Let's talk about where your carefully crafted cold email actually ends up.

Not in the inbox. Not even in spam. Increasingly, it lands in Gmail's "Promotions" tab — a graveyard of unread marketing messages that most people scroll past on their way to the bin. Or it bