Craft the Perfect Marketing SMS - Content Writing Tips

The perfect SMS marketing strategy hinges on several factors—the right incentives, timing, a strong subscriber list … but all such tactical elements fall short if you don’t write the right content. Your text messages should be an extension of your brand voice and speak directly to your audiences, meaning that there is no one-size-fits-all SMS template to follow. However, Voxie has compiled copywriting tips to help you craft your SMS marketing content with intention and impact.

How to Write SMS Content for Marketing — Basic Tips

Ideal SMS Content-Length

The ideal character count for your text message is not a fixed number, but a set of criteria. The goal is to write your SMS marketing as short as possible without sacrificing clarity or readability. Consider what information is necessary or helpful—such as the end date of a promotion or the address of an appointment—versus what is superfluous. Your SMS marketing content should be long enough to include:

• The core value of the offer, such as a discount percentage or BOGO deal
• Brief details that enhance the perceived value, such as highlighting specific products
• Any restrictions, including expiration dates or usage limits
• A clear call-to-action, ideally with a link for easy access

Remember, the more content you include in your marketing SMS, the more likely people will scan it rather than read it, causing valuable information to get lost.

Choose Clarity Over Cleverness

News flash—your SMS marketing content should not be a riddle. While a touch of humor or cuteness is permissible, make sure it doesn’t detract from the underlying message you’re trying to convey. To be safe, place any jokes at the end of your SMS content or forego the humor entirely.

Write to Create Excitement and Urgency

SMS outperforms email and other marketing channels for limited-time offers. Make the most of it by crafting messages that spark urgency or excitement. Examples of phrases that can elicit such emotional responses include:

• Final hours
• Final call
• Limited supply
• Limited time
• Exclusive offer
• Today only
• Ends soon
• Don’t wait
• Last chance
• Countdown
• Save big
• Nearly gone
• Last chance
• Hurry
• Act now

The ART of All-Caps

Think of all-caps like an exclamation point—when used sparingly, it makes a strong impact. However, if you overdo it, the effect is diluted and the text reads like you’re SHOUTING EVERY SINGLE WORD. Therefore, limit yourself to 2-3 words in all caps and think about which points you want to emphasize. Many brands choose to emphasize many of the urgency-inducing phrases mentioned above, such as LAST CHANCE or TODAY ONLY.

Importantly, consider both the pros and cons of using all-caps in your SMS marketing content. While all-caps can create emphasis, this writing tactic can also make your message feel aggressive or overly promotional, even if used selectively. On the other hand, sentence-case text tends to feel more conversational and approachable. There’s a time and place for both approaches.

If Featuring Emojis, Use a Light Touch

A strategically chosen emoji can positively impact the readability of your SMS marketing content; not only can it visually draw the eye to the most important parts, but also reinforce the tone.

However, it’s important to remember:

• Not everyone likes emojis
• If done in excess, it can interrupt the overall flow
• It adds a sense of levity and playfulness which may not always be appropriate

Therefore, consider your primary audiences’ preferences when you’re crafting the SMS content. For instance, Gen Z and millennials tend to be much more open to text emojis than their older counterparts. Also, reflect upon whether the emojis align with your brand identity, as cute icons could cheapen high-end products, such as fine dining or an expensive jewelry brand.

Above all else, never use emojis in the middle of sentences or as substitutes for words. To be safe, limit your SMS marketing content to two emojis, or three if used consecutively.

Examples of how NOT to use emojis in SMS marketing content

Happy Birthday 🎂 Susan, from Royal Boucherie! To celebrate, enjoy a complimentary bottle of 🍷 on us during your visit. Book your reservation today and let us make your special day unforgettable. 🥳Cheers to you! 🪇

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Hi Paul 👋Just a quick reminder about your tour of Keystone Meadows Senior Living on 10/10/24 at 9:30 AM. Please check in at the reception desk upon arrival. If you need to reschedule, feel free to call us at 444-901-5891 📲 Looking forward to 🤝you!

Examples of how to CORRECTLY use emojis in SMS marketing content

Happy Birthday from Two Dog Sweet Treat! 🎉 To celebrate, enjoy a FREE smoothie on us! Swing by anytime today and treat yourself to something sweet.

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Hi Alex, this is a friendly reminder of your upcoming massage appointment at Infinity Massages on 10/10/24 at 9:30 AM. We look forward to helping you relax and unwind. ☺️🌳🎶

Bonus Tips to Improve Your SMS Content Writing

• Keep paragraphs short and use line breaks to enhance digestibility
• Embrace a down-to-earth, relatable tone
• Create firm voice guidelines for SMS content to ensure overall brand consistency
• Don’t assume all recipients understand abbreviations
• When in doubt, consult with your marketing personas
• Subscribe to competitors’ SMS lists to learn from their successes and mistakes
• Vary the format of your SMS messages to keep things fresh, as sending the same style repeatedly can lead to subscriber fatigue
• Remember, compliance with TCPA regulations is a nonnegotiable

Automated Personalization — The Secret for Taking SMS Content From Good to Great

Personalizing SMS marketing content is a topic worthy of its own article … which is why we wrote one! We encourage you to dive deeper with Personalized SMS Marketing – Maximizing its Potential in 2025, but the main takeaways include:

• Opportunities to personalize SMS marketing content are much more advanced than merely stating the recipient’s name - In the article, we showcase personalization examples such as customizing messages based on location or weather, referencing past purchases or interests, and sending well-timed birthday greetings, among others.
• Personalization can go hand-in-hand with SMS drip campaigns for an even more curated content marketing experience - Let’s say you have a prospective customer who expressed interest in a service with a longer sales cycle, indicating that they’d benefit from well-timed lead nurturing content. In this scenario, a sophisticated SMS drip campaign could improve your ability to deliver the right marketing content at the right time.
• The right technology is essential to personalizing SMS marketing content at scale - Your SMS platform should smoothly integrate with other tools within your tech stack to enable real-time information sharing. Additionally, your SMS software should track and extract information from individual recipient interactions, like link clicks or 2-way text conversations. Ultimately, these insights can help automate and personalize future communications.

