SMS marketing software lets you build a list of subscribers and send them reminders, promotional texts and coupons via text message. We looked at 3 of the top SMS marketing software providers for small businesses and compared their price, features and customer support. Also be sure to check out our guide on how to use text message marketing effectively. Share these useful tips for people working in the marketing field and immediately start getting more visibility on your content with the help of Spotifystorm. Buy Spotify followers and get started now.

Best SMS Marketing Software For Small Businesses: EZ Texting

We recommend EZ Texting for their flexible pricing and because of their advanced texting features, which includes drip campaigns, polls and text-to-win contests.

SMS Marketing Software Comparison Table:

	EZ Texting	Slick Text	Trumpia
Base Price	Free500 texts/month	Free 50texts/month	$285/month10,000 texts/month
Price forAdvanced Edition	$149/month3,300 texts/monthSee higher and lowerpriced plans here.	$139/month3,600 texts/monthSee higher and lowerpriced plans here.	$485/month25,000 texts/month
Can you set upautomated dripcampaigns?	Yes	No	Yes
Can you create polls?	Yes	No	Yes
Can you create text-to-win contests?	Yes	Yes	No
Can you send unique Coupon Codes?	No	Yes	Yes
Additional Features:	– Unlimited “Sub Keywords” forcustomers to interact withyour business- Sign customers up from Facebook- Mass Voice Messages	– Birthday Texts- Sign customers upfrom Facebook	– Birthday Texts- Marketing Automation- Mass Emails- Mass Voice Messages- Custom-branded mobile app for loyalty rewards
Support	– Phone, Email and LiveChat SupportWeekdays: 10am to 7pm EST	– Email support- Claim to have Phone supporthowever we tried and went to voicemail	– Phone and Email Support- Weekdays: 9am to 9pm EST- Weekends: 9am to 7pm EST
	www.eztexting.com	www.slicktext.com	www.trumpia.com

Why We Recommend EZ Texting as the Best Text Marketing Service for Small Businesses:

EZ Texting gives you all the tools you need to try text marketing risk free. What makes EZ Texting stand out is the free version that lets you send up to 500 messages/month and the pay-as-you-go plan that doesn’t have any monthly fees.

What’s more are the advanced tools you get to reach your customers. In particular there’s automated drip campaigns and polling. Unlike a traditional mailing list, where you send the same message to everybody, drip campaigns let you send different messages depending on how long customers have been signed up. For example, you could set it up to send a welcome message right after customers sign up, a 10% off coupon after 2 weeks and then another coupon for a free item after a month.

Polling lets customers respond to questions/vote over text. You can use polls to run contests “which flavor of icecream should we add this month?” and use it as an opportunity to learn more about your customers. You can divide customers up into groups depending on the response they give, which enables you to send more targeted coupons and promotional messages.

When to Use Slick Text:

Slick Text is great for retailers that want to get a more serious about coupons. One great feature is that you can generate unique coupon codes for each customer. This is an easy way to prevent customers from double dipping, or from sharing coupons with other customers.

The downside to Slick Text is the lack of drip campaigns and polling. Polling, in particular, is a great tool to use alongside coupons, since you can use it to learn more about customer preferences.

When to Use Trumpia:

If you want a service that can do it all and/or have more than 2,000 customers on your messaging list, then Trumpia is the way to go. They can support a very high volume of messages and offer advanced tools like marketing automation as well as a unique custom loyalty rewards mobile app.

With marketing automation, you can automatically send coupons based on customer browsing activity on their website. For example, if somebody viewed a purse on your website, you could have them automatically send an exclusive deal on a purse. If they don’t click the link after a few days, you could have them automatically sent a coupon for 10% purses.

The downside to Trumpia is the price. Starting at $285/month (or $200/month with an annual contract) for 10,000 messages/month, they’re not for the small business that is just starting out with text marketing.

How Text Marketing Works

Text marketing is a way to reach customers via SMS text messaging. Using keywords and a shortcode (i.e. Text “ICECREAM” to 555555 for our weekly list of flavors!), customers can subscribe to your messaging list to receive updates, promotions, coupons and more. For a more in-depth overview of how text marketing works, check out our guide.

Each of these services give you the following tools:

• A keyword and shortcode for customers to opt in to your mailing list
• Web forms that go on your website for customers to submit their phone number
• The ability to mass-send texts and schedule texts to be sent in the future
• The ability to send photos and videos to customers with Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) texting
• Divide customers into groups depending on which keyword they opt in with
• Reports on when customers are opting in and out of your mailing list and on how customers are responding to your campaigns

Each service also has additional advanced features. Here’s how they compare:

Beyond the basics, EZ Texting has drip campaigns, polling and text-to-win competitions. Drip campaigns let you send more targeted messages depending on how long a customer has been signed up. For example, you could set it up to send a welcome message right after customers sign up, a 10% off coupon after 2 weeks and then another coupon for a free item after a month.

