In the past decade, SMS marketing has established itself as a viable channel of communications and customer engagement for small businesses. SMS marketing shares similarities with email marketing when it comes to features. However, their use cases are very different.

Below you will find our favorite blogs full of downloadable guides, podcasts, and videos to learn the ins and outs of SMS marketing.

In making this list, we considered a few things: How often new content is posted, how much existing content is available, and how diverse the selection of content is. Additionally, because SMS marketing is such an expansive field with an array of information, we curated the posts we felt were most relevant to small businesses.

SimpleTexting

The SimpleTexting resource center was created to share advanced SMS tips, best practices, and industry news. SimpleTexting was founded in 2010, and transitioned fully into SMS marketing very shortly after its conception.

SimpleTexting’s resource center is built to help a diverse range of industries. Take their industry guides as a prime example. From churches to dental practices, retail stores, restaurants, and more, SimpleTexting provides dedicated guides to SMS marketing. If you’re looking for a more holistic reference, we recommend their Ultimate Guide to SMS Marketing.

SimpleTexting also has a blog available to businesses interested in learning advanced tips, best practices, and industry news.

Tatango

Tatango was founded in 2007, making it one of the earliest players in the SMS marketing space. That makes the fact that they put out new blog posts every two days even more impressive. Having up-to-date information from a company that is a legacy player in the SMS marketing space is invaluable for new and experienced SMS marketers alike.

Tatango is mainly used for political SMS marketing. This results in some of the most unique SMS marketing content we’ve come across. Reading engaging blog posts on how entire presidential campaigns can be won with SMS marketing is interesting. Tatango also makes sure that SMS marketers in all industries can benefit from their content.

Just like SimpleTexting, Tatango offers free guides for any SMS marketer. Their TCPA Survival Guide is a valuable resource for any SMS marketer to bookmark for future reference.

Tatango also has a YouTube channel with over 550 videos, including tutorials and SMS best practices. Their video output grows weekly, and has been consistently since 2014.

Postscript

SMS marketing has transformed quite a bit this past decade, and it’s only in the past few years that ecommerce-specific SMS marketing has entered the spotlight. Postscript is one of the leaders in this space. They have some of the best ecommerce SMS marketing resources that we’ve found.

With their blog, Postscript goes into details about best practices and industry news ecommerce businesses should be aware of. Even better? They have a free, certified course on SMS marketing that anyone can take. This course is taught by members of Postscript’s team, all of whom have years of SMS marketing experience.

Last year, Postscript rolled out an entire new section of their learning center: Fantastic Texts. This resource contains user submissions of successful SMS marketing campaigns. It’s one thing to read guides or blog posts about good SMS marketing examples, but seeing actual texts contextualized for ecommerce businesses is invaluable.

SMSBump

SMSBump, just like Postscript, is a major player in the new realm of Shopify and ecommerce-specific text marketing. SMSBump’s blogs range from holiday-based SMS templates to in-depth statistics about SMS marketing, all packaged in readable and uniquely designed infographics.

SMSBump’s standout resource is easily its 2021 Event Calendar. Posted in the beginning of the year, SMSBump’s Event Calendar is something you can continually refer back to. It lists out every major holiday and their exact dates, alongside the automations and campaigns you can run to target relevant users.

If resources like this weren’t enough, SMSBump also provides free ebooks on their website. Our personal favorite? Their Top 7 SMS Marketing Segmentation Hacks for Beginners.

SlickText

SlickText’s secondary materials cover a wide range of industries. Their industries page has free guides on how various businesses can leverage SMS marketing. Many of these guides provide example scenarios and templates that serve as helpful references for both new and experienced SMS marketers.

SlickText also has a blog with a variety of helpful SMS marketing content. Our favorite posts are SlickText’s surveys. These are unique insights into SMS marketing trends that SlickText conducts. Each survey contains methodology, key findings, and custom graphs.

Textedly

Founded in 2015, Textedly’s blog is not as industry specific as the other blogs included in this list. However, we did find that Textedly has some of the most helpful lists for SMS best practices. Additionally, the blog is updated weekly. One of their most recent posts, Everything You Need to Know About 10-Digit Long Codes is worth a read for anyone in the SMS marketing space in 2021. This is because long codes will soon replace shared short codes for SMS marketing campaigns.

We’re also a big fan of the Complete SMS Compliance Guide, which goes into express written consent, opt-in text messaging, and TCPA compliance. These are absolute musts if you’re using SMS marketing for your business.

EZ Texting

EZ Texting is a legacy player in the SMS marketing space. The company was founded in 2004, and has served over 160,000 customers since. That probably explains why they have over 900 posts on their blog!

In addition to easily having the largest output of blog posts we’ve seen, EZ Texting also has extremely targeted posts. Industries from nonprofits, religious organizations, gyms, and real estate are all covered. Topics include industry trends, small business, legal, compliance, telecom, local services, and much more. EZ Texting’s resource center also features a few downloadable guides.

ZipWhip

Founded in 2007, ZipWhip produces a wide range of multimedia SMS marketing resources.

ZipWhip’s standout content are their annual “State of Texting” reports. on_current="true" url="https://www.zipwhip.com/resource/ebook/state-of-texting-2021/" nofollow="true" target="blank" rel=”noopener”2021’s report/link] tackles how COVID-19 changed the landscape, how mobile habits from consumers have changed, examples of texts that were the most valuable in 2020, and more. Reports like these are very useful for businesses trying to get a grasp of the seemingly complicated landscape of SMS marketing.

ZipWhip’s blog is helpful for any industry. Their blog is updated weekly. Topics generally range from industry news to best practices.

ZipWhip also has a YouTube channel. Here, you’ll find all the episodes of their podcast: Zipcast. Podcasts in the SMS marketing space are not common at all. And with many of the episodes being interviews with successful players in the SMS marketing space, we find Zipcast helpful for both new and experienced SMS marketers.

ZipWhip is also the only resource center we’ve encountered that has a dedicated section for COVID-19 related texting resources. These span from articles to videos, and are all designed to help out SMS marketers navigating the post-COVID realm of SMS marketing.