Segment Audiences to Write More Targeted SMS Marketing Content

Amateur marketers often try to write SMS content that appeals to wide audiences, but the pros know that trying to reach everyone means targeting no one. Therefore, set yourself up for success by creating sub-groups within your SMS subscriber lists. These can be based on:

• Preferred store location
• Purchase frequency
• Known product preferences
• Content and deal preferences
• Loyalty program status
• Known demographic data

There are numerous ways you can collect the necessary information to classify subscribers correctly. Common tactics include integrating your CRM and SMS platform, as well as sending out surveys and automating groupings based on responses.

Creating sub-classifications not only gives you control over who receives which marketing messages, but also provides valuable insights that help make SMS content you write more applicable.

SMS Content Short-Cut: Marketing AI That Knows Your Brand Voice

The idiom “works smarter, not harder” is the linchpin to efficiently scaling marketing. To assist, Voxie created the Quick Blast AI Message Assistant, complimentary within our SMS platform. Here’s what you need to know:

• Quick Blast AI Message Assistant shapes content in direct alignment to your brand voice. By providing the tool with details about your audience, product or service, overall messaging style, and SMS marketing goals, the AI generates texts that feel highly personalized rather than the generic messages other tools may produce.
• Purpose-driven AI makes all the difference. Chances are, Voxie won’t be the first AI you’ll encounter as a marketer. However, if you compare a general-purpose tool like ChatGPT to one designed for a specific task, the contrast is striking. The generated SMS marketing content will align more closely with industry best practices, reflecting your brand’s unique tone while avoiding the withdrawn and overused vocabulary often associated with AI.

MMS – When and How to Include Other Media in Text Marketing

SMS is commonly used as a “catch-all” expression for all text message marketing. MMS—Multimedia Messaging Service—expands on SMS by allowing more characters and supporting images, GIFs, videos, audio files, and more. Most text marketing platforms like Voxie enable both SMS and MMS content.

So how should media factor into your promotional text messages? This is a topic we explore in great detail with our guide Leveraging MMS in Marketing (With Examples) - How & Why. However, to summarize key points:

• Because MMS costs more than SMS, many brands deploy it tactically to maximize the ROI. Examples of appropriate MMS use cases include big announcements or introducing new products. “Routine” text communications like a weekly discount code may not be as worthy of highlighting with a visual element.
• Use high-quality marketing graphics that underscore your brand. A high number of brands choose to send stock images or nondescript holiday banners, resulting in visuals that do little to enhance the content. Instead, invest in strong visual content that puts your brand in the best light and elicits a strong emotional reaction—hunger, wanderlust, excitement, etc.
• A/B test different visual subject matters and layouts. As explored in the above-mentioned article, the media can be pure imagery or can combine graphics with text. You might discover through testing that some types of media resonate more with MMS recipients than others. For instance, if you’re marketing for a coffee franchise, you may find that visuals of people enjoying your beverages drive higher engagement than images featuring the drinks alone.

Find Inspiration For SMS Beyond Promo Codes

For many brands, the vast majority of their SMS marketing content relates to texted promo codes, and for good reason: they provide clear value to recipients, allow for easy tracking, and can directly contribute to profits. However, don’t limit your SMS content to exclusively such deals. As detailed in 9 Creative Marketing Text Message (SMS) Ideas & Examples, other marketing uses for SMS content include:

• Reclaiming abandoned cart customers
• Launch giveaways and contests
• Increase online reviews
• Promote your referral program
• Bring awareness to content marketing

Let Data Drive Your SMS Marketing Content Approach

The hard truth is that not every marketing SMS you write will lead to major marketing wins. However, even underwhelming response rates can provide value, as it provides fresh data into what your text subscribers do and don’t like. However, such intel is only helpful if properly analyzed and leveraged. Therefore, formalize a process in which you:

1. Define your SMS marketing content goals
2. Establish that you have tracking in place through tools like Voxie
3. Confirm the desired action text recipients should take
4. Determine which groups of subscribers should receive the message
5. Write the SMS content and send, including the desired CTA
6. Analyze performance, either through A/B testing or comparison to other campaigns
7. Form hypotheses based on the performance analysis
8. Craft new SMS content in response to the hypothesis to verify or disprove it

When analyzing your SMS campaigns and forming theories in response, consider more than just the content—factors like timing, incentives, and audience segmentation all play a role in the success (or lack thereof) of your SMS marketing.

If You Have Multiple Writers, Reinforce Brand Guidelines With Tech-Based Guardrails

As a company grows, SMS content writing often expands beyond a single person—whether it’s junior marketers, franchisees, or other team members. Tools like Voxie help brands maintain a consistent voice with features like pre-built templates and structured approval workflows. This ensures SMS content marketing stays on-brand, no matter who’s writing it.

Other practical SMS capabilities from Voxie include:

• Customizable user permissions
• Quick blast (one-to-many) text marketing campaigns
• Conversational AI
• Two-way texting for customer support
• Message templates
• Behavioral triggers
• Deep audience segmentation
• Location-specific analytics
• Compliance and security safeguards
• Versatile tech integration capabilities
• Advanced drip campaigns
• Quick Blast AI Message Assistant

To learn about how Voxie can help grow your customer engagement and drive more sales through tactical SMS deployment, request a demo below.