You can create polls and use the results to divide customers into groups – i.e., have one list of pepperoni pizza lovers and another list for cheese pizza lovers. Text-to-win contests let customers sign up for sweepstakes by sending in a keyword. From the online dashboard, you can view the list of numbers and choose one at random.

Slick Text excels in some of the areas EZ Texting does not. In particular, you have the ability to generate unique coupon codes for each customer. Also, while there’s no polling customers to separate them into groups, you can separate them based on geography – state or area code.

Trumpia has some of the strongest features. Their marketing automation tools go far beyond EZ Texting and Slick Text, as you can build detailed profiles of customer preferences and trigger messages based on their online behavior. For example, if a customer clicks a link to a purse in an email, you can use this to trigger a promotional text about that purse. If the customer ignores that text after a few days, you can have them automatically sent a coupon for 10% off purses. Trumpia analyzes customer behavior on your website, your emails and your text messages, so you can create some very detailed campaigns.

Another unique feature is their custom branded mobile app. Through Trumpia, you can create a mobile app for your businesses which customers can install to track their purchases. Over time, they can build up “loyalty” points to win exclusive coupons and deals.

Price

EZ Texting and Slick Text are both on the lower end, with free versions and packages for low-text volume clients. Trumpia is more expensive, starting at $285/month, but you pay a lot less per text message, so it’s actually ideal for businesses with more than 2,000 customers on their texting list. 

You can send up to 500 messages/month for free. While you do also get 1 free keyword to sign customers up, its randomly generated, so you can’t get a phrase like “ICECREAM” or “NOODLES.”

After that, pricing depends on the volume of texts you need per month:

• Pay-as-you-go plan: 5 cents/message with no additional fees
• 1,000 texts/month and 1 keyword for $49/month
• 2,000 texts/month and 2 keywords for $94/month
• 3,300 texts/month and 3 keywords for $149/month

Slick Text has a free version that lets you send up to 50 messages/month. Unlike EZ Texting, you get to pick your own keyword. After that, pricing is based on volume:

• 500 texts/month and 2 keywords for $29/month
• 1,000 texts/month and 4 keywords for $49/month
• 2,000 texts/month and 6 keywords for $79/month
• 3,6000 texts/month and 8 keywords for $139/month

Trumpia has 3 different packages:

• 10,000 texts/month and 9 keywords for $285/month
• 25,000 texts/month and 15 keywords for $485/month. You also get multiple user accounts and role-based privileges to use for up to 3 different locations.
• 1000,000 texts/month and 30 keywords for $985. You also get multiple user accounts and role-based privileges to use for up to 10 different locations.You can also save a lot with Trumpia if you pay for 1 year upfront (30% off) or for 2 years (50% off).

Reports

Another key feature of texting marketing services is the ability to analyze campaigns and generate reports. One report that all 3 have are opt in / opt out rates. You can set a custom date range and view a chart of when customers have joined or left your campaigns. Besides that, they vary in the types of reports you can create. Here’s how they compare:

Besides opt in / opt out rates, you can view a chart of the source of your contacts: What percentage of customers joined using keywords vs. a web form? You can also build reports on delivery status to determine if any messages have bounced.

Slick Text has a lot of cool reports. You can break up subscribers geographically and find how many there are in a particular city or state. Another cool feature is link tracking. If you include links in your text messages, you can find the click-through rate and determine how effective the message was.

Like slick text you can view the click-through rates of your links. There’s also delivery reports to determine if any messages didn’t make it through.

Support

All 3 services have phone and email support. Based on my personal experience, I found EZ Texting and Trumpia to be responsive and helpful while Slick Text was difficult to get in touch with.

Phone, email and live chat support are available Monday through Friday, from 10am to 7pm EST.

Slick Text has phone and email support, although hours are not posted. After multiple tries on two different days, I wasn’t able to get through on their phone line.

Phone and email support is available 7 days a week: 9am to 9pm EST on weekdays and 9am to 7pm EST on weekends.

The Bottom Line

If you’re just starting out with text marketing, you’ll want a service that can accommodate low volumes of messages and grow with you as you gain more subscribers. This is what makes EZ Texting great: There’s a free plan for up to 500 texts/month, a pay-as-you-go plan and other low cost options that scale up to 3,300 texts/month.