Picture the business this guide is written for: a plumber, a dental office, a roofing company or a two-location gym, with a few hundred customers and leads on the list, a "campaign" that is whatever came in this week, and the person reading the replies also up on the ladder. Not a retailer with a promo calendar. This guide covers text marketing for that kind of business: what to set up before the first message, what to send, how often, how to handle the replies that come back, and what it costs.
Texting is a regulated channel. Nothing here is legal advice; talk to counsel about your own program. What follows is product and operating guidance.
What text marketing means for a small business
There are two kinds of business texting. This guide sets up the second one first.
Broadcast texting is the classic text message marketing: one message to many opted-in subscribers, such as an offer or an announcement. A restaurant's weekly special or a salon's open slots are the typical examples.
Conversational texting is one-to-one: a lead texts in from an ad or a missed call, a customer asks whether you are open Saturday, a prospect replies to a quote. The message that matters is the reply, and replies arrive while everyone is working. For a service business this is the part this guide spends the most time on.
Plan for both, and build the second first, so that the replies a broadcast produces have somewhere to go.
Before the first text: consent, the number, registration
Three things need to be in place before any marketing text goes out.
Consent. In the United States, marketing texts sit under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and the industry's own rules for business texting are set out in CTIA's Messaging Principles and Best Practices, updated May 2023. In practice that means a clear opt-in that says what the person is agreeing to receive, kept with a timestamp, and an opt-out that works every time. Keep the record; the guide to SMS consent records covers what to capture and why.
The number. Texting from a personal cell gives you no shared inbox, no record, and no way to hand a thread to someone else. Use a business number that can text, whether a local 10-digit number or a toll-free one, and keep every conversation on it.
Registration. Business texts from a standard local number go through A2P 10DLC, the carriers' registration system for application-to-person messaging. Unregistered traffic is subject to filtering. What is 10DLC explains brand and campaign registration, what it costs, and why registrations get rejected; why texts are not delivering covers what filtering looks like from your side.
Put all three on the setup list before the first message.
What to send: five texts that earn their place
Think of text marketing for a small business as useful messages that happen to arrive by text. In the order this guide sets them up:
- 01Replies to inquiries. The lead who texted "do you do water heaters?" at 7:40 pm. Reply within minutes; the speed to lead guide covers the research on response timing and names its sources.
- 02Appointment confirmations and reminders. A confirmation when the slot is booked, a reminder the day before, and a way to reschedule by reply. Start here, because these are messages tied to something the customer already booked.
- 03Follow-ups on open quotes and conversations. The "let me talk to my wife" lead from Tuesday. Responsive follow-up, tied to what the person actually said, is covered in AI lead follow up.
- 04Missed-call recovery. A text back right after an unanswered call, so the caller has a thread to reply to. See missed call text back.
- 05Occasional offers and announcements. The broadcast. Seasonal service, a new location, a slow-week opening. Keep it rare and specific.
Give every text something for the reader to do: confirm, reply, pick a time, ask a question.
How often to text, and when to stop
Set frequency separately for broadcasts and for conversations.
For broadcasts, tell people what they signed up for and keep to it. Someone who opted in for appointment reminders did not opt in for a Tuesday promo. If you want a promo list, build it as its own opt-in.
For conversations, the cadence follows the conversation. A lead who asked for a call after the 15th gets a text after the 15th, about that, and nothing in between. A quote with no reply gets a small number of front-loaded touches that taper off, then stops. The research on how many touches to make, with its sources, is in the follow-up guide.
Opt-out is the hard rule. Standard STOP handling is the baseline, and CTIA's guidelines call for honoring plain-language requests such as "unsubscribe" or "please stop texting me." The FCC's February 2024 order on consent revocation requires that a revocation be accepted in any reasonable manner and processed within a reasonable time not exceeding 10 business days. When someone asks you to stop, every automation on your side has to stop too.
Replies are the point
Here is the other half of the work. Once texts go out, plan for texts coming back: at lunch, after close, on a Saturday during a game. Decide in advance who answers at each of those times.
Three ways to handle it:
- -A person on the inbox. Set the hours they cover, and write down what happens to a text that arrives outside them.
- -Canned auto-replies. "Thanks for your message, we will get back to you." This acknowledges receipt and does not answer the question, so pair it with a plan for the real answer.
- -An AI texting agent. Software that reads the message, answers from information the business approved, asks the qualifying questions the business set, books a time on a real calendar, and hands the thread to a person with a summary when a person should take over. The reply draws on the approved information and the thread, and the handoff carries a summary.
Whichever you choose, measure the gap between a text arriving and a real answer going out, and set a target for it.
What text message marketing costs a small business
Costs come in four parts.
The fourth line is yours to estimate. If the platform leaves every reply to a person, count that time in the total. Price the whole loop: send, receive, answer, book.
How to measure it
Skip open rates; SMS has no open signal to measure. Track four numbers instead:
- 01Reply rate per message type, compared within the type rather than overall, since a reminder and an offer ask for different things.
- 02Time to first real answer on inbound texts, measured in minutes, including nights and weekends.
- 03Appointments booked by text, and how many of those showed up.
- 04Opt-out rate per broadcast. Review frequency and content when it rises.
Review them monthly, and judge the broadcasts separately from the reminders and replies, since they do different jobs.
Where Kai fits
Kai is FromKai's AI texting agent, built for the conversational side of text marketing. Kai responds to inbound texts, follows up on the thread rather than on a fixed drip, asks the qualifying questions the business defines, answers from company-approved knowledge, schedules appointments on a real calendar, and hands the conversation to a human with a summary when it should. The broadcast tools are yours to choose; Kai handles what comes back.
If you want to see it before you set anything up, text Kai's main line at (878) 7TXT-KAI, (878) 789-8524, and ask it something a customer would ask.
Frequently asked questions
What is text marketing for a small business?
Text marketing for a small business is using SMS to reach customers and leads: broadcast messages such as offers and announcements to people who opted in, and one-to-one conversations such as replying to inquiries, confirming appointments and following up on quotes. This guide sets up the one-to-one side first, because those messages answer something the customer sent or booked.
Do I need consent to send marketing texts?
Yes. Marketing texts in the United States fall under the TCPA, and CTIA's Messaging Principles and Best Practices (May 2023) describe the expected consent and opt-out handling. Get a clear opt-in that says what the person will receive, keep a timestamped record of it, and honor opt-out requests immediately. Talk to counsel about your specific program; this is operating guidance, not legal advice.
Can I run text marketing from my personal cell phone?
You can, but a personal phone gives you no shared inbox, no record anyone else can see, and no way to hand a thread to someone else. Use a business number that can text, register it for A2P 10DLC if it is a standard local number, and keep every conversation on that number.
How often should a small business send marketing texts?
Send broadcasts rarely and only what people opted in for, such as a seasonal offer or a real announcement. Conversational texts follow the conversation: reply fast, follow up on the timeline the person gave you, and stop after a small number of unanswered touches. Any opt-out request stops everything.
How much does SMS marketing cost for a small business?
Four parts: the platform's monthly fee, per-message carrier and platform fees that scale with volume and message length, 10DLC registration fees, and the time someone spends answering replies. Include the last part when you compare options, and price the whole loop: send, receive, answer and book.
Sources: CTIA, Messaging Principles and Best Practices, May 2023. Federal Communications Commission, TCPA consent revocation Report and Order, February 2024. Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227. The Campaign Registry, A2P 10DLC registration documentation. Research on response timing and follow-up cadence is cited, with sources, in the linked FromKai guides.