B2B SMS Marketing: How B2Bs Close More Deals with SMS

If you're still sleeping on SMS marketing as a B2B marketer, your competitors are already steps ahead.

This isn’t a bold claim. There’s data to back it up.

Edward White of Beehiiv, a B2B newsletter platform, recently shared how SMS gave their campaigns a real edge...

“A lot of our users are running their own businesses or leading small teams, so they’re busy and don’t always follow through right away. That’s why we started using SMS to re-engage people who signed up but didn’t take the next step. We sent short, one-line texts to trial users who hadn’t booked onboarding calls, and suddenly we were seeing calendar bookings jump by over 20%.”

Aside from Beehiiv’s SMS marketing result, research also shows that SMS has an open rate of 55% (yet, most B2B companies hesitate to shift from their “first love,” email, with a lesser open rate).

Whether you shy away or not, the reality is that your marketing strategy needs an upgrade.

So, how do you join these leading B2B brands that are already getting ahead through this overlooked/underrated marketing channel?

I've done the job for you.

I interviewed 7 B2B companies like yours to learn how they've implemented text messaging in their marketing processes. So in this article, you'll discover:

Overlooked benefits of SMS marketing for you as a B2B brand
Result-driven use cases of B2B SMS marketing
How to get started without disrupting your existing marketing plans

Let's get to it!

Benefits of B2B SMS Marketing

You’ve heard about how B2C brands are using SMS marketing to reach customers quickly.

You’ve heard that SMS has high open rates, speeds up communication, and fosters relationship building.

Even when all of these pumps you up to want to try SMS marketing, you remember they are all B2C-related.

In this section, I’ll show you the B2B-specific benefits of adopting text messages in your B2B marketing plans (backed by results from your B2B peers).

Faster access to busy decision makers

You’re familiar with creating a series of email sequences to get the attention of your target audience.

After several retargetings, it often works, but there is still a major concern: B2B decision makers are bombarded with tons of emails daily, which may bury yours in that unseen zone.

Jasmine Charbonier, a business strategist, says,

“Busy professionals might ignore emails because it's already a familiar zone to them and they often have to scroll through, but they always check their texts. Last July, a CFO from a manufacturing company told me: ‘I get 300+ emails daily but maybe 5 texts. When someone texts me about something relevant to my business, they have my full attention.’ That completely changed my perspective.”

This is the specific issue that SMS marketing, also known as mobile marketing, addresses for you as a B2B company.

Most professionals also love keeping their phone message section clean, which pushes them to view every message they receive.

So, if you’re targeting busy professionals, why not strategize reaching them through a short, direct, and actionable text?

Addresses a small friction point for the user

It's very common for B2B audiences to not follow through or ghost after signing up. It's often because of their busy schedules.

For example, if you notice that a user signed up for your product or booked a consultation, but didn't take the next step, rather than sending a long email, a short text message may help you reactivate the conversation.

Like the Beehiiv case, Edward mentioned that SMS has become part of their reactivation stack for high-value users who ghost them.

According to him, they treat SMS as their last-mile message. When email retargeting falls flat, SMS gets the job done.

SEO strategist Brandy Hastings also mentioned:

“We found SMS worked best when there was a clear reason for urgency—like a campaign deadline, a missed step in onboarding, or a time-sensitive offer. It worked because we were solving a small friction point for the user, not just marketing at them.”

Less competition, more attention

By default, when B2B marketers think of reaching out to customers and building relationships, they think of email marketing first.

That’s not bad, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be the only channel to consider.

I know you’re still probably thinking that SMS is too casual. So, because you want to stick to your formal communication channel, you prefer to compete with dozens of other emails in a busy inbox.

You can also relate to the number of unread emails you currently have.

See mine:

It's a lot of unread emails!

Denise Murray, a marketing manager at Microse, shared her experience:

“We thought partners would prefer email because of its formality, but we were wrong. They want short text instead. And when we implemented SMS into our marketing strategy, what surprised us more was how often they replied. We thought of SMS as a one-way tool at first. But we started getting replies like ‘Got it, thanks’ or ‘Can you hold two cases?’ Now we treat it like a conversation channel. Someone on our team monitors replies so we can answer fast.”

You may be wrong, like Denise.

It’s time to try SMS marketing.

Here are some shocking stats that show sms as a low competition & high impact zone for B2B:

The average SMS open rate is 55% and 100% "view" rate, while the average email open rate is 39.64%
Globally, an estimated 23 billion text messages are sent each day, while approximately 376.4 billion emails are sent and received daily worldwide.
66% of Americans check their phones 160 times on average, while 99% of email users check their emails 20 times.

