Text Message Trends Executive Summary

SMS Marketing Statistics 2023 show that consumers use text messaging in their personal lives as a way to stay connected to people. These text message trends carry over into business SMS. SMS marketing facts tell us that while consumers do want to engage with brands they know, they often find that many businesses are not contacting them. This creates a unique opportunity for companies to add SMS marketing as a channel in their strategy.

Key stats in this paper include:

  • 77% of users say text messaging makes it easier for them to stay in touch.
  • 79% of users aged 18-29 find sending rich media a way to stay connected, while 65% of those 65 and older find this helpful.
  • 42% say text messaging is a good way to save time compared to phone or email.
  • 63% of users say text messaging is their go-to method for daily communication with people they know.
  • Only 2% of users say that they usually ignore text messages as much as possible.
  • 42% say it’s a non-intrusive way to interact with companies and organizations.
  • 41% of those aged 30-49 believe that text message trends are a great way for companies or organizations to keep them informed and up to date with new offerings or opportunities.

Unsubscribe rates kill SMS growth. Users identify three main reasons they unsubscribe: they received too many texts, the messages weren’t relevant to them, and they didn’t remember signing up for them or strongly believe they never did. As the leading text messaging service provider for mid-size companies and enterprises with less than 1% unsubscribe monthly rate, TextUs builds a platform with compliance, quality message indicators, SMS templates, and best practices to ensure customers scale engagement quickly and effectively.

Whether you need to use SMS for reminders, mass alerts or promotions, or to nurture leads, we recommend having a text message platform that manages your opt-in and opt-outs to stay compliant with SMS guidelines and regulations, balances the timing of your SMS campaigns with automation such as sequences, and has strong analytics capabilities with A/B testing built-in that lets you know which type of content your contacts want including rich media such as links, videos, photos, PDFs as well as the reasons they want to receive text messages including reminders, transactional information, discounts or promotional offers, or to give feedback.

Introduction to SMS Marketing Statistics 2023

Text messaging shapes the way smartphone users communicate with others today. A large majority (85%) of smartphone users use their phone’s standard SMS function to send and receive text messages. Nearly 8 in 10 smartphone users (78%) are texting with at least three individuals on a typical day, ranging from friends and family to business colleagues and even customers.

TextUs is the leading text messaging service provider for businesses that want to engage in real-time conversations with customers, leads, employees, and candidates. TextUs integrates with several customer relationship management (CRM) and applicant tracking system (ATS) platforms, making text messaging an easy and seamless extension of current business systems. Understanding how people use their phones for personal and business use is key to building our platform with new features for users.

On behalf of TextUs, Benenson Strategy Group conducted 1,000 interviews among smartphone users nationwide, ages 18 and older. The survey was fielded from May 14 – June 2, 2023. Interviews were conducted via SMS and an online panel. The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. Census data to ensure an accurate demographic representation. The margin of error on the entire data set is ± 3.1% at the 95% confidence interval. The margin of error is higher for subgroups.The results in this white paper provide text message trends based on the Benenson Strategy Group survey as well as our own TextUs data and user behavior.

 

Download the full report with full survey results paired with our own data and usage that reveals text message trends in consumer personal behaviors and how that translates to business texting.