This job is sending short marketing texts to customers who agreed to get them, at an hour that suits them. It is a Tech and Skill job that takes an afternoon: most of the time goes into setting up a texting tool that records consent, and the AI writes a month of texts in about twenty minutes. You give the AI your real reasons to text this month, your business name, your opt-out line and a few messages you wrote yourself. It gives back short drafts, each one counted against the 160-character limit, with a list of every claim in them. You judge them, paste them into the texting tool, send a test to your own phone and schedule them.
- Shape
- TechSkill
- Sitting
- an afternoon
The shape: Tech and Skill
The Tech half comes first, and it is the larger half. A text message is the most personal channel a business can use, so it carries the strictest rules. The texting tool is what keeps you inside them: it collects consent at signup, stores the record of it, honors STOP replies on its own, registers your number with the carriers and sends in each customer's time zone. The AI can do none of that. If you skip the tool and text customers from your own phone, you have no consent record, no automatic opt-out and no schedule.
The Skill half is the writing. A marketing text has about 160 characters to name the business, say one useful thing, give one link and tell the reader how to stop. That is a tight brief, and an AI handles tight briefs well when it has real material and firm limits. Once the brief works, you keep it and run it again each month.
What this means for you: if you already use a texting tool, this is a one-sitting job. If you do not, most of the afternoon is the setup, and you do it once.
What you give the AI
Gather these before you open the chat. A vague request gets you the generic "flash sale" text, and that is the one people opt out of.
- This month's real reasons to text. A new opening on the schedule, a seasonal service starting, an event date, the last day of an offer, a product back in stock. Two to four is plenty, each with its exact date and details.
- Your business name as it should appear. Most rules and carriers expect each text to say who it is from, so the name has to fit inside the limit. If the full name is long, decide the short form now.
- Your opt-out line. Usually "Reply STOP to opt out" or a shorter form your tool accepts. It counts against the 160 characters, so give it to the AI word for word.
- One link per reason. The booking page, the product page or the event page. If your tool shortens links, say so, and tell the AI to count a short link as about 25 characters.
- What people were promised when they signed up. The exact signup wording, such as "two texts a month about openings and offers." The texts must match it.
- Three or four messages you wrote yourself. Texts to a customer, a short reply to a question, a sign-off you use. They teach the AI how short and how warm you sound.
- Anything off limits. A topic you never text about, a word you never use, a claim you cannot make in your industry.
Leave out customer names and phone numbers. The texts go to many people, and the tool fills in a first name if you want one.
What comes back
Copy this brief, fill in every bracket except [FIRST NAME], and paste it into the chat. Before you schedule, swap [FIRST NAME] for your texting tool's own first-name tag.
You are writing marketing text messages for a small business.
They go only to customers who agreed to receive them.
Write from the material below only. Do not invent offers, prices, dates, reviews or urgency.
Business name to use: [name or short form]
Opt-out line, word for word: [for example, Reply STOP to opt out]
What subscribers were promised at signup: [exact wording]
Reasons to text this month, with dates and links:
1. [reason, date, link]
2. [reason, date, link]
3. [reason, date, link]
Off limits: [anything not to mention]
For each reason, return:
1. Two versions of the text, each 160 characters or fewer in total, counting the business name, the link ([25 if your tool shortens links, otherwise the real link's length] characters), [FIRST NAME] as 10 characters, and the opt-out line.
- Start with the business name.
- One idea, one link, one action.
- Plain characters only. No emoji, no curly quotes, no special symbols.
- No all caps, no "act now," no fake deadlines.
- Use [FIRST NAME] in at most one version.
2. The character count of each version.
3. A suggested send day and time in the customer's local time, between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., and why.
4. A list of every claim in the text and where it came from in our material.
Our own messages, for voice:
[paste three or four]What comes back is two short versions per reason, a character count for each, a suggested send time and a claims list. Do not trust the AI's character counts. Paste each text into your texting tool, which shows the real count and the number of segments, and cut anything that runs to two.