Using SMS helps your message stand out because very few B2B brands are using it yet.

Quick response

Beyond the fact that SMS has a higher open rate than email, it also has a quicker response rate.

Then why are B2B brands neglecting this opportunity?

Well, no one is an island of knowledge.

And now that you know, you should try it out (but wait! Read the next section for the “how-to”.)

Wouldn't you like to explore B2B mobile marketing? You can test-run with Mobile Text Alerts’ free trial.

Get a Free 14-Day Trial with Mobile Text Alerts

Before you dig in deeply, let me show you the tactics other winning B2B brands use.

How to Get Started With B2B Text Message Marketing (With a Funnel-Based Framework You Can Recreate)

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started quickly with text message marketing.

1. Create your SMS strategy

Text marketing isn’t a stand-alone marketing option. Therefore, you need to ensure it syncs smoothly into your existing marketing plan.

Think of each stage of your B2B buyer’s journey from awareness to decision and map out how SMS supports your funnel goals, aligns with buyer intent, and strengthens relationships with customers.

Start with intent alignment

Make sure your SMS objective aligns with each buyer’s current intent, not your own urgency.

Here’s what intent alignment will look like:

Map specific message types to each funnel stage of your customer journey

The goal isn’t just about staying in touch with your customers or using SMS marketing for the sake of it. It’s about using SMS to serve a micro-goal in your existing marketing plan.

Therefore, your messaging should be very clear and specific enough to lead your audience to act or reply.

Determine your “WHEN”

We already stated WHERE in your buyers' journey, but the next question is when and how to adopt SMS into your existing communication channels.

All we are working towards is having a smooth synchronization with existing marketing plans. SMS should support, not replace, email, calls, or content.

Therefore, there should be a specific rule that shows when you want to infuse SMS marketing into your existing processes. Here’s a sample:

Specify performance metrics

You’re familiar with the saying, “What is not measured cannot be improved.”

Since you’re just getting started with SMS marketing, you need to be clear with your goal and what success looks like for your company.

This will also help you to tweak your strategy as you experiment because what works in email doesn’t always work in SMS.

Some common metrics you should consider are:

Click-through rate (CTR) to determine engagement with CTA
Reply rate to measure the quality of the message and timing
Conversion rate to track pipeline impact
Opt-out rate to tell you where you’re overdoing it

That’s it!

If you’ve successfully charted out your strategy, you’re more than halfway to a successful execution.

Congratulations!

Now let’s look at other elements you need to strengthen your SMS marketing strategy.

2. Get numbers for your B2B SMS marketing

To get started with text messaging marketing, there needs to be a plan for collecting your target audience's numbers.

There are several ways to get this done, such as:

Events and webinars: Add a section for phone numbers when people sign up for events or webinars. However, you need to make it clear to people the value they gain by giving out their personal inbox access to you.
Verification channel: When users sign up for your product or event, you may include a verification option that requires sending a code to their phone numbers. However, let them understand that you may add them to your communication list.
Customer support: This is the closest team to your customers. You can train them to subtly encourage customers to share their phone number for a follow-up call or an update.
“Text to join” keywords: This method involves asking your audience to join your list by sending you a short message. One of the strategic ways to tie it to an offer or your customers' needs and tell them to text a particular word to your phone number.
Website forms: Like you’ve been doing with email collection, you may include a section to collect users’ phone numbers and add an opt-in checkbox for SMS communications where necessary. Think of website forms like contact forms, email newsletters, a PDF download request form, and a community membership request.
Incentives: In reality, some B2B niches may struggle to convince users to share their phone numbers. In this case, you may offer free trials or a discounted offer to customers who share their numbers.
Email campaigns: If the above channels are not your comfort zone to start with, you can leverage your existing email lists. Segment your email lists to identify audiences that are more likely to share their phone numbers. Reach out to them via email and request their emails addresses

Note: Let them know the benefits of giving out their phone numbers and what they might miss out on if they don’t, since no one wants FOMO.

Partnership: Think of other businesses in your niche that you can partner with to cross-promote your SMS lists.

P.S. Whichever method you use to collect phone numbers, make sure you get relevant details such as their job roles and communication preferences. The aim is to deliver relevant information for each audience and avoid intruding into their space.

3. Pick a business SMS platform

Having considered the two steps above, you’re 75% ready to get started. However, you need a process in place for a smooth and automated SMS execution.

