Your prospects aren't reading your emails. That's not a judgment—it's just reality.
Between spam filters, overflowing inboxes, and the general fatigue that comes with digital communication overload, even your best email campaigns are fighting an uphill battle for attention.
But here's what's interesting: those same busy decision-makers who ignore your emails will read a text message within three minutes of receiving it. That's not just consumer behavior. It holds true in B2B, too.
SMS boasts a 98% open rate, with most messages read within minutes. Compare that to email's average 21% open rate, and suddenly SMS looks less like a nice-to-have channel and more like a strategic necessity.
But here's where most companies get it wrong: they treat SMS like a shorter version of email. Send a promotion, add a link, hope for clicks. That approach misses the real power of SMS, which isn't about broadcasting. It's about having actual conversations with your prospects.
The challenge with SMS has never been the technology but the integration. How do you make text messaging feel like part of your broader marketing strategy instead of just another disconnected tool?
HubSpot SMS solves this by treating SMS as part of your complete customer journey, not an isolated channel. When a prospect downloads your whitepaper, you can follow up with a personal text. When they attend your webinar but don't convert, SMS can bridge that gap in a way that feels helpful, not pushy.
The real advantage comes from HubSpot's unified data approach. Your sales team sees every SMS interaction alongside email opens, website visits, and deal progress. That context transforms SMS from random outreach into a strategic conversation.
The key to effective B2B SMS isn't frequency—it's relevance. Your text messages should feel like they're coming from a helpful colleague, not a marketing department.
Start with your existing HubSpot workflows. Look for the moments when prospects go quiet—maybe they've engaged with your content but haven't taken the next step. That's where SMS shines. A simple "Saw you downloaded our guide on X. Quick question about your current approach?" often reopens conversations that email can't.
Timing matters too, but not in the way you might think. B2B decision-makers check their phones throughout the day, so you're not limited to traditional business hours. But respect boundaries—a text at 9 PM about a software demo feels invasive, while one about an urgent industry update might be welcome.
Personalization goes beyond using someone's first name. HubSpot's contact properties let you reference specific pain points, company size, or previous interactions. "Hey Sarah, noticed your team's been looking at our API documentation. Worth a quick call to walk through the integration process?" hits differently than generic outreach.
Here's where HubSpot's workflows really pay off: you can automate SMS sequences that still feel personal. Set up triggers based on specific behaviors—website visits, email engagement, or deal stage changes—and respond with relevant messages.
But automation doesn't mean set-and-forget. The best SMS campaigns use HubSpot's lead scoring to determine when human intervention makes sense. Maybe your workflow sends three automated texts, but if someone responds, it immediately alerts your sales team to jump in with a personal follow-up.
The goal isn't to replace human conversation—it's to create more opportunities for it.
Traditional SMS metrics focus on delivery rates and click-throughs, but those don't tell the whole story in B2B. HubSpot's attribution reporting shows you how SMS influences deals throughout your entire sales cycle.
Track response rates, but also look at how SMS affects your other channels. Do prospects who receive text messages engage more with your emails? Visit your website more frequently? Move through your sales pipeline faster?
The most revealing metric might be conversation starts. B2B SMS works best when it opens dialogue, not when it drives immediate action. A prospect who responds to your text with a question about implementation is more valuable than ten people who click a link and disappear.
The beauty of adding SMS to your HubSpot ecosystem is that you don't need to rebuild your entire marketing strategy. Start with one specific use case—maybe follow-up after content downloads or check-ins for stalled deals.
Test message templates that feel conversational. Ask questions instead of making statements. "How's the evaluation process going?" works better than "Our solution can help your evaluation process."
As your team gets comfortable with SMS as a conversation starter rather than a broadcasting tool, you can expand to more complex workflows and automation sequences.
Your prospects are already using text messaging to communicate with vendors they trust. The question isn't whether SMS belongs in your B2B marketing mix—it's whether you'll use it strategically or let your competitors get there first.