Then schedule each text in the tool. SimpleTexting and Klaviyo both offer scheduled campaigns and consent records, and what your plan includes is on each vendor's own site. Send each one to your own phone first, tap the link and check the first-name fallback.
How to judge it
A good marketing text reads like a short note from someone who runs the place, with one real reason and one link. A bad one shows itself in seconds, on the lock screen, which is exactly where your customer sees it. Reject it, or push back in the same chat, when you see any of these.
- It does not say who it is from. A text that opens with the offer and no business name reads like spam, and some carriers filter it as spam.
- It runs to two segments. The tool's count says 161 or more, or 71 or more if a special character slipped in. Cut words, not the opt-out line.
- It has an emoji or a curly quote. Either one can switch the whole text into the 70-character format. Replace it with plain characters.
- It invents urgency. "Today only" on an offer with no end date, "almost gone" when it is not. The claims list should catch this.
- It asks for two things. Book and follow and reply in one text means none of them happens.
- It sounds like an ad. All caps, "AMAZING DEAL," a string of exclamation marks. Compare it with the messages you pasted. If you would not send it to a regular from your own phone, it goes.
- It promises more than signup did. If people agreed to two texts a month about openings, a weekly promotion breaks that promise.
If the drafts keep missing your voice, paste more of your own short messages and run it again. Better inputs fix voice faster than more instructions.
What stays with you
The AI writes the words and the tool sends them. These parts stay yours.
- Consent. Every person on the list agreed to marketing texts, in words that said what they were agreeing to. A customer's phone number from a receipt, an invoice or a booking does not count. The signup page on your site is part of this job, and the forms page covers how to write one plainly.
- Registration. In the United States, a business sending from an ordinary local number registers its brand and its message types with the carriers, a process called 10DLC. Your tool walks you through it, and Twilio's 10DLC guide explains what the carriers ask for.
- The rules where your customers live. Quiet hours, consent wording and what a text must contain differ by country and by state. The CTIA messaging principles are the carriers' own guidance for the United States; other countries have their own, some stricter.
- Every fact. Dates, prices, offer terms and links get checked against the source before anything is scheduled.
- How often. The number of texts a month is a promise you made at signup. Keep it.
- The replies. People text back. Some ask a question, some book, some complain. A texting tool shows those replies in an inbox, and answering them is yours to do, the same day if you can.
- The send button. You read the test on your phone, then schedule it yourself.
Text or email
There is a real choice between the two, and most businesses need both for different things.
| The message | Better as a text | Better as an email |
|---|---|---|
| A slot opened today or tomorrow | Yes, because it is short and time-bound | No, because it may not be read in time |
| The last day of an offer people already know about | Yes, as one reminder | Yes, as the full offer earlier |
| News, a story, several updates at once | No, because it will not fit | Yes, as a newsletter |
| A note to a customer who has gone quiet | No, because it feels like a cold interruption | Yes, as a win-back email |
| An appointment reminder | Yes, though it is a service text, not marketing, and is often set up separately | Yes, as a backup |
The rule of thumb: if it matters within a day and fits in one sentence, text it. Everything else goes to email.
An editorial example
This is an invented example, not a customer. Say you run a one-chair nail studio that already collects texting signups at the front desk with a checked box.
Your signup said "up to three texts a month about openings and seasonal sets." This month you have three reasons: a fall set launching on the first, two Saturday openings that freed up, and a gift card cutoff for a holiday weekend. You paste them in with the booking link, the gift card link, "Reply STOP to opt out" and four texts you sent to regulars.
The first draft for the Saturday openings says "Don't miss out, book NOW before they're gone." You reject it, since nothing about two Saturday slots needs shouting. The second draft names the studio, says two Saturday times opened, gives the booking link and ends with the opt-out line. Your tool counts it at 141 characters, one segment.
You check the gift card cutoff date against your calendar, schedule the fall set text for the morning of the first, and set the Saturday text to go out Thursday at 11 a.m. in your customers' time zone. You send each one to your own phone, tap the links and confirm the schedule. That is the job.
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