Promotional SMS examples

General promotion

In this promotional text example, fashion brand Coach invites its customer to check out the bestsellers of the month. It’s a simple text with one clear call to action that aims to keep customers engaged in between purchases and special promotional events.

This type of promotional text message works especially well with loyal customers of your brand, as they’ll be curious to see what the bestsellers are and thus likely to come back to your shop.

Sale or discount

Dormify offers students a last-minute discount so they can equip their dorm room before the school year starts. Notice how the language of this promotion text example is tailored to Dormify’s target audience through the use of “u” instead of “you” and the use of the colloquial expression “we got u.”
As people tend to see new text messages quickly, they’re a great tool to promote any time-sensitive sales.

Free product or BOGO offer

This message by Stila is a great promotional text example of how to alert your customers about a free product or BOGO deal. The emojis in the text draw the reader’s attention while the message clearly explains how They can benefit from the promotion: “Just add both items to your cart to receive the discount.” Removing the need to add a discount code before checking out makes the shopping experience easier.

This is the type of clear communication you want to use when offering a free product or a BOGO deal via SMS.

Free product or BOGO offer

This message by Stila is a great promotional text example of how to alert your customers about a free product or BOGO deal. The emojis in the text draw the reader’s attention while the message clearly explains how They can benefit from the promotion: “Just add both items to your cart to receive the discount.” Removing the need to add a discount code before checking out makes the shopping experience easier.

This is the type of clear communication you want to use when offering a free product or a BOGO deal via SMS.

Loyalty program invitation

If you have a loyalty program, that’s another thing you can advertise with a promotional SMS. In this example, Andie Swim shares some of the benefits of its rewards program to get subscribers to join: They can earn rewards each time they shop with the brand, and they can expect a surprise on their birthday.

It’s important to include a direct signup link like Andie Swim does here to make it easy for people to join your program.

Free shipping

There are different things going on in this SMS from Huckberry. Sent around the holidays, it offers subscribers free U.S. shipping sitewide, but only for one day. Limiting the offer to such a short time creates a big sense of urgency. It also makes it crucial to send this offer via text message, as people are more likely to quickly check an SMS than to see a promotional email.

On top of that, the free shipping offer means to soften the more unpleasant news that Huckberry will soon increase its shipping costs. Even if the recipient won’t buy something today, they’re still urged to take action before the cost increase. This whole message is meant to make the recipient want to act now, taking their focus somewhat away from the fact that they’ll be paying more for shipping in the foreseeable future.

New products and arrivals

Chubbies is known for its fun, conversational copy and it stays true to brand with this new product promotion. This could be a text message sent to you by a friend. There are no salesy emojis, no words in all caps.

What the SMS does do is play to the desire of the recipient to be an early adopter. As a subscriber, they’re “the first one to know about ’em.” They shouldn’t let that intel go to waste and should start shopping before everyone else does.

Need more inspiration? We'll soon launch our carefully curated database of SMS marketing campaigns

Sign up

Physical store invite

For Halloween, cannabis shop Trulieve had a B3G1 deal but that’s not all. They also offered 20% off for customers who visited their physical store dressed up as their favorite variety and let them know about the event via SMS.

If you have a brick-and-mortar store alongside your online shop, organizing on-site events is a great way to increase customer loyalty and build a community around your brand.

Content promotion

Sometimes, you need to hit pause on the sales button and promote your brand by offering nothing but value. That’s what Food52 does with this text message. It advertises a delicious egg recipe that subscribers can find on their website.

Promoting helpful content via SMS is a great way to keep subscribers engaged and make their lives a little better.

Event announcement

Another good promotional text example by Food52 is this one where they announce an online event. The CTA comes right at the start of the message: “RSVP Now!”, followed by general information about the event and practical details.

Online events are a fun alternative when you don’t have a physical store to welcome people to. They also have the added benefit of being accessible to most, if not all, of your customer base as the location is not a barrier for attending.

Flash sale

If you’re doing a flash sale, you need people to know about it as quickly as possible. This example promotional SMS by Elie Tahari instantly grabs the recipient’s attention by using two red exclamation marks. The flash sale announcement is followed by more information (up to 80% off their special collection) and the message makes it clear that the recipient needs to hurry because this sale won’t last very long.

It’s a good idea to emphasize the urgency of a flash sale with phrases such as “limited time only” and “hurry up” like Elie Tahari does, as not every subscriber might know exactly what a flash sale entails.

Birthday offer

Sending your subscribers a treat for their birthday is a great way to make them feel special. With this message, World Market offers the recipient 15% off their next purchase. The expiry date of the offer adds a sense of urgency.

What would make this message even better is if it were personalized with the recipient’s name.

Offering early access

The last of our text message advertising examples shows how you can offer your SMS subscribers early access to new products, new arrivals, and sales events to reward them for being (and staying) on your list. Brooklinen does this well by emphasizing that this early access won’t last. If the subscriber wants to be one of the first to benefit from the Memorial Day sales and have the largest selection of items to choose from, they’ll have to be quick.