How to write a business text that does not read like spam

Every other channel gives you room to warm up. Email has a subject line and three paragraphs. A text has roughly eleven words before someone decides whether this is worth their attention or is another scam about a package.

Say who you are first, always

An unidentified text is a deleted text. The first message in any conversation names the business before anything else. Once they have you saved, you can relax — but the opening message is not the place to be clever.

One message, one action

Two options roughly halves the response to each. If you want a confirmation, ask for a confirmation. Do not also mention the referral scheme, the new opening hours and the review link. Every additional element makes the message look more like marketing and less like information.

Ask for a reply, not a click

Every step out of the Messages app costs you response. 'Reply C to confirm' outperforms 'click here to confirm' substantially, because one is a single keystroke and the other is a browser, a page load, and a decision. Reserve links for things that genuinely need a page.

The specific mechanics

• Day names, not dates. 'Thursday at 2pm' is instant. '09/12' requires a calendar check many people will not do.
• No ALL CAPS, no rows of exclamation marks, no $$$. Carrier filters read these literally, and so do customers. Deliverability.
• Emoji cost money on SMS. One emoji switches the encoding and can triple your segment count. Use them rarely and deliberately — the cost.
• One link, on its own, on a domain they recognise. Never a public shortener.
• Write it so it survives losing formatting, because half your list gets the SMS version. Blue vs green.

Sign with a name from message two onward

'— Dave' at the end of a message does an enormous amount of relationship work for four characters. It also sets the expectation that a human is on the other end, which is only fair if one is. If an AI is answering, say so.

The read-aloud test

Read the message out loud. If it sounds like something you would say standing in front of the customer, send it. If it sounds like a company talking, rewrite it. This single test catches more bad messages than any checklist, and it is the reason a small business can write better texts than a brand with a copy team. For worked examples in your own trade, see the industry playbooks.

Then send it to your own phone before it goes anywhere near a list. Reading it on a lock screen tells you things reading it in a code editor never will — testing safely.