Whether you’re promoting seasonal specials, sending service reminders, or providing other updates, text messaging in v10 is an effective method for dealerships to deliver brief messages to customers. It can be one of the most direct ways to reach your audience, delivering clear, branded, and conversion-focused content, but only if it’s done right.

Below are some best practices suggested by PBS Marketing for creating impactful texts that clearly communicate your marketing message and ensure a positive customer experience.

Character Limit

Conveying your message in 160 characters or fewer can be challenging. Each 160-character message is a segment, and carriers handle these differently. Some combine segments into one message, which may require scrolling and cause parts to be missed. Others deliver segments as separate messages, making them less effective and reducing the likelihood of a response. Keeping messages concise is key to maintaining clarity for your customers.

Communicating Larger Messages

If you need to send longer text messages to capture a marketing campaign, v10 has you covered with the Web Content feature. This allows you to create a detailed message complete with dealership branding and images that aren’t limited to a character count. Once your content is ready, a web link is added to your original text message, giving customers access to the full experience, without overwhelming their inbox! Guiding users to a visually engaging and action-oriented page improves both readability and the chance of converting service leads to bookings.

You can also link documents created in Workplan for other types of messages (email, newsletter, etc.) through the Documents button on the Web Content screen, avoiding the need to recreate your message.

Whether linking documents from Workplan or integrating with your CRM, you can align your text campaigns with broader marketing efforts, creating a seamless experience for your customers. In turn, you can monitor engagement and follow up effectively through campaign reporting and conversion tracking.

For more information on creating these messages and the Web Content feature in v10, please visit PBS Academy.

You can learn more about this topic in our Automated Communications Workflow Masterclass session. Check out our 2025 PBS Masterclasses here.