Text marketing is how you reach customers where they actually look, which is their phone. A text gets read within three minutes. An email gets read in three hours, if it gets read at all. For a service business, the difference between a text and an email is the difference between a booked job and a lost lead.
4 of 7 · 11 stepsText your customers from a registered business number, only to people who opted in, with one clear ask per message and an opt out on every text. Send it within an hour of the trigger, follow up once, and track which texts book jobs. Texting beats email when you follow the rules.
This is general information, not legal advice. Rules vary by state.
A text gets read in minutes. An email gets read in hours, if it gets read at all. For a service business, the difference between a text and an email is the difference between a booked job and a lost lead.
Texting is regulated. You need consent, an opt out, and quiet hours. The businesses that follow the rules get a channel that outperforms email. The ones that skip them get fined per message.
Do not text anyone who did not ask you to. Put a checkbox on your website form that says they agree to receive texts. Keep a record of when they checked it. If you text someone who did not consent, you can be fined hundreds of dollars per text under the TCPA. Consent is not a formality. It is the law. Get it in writing and keep the record.
A customer books a tune up on your site. They check the box agreeing to texts. Two days later you text a reminder and it is legal because they said yes. Without the checkbox, that same text is a TCPA violation.
Opt in checkbox for a web form
[ ] I agree to receive text messages from {Company Name} at the number I provided. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out at any time.Before you send a single marketing text, complete A2P 10DLC registration with the carriers. You provide your business tax ID, your business name, and a description of what you will text. The carriers review it and approve your campaign. This takes a couple of weeks. Without it, your texts get blocked or delivered to spam. Start it the day you decide to use texting, not the day you want to send your first campaign.
You start registration the day you sign up. Two weeks later it clears and your texts deliver. If you skip it, your first campaign gets filtered as spam and nobody sees it.
A text is not an email. Keep it under 160 characters, with one clear point and one clear next step. One ask, one link. If it takes two texts to say it, it is too long. One message, one ask.
Good: 'Hi Maria, it is Brad with Valley Plumbing. Time for your water heater flush? Book here: [link].' Bad: 'Dear valued customer, we are pleased to offer...' Nobody reads the second one.
Do not blast the same text to every customer. Send the AC tune up reminder to people whose AC is over five years old. Send the roof inspection reminder to people you did a roof for three years ago. Send the maintenance offer to past customers, not to leads who never bought. A relevant text gets a reply. A generic blast gets an opt out. Segment by what you did for them and when.
You text the AC tune up offer only to homes with an AC over five years old. Fifteen people book. The same offer sent to everyone gets opt outs and no bookings.
Send marketing texts during business hours, not at 9 PM. The rules say no texts before 8 AM or after 8 PM in the customer's time zone. A text at 9 PM is a complaint and an opt out. A text at 10 AM on a Tuesday gets a booking. Set your sending window and stick to it. If you serve multiple time zones, send by the customer's time zone, not yours.
A reminder sent at 10 AM on a Tuesday gets a booking. The same text sent at 9 PM gets an opt out and a complaint. The message is the same. The time is the difference.
Every marketing text must include a way to opt out, usually 'Reply STOP to opt out.' If a customer replies STOP, your system must remove them instantly. If you keep texting them after they opted out, you are violating the law. Set up the opt out handling once and it runs automatically. Do not send a campaign without it.
A customer replies STOP. Your system removes them instantly. If it does not, and you text them again next month, that is a violation. The opt out has to work every time.
Set up automated texts for the things your customers need on a schedule. AC tune ups in spring, furnace checks in fall, roof inspections before storm season, sprinkler blowouts before winter. These go out automatically based on the last service date, so you do not have to remember to send them. Seasonal reminders are recurring revenue from customers you already have.
Every spring, your AC customers get a tune up text. Every fall, furnace customers get a check text. They book without you lifting a finger, because the reminder fired on its own.
Let customers reply to your texts and have a person or an AI respond. If they text back a question and nobody answers, you lose the lead. If the reply goes to a real conversation, you book the job. A text that is one way is a broadcast. A text that is two way is a sales channel. Make it two way or you are wasting it.
A customer texts back 'how much for a diagnostic?' If you answer in two minutes, you book it. If you answer tomorrow, they already called the next shop.
Track how many people opt out of your texts. If your opt out rate is over 1 percent, your messages are too frequent or too generic. If it is under 1 percent, you are sending the right things to the right people. The opt out rate is the signal that tells you whether your texting is welcome or annoying.
Your spring AC text gets a 0.3 percent opt out rate. Your generic monthly blast gets 4 percent. You stop the blast and send only the targeted ones.
Never buy a list of phone numbers and text them. They did not consent, and the fines for texting non consenting numbers are per message, which adds up fast. Only text people who gave you their number directly. A bought list is a lawsuit waiting to happen. Grow your own list from your customers and your leads.
You buy 5,000 numbers and text them. Some were on the Do Not Call registry, and the fines are per text. You could have grown the same list from your own customers for free.
Use a tracking link in every text so you know which campaign drove the booking. If the AC tune up text got 15 bookings and the generic blast got none, do more of the first and stop the second. Without tracking, you are guessing. With it, you know what works and you do more of it.
The AC tune up text got 15 bookings. The generic blast got none. You double down on the tune up text and drop the blast. Without tracking, you would have kept sending both.
Yes, if you get written consent first, respect quiet hours, and honor opt out requests immediately. The businesses that get fined skip those steps. Do them and texting is legal and effective.
For seasonal reminders, twice a year per customer is plenty. For promotions, no more than once a month. More than that and opt outs climb. The right frequency gets replies without opt outs.
It is the carrier requirement for businesses that text from a 10 digit number. You register your business tax ID and use case with the carriers. Without it, your texts get blocked. It is mandatory, not optional.
Only if the form had a checkbox where they agreed to receive texts. A phone number alone is not consent. If there was no checkbox, you cannot text them for marketing.
Your system must remove them instantly and never text them again. If you keep texting after an opt out, that is a violation. Set up the opt out handling once so it runs automatically.