You don’t want this new strategy (SMS marketing) to disrupt your existing processes. Hence, the need for an SMS platform. With an SMS platform, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. All you need is a seamless integration into your CRM. This means integration is paramount to avoid data silos.

That’s why an SMS solution platform like Mobile Text Alerts provides you with unending integration support.

Look at what Mobile Text Alerts integrations support you with once you sign up (powered by Zapier):

Aside from integration, you need to consider your use case (promotional, customer support, or all use cases), financial budget, and features needed to choose the right software.

For example, if you only need SMS marketing to send promotional texts, you would want to consider a platform that offers mass texting.

If you’re unsure of where to start or what feature you need, you may book a free 1-1 demo with Mobile Text Alerts to ensure you make the right choice.

4. Follow SMS marketing best practices

Best practices are there to guide you into fully benefiting from your marketing efforts and not to cage you.

The first step is compliance with SMS guidelines and opt-in rules based on your audience's location.

In the US, the B2B SMS marketing is regulated by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), while the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulates those in Europe.

Make sure you get your audience’s permission before sending them any message.

I love how Stephen Do of UpPromote summarizes SMS marketing best practices for B2B.

His main highlights include:

Start with permission.
Personalize your messages. A mass text that could apply to anyone feels like spam. Segment the audience, even in broad strokes, and speak to each segment directly.
Integrate SMS into a larger communication flow.
Send at the right time.
Deliver clear, immediate value.
Avoid over-messaging. Two or three meaningful texts a month are plenty for most business audiences; daily blasts lead to fast opt-outs.

“For any company that is thinking about sending its first text, start with permission. Ask every contact to opt in through a clear, simple form and confirm the choice with a welcome note. This step satisfies regulations and shows respect for the recipient. After that, speak to the person, not the list. A purchase history tag or a product-interest field in your customer relationship management tool is enough to guide a tailored message that feels relevant.

Text on its own is strong, yet it works best as part of a wider flow. Sync your send schedule with email sequences, account-manager calls, and even ad retargeting, so that each touch builds on the previous one. Keep timing in mind as well. Business buyers read most attentively during office hours. A mid-morning or mid-afternoon slot often wins, while late-night notifications almost always fail.

Every note must carry a clear value. Offer a quick tip, a shipment update, or an exclusive incentive that matters to the reader. If a message does not answer the question ‘Why should I care right now?’ it is better not to send it.”

5. Track the right metrics

Remember those metrics you highlighted when building out your B2B SMS strategy?

You need to keep a close eye on them.

Dedicate time (maybe monthly or quarterly, depending on your marketing routines) to measure your progress and identify areas that need improvement.

B2B SMS Marketing Use Cases With Examples

At this stage, you’ve learned so much about B2B mobile messaging.

So, what’s next?

Let’s see some practical use cases with examples.

Lindsay Marty, the founder & CEO of Above the Bar Marketing, shares:

“We worked with a law firm that had a backlog of unconverted leads who never scheduled a consultation. We ran a three-part SMS campaign reminding them that availability was limited and consultations were free. That single campaign drove a 30% jump in bookings within a week, from leads they were about to write off.”

Here’s an example of what such a text message looks like:

“
Hi [Name], unlock 20% off our [product/service] this week only! Offer ends Friday. Let’s help you hit your Q3 goals. Check here [link] to claim.

Send personalized follow-ups

Denise Murray of Microdose Mushrooms also shared five impactful use cases that helped her team actualize a big jump in order completions. In her words,

“We use SMS to handle wholesale follow-ups, restock alerts, event invites, and anything that needs a quick decision. One of our best results came from a low-inventory warning we sent to a group of clinics. We kept the message short, gave them the link, and told them inventory would be locked within 24 hours. Orders came in right away. That one message cleared the remaining stock faster than the full email campaign sent before it.”

If you need to follow up on a customer who missed a step or hasn’t completed an action, here’s a useful, short, and actionable template to follow...

For a B2B SaaS company:

“
Hi [Name], just checking in on your last [product name] inquiry. Need any help completing your set up? We’re here to assist: [link]

For a B2B wholesaler:

“
Hey [Name], still interested in joining our wholesale program? Your form’s waiting here: [link]

Wholesale restock alerts

You can use text messages to nudge your clients, especially as a seller, about a restock. You can also level up its urgency tempo by including a limited available quantity and drive quick sales.

