, consider SMS a gift to every marketer wishing there was a better way to connect with their audience.