“
[Product Name] is back in stock! Limited quantities available. Order now to reserve: [link]

Event/Webinar invites

The Growth Marketing Pro publication revealed that 73% of B2B marketers state high-quality leads come from webinars. So, if you’re eager to start implementing webinars in your content marketing strategy, you shouldn’t leave out the text messaging channel for faster communication.

With a clear, easy-to-act-on message, it can even be the magic wand you need to reach your audience directly and increase attendance rates.

When you’re ready, you can copy this template:

“
Join us at [Event Name] this [day/date]! Quick insights, expert talks & networking. RSVP here: [link]

Low-inventory warnings

B2B brands that sell bulk or time-sensitive products can use a low-inventory warning text to sell their products faster. B2B businesses like eCommerce suppliers, medical distributors, equipment vendors, or beauty product wholesalers can use this strategy where scarcity, urgency, or planning is important.

Copy this template and adapt it accordingly:

“
[Product Name] is almost sold out. Secure yours before 24 hrs pass: [link] Inventory locks soon.

Demo scheduling

Demo scheduling is often common to B2B SaaS brands. If this is your zone, you can include text messages for demo scheduling in your marketing plan in situations where you notice a high rate of incomplete sign-up processes.

Most often, your clients miss out on demo schedule emails, especially if they land in either the promotion or spam tab. But when you reach out to them with a short text via SMS, your message gets read quickly.

Here’s a sample you can copy:

“
Hi [Name], would you love to see [Product Name] in action? Book your free 15-minute demo here: [link]. We’ll walk you through everything.

Special offer

Did you just launch a special offer like a discount, seasonal, celebration sales, or products that are time-bound and require urgent response? You may try reaching out to your clients via their phone numbers.

Here are samples of such a text message...

For a B2B seller:

“
Celebrate [Season/Event, e.g., Independence Week] with 20% off all bulk orders! Valid through [date]. Stock up and save: [link]

For a B2B SaaS brand:

“
In honor of [Event/Holiday], get 30% off your first 3 months of [Product Name]! Offer ends [date]. Get your full access now: [link]

Contract renewal

This format will benefit account managers as they keep a close eye on their clients’ subscriptions. You can reach out to clients who have an upcoming contract renewal to schedule a quick check-in.

You may also send a short contract renewal text.

Here’s an example: > Hi [Name], your [Service/Product] contract expires soon. Renew now to avoid disruption: [link] Need help? Reply YES.

When to Consider Adopting SMS Marketing as a B2B Company

I know this post has shown you several ways to use text messaging in your B2B marketing strategy.

You’ve also seen how your B2B peers are reaping its benefits. (Your appetite is whet!)

Does that mean you should adopt immediately?

Well, I’ll recommend you conduct a pulse check to ascertain your readiness. Here are some checklists you might want to think through:

Is our audience receptive to communication through SMS?
Do we have our audience list segmented for SMS marketing?
Do we have a clear reason to use text messages?
Do we have a dedicated person to reply to clients over SMS?
Do we have a text messaging solution to automate our processes?

With “Yeses” (or potential yeses) to these questions, you’re ready.

Strategize now and don’t forget the smart way…

Execute B2B SMS Marketing Smartly with Mobile Text Alerts

Stop overthinking whether text marketing works or not.

61% of your target audience asserts their preference for text messages from business numbers like yours.

Now what's next?

Proper execution.

As a B2B company, text messaging may be a new channel you’re exploring, but it doesn’t mean you should appear like a novice before your audience.

That’s why you need to execute with an intuitive SMS platform that can support you from the ground up.

Now, here is the good news!

You don’t need to spend hours learning to write the most perfect SMS.

Mobile Text Alerts has an AI feature that translates your thoughts and content to the most performing text message format your audience would love to read.

And not just that...

You get access to other AI tools like AI SMS Chatbot, SmartSMS Suggest, Shortener, and Image Generator to speed up your messaging process. Plus, an automated Workflow Builder lets you create custom workflows, adaptive groups lets you group subscribers into data-focused segments, and reporting lets you analyze your campaigns' effectiveness.

Author Bio

Deborah Oyewole is a content strategist for SaaS brands. She’s an addictive learner who brings her spark of curiosity to the content and SEO space, helping brands create content that drives engagement and conversion. When Deborah isn’t writing or optimizing websites for search visibility, you’ll likely find her experimenting with new cooking recipes or curled up with a good book. Learn more about her work and journey on her personal website, Deborah Oyewole, and LinkedIn where she shares insightful content.

B2B SMS Marketing: How B2Bs Close More Deals with SMS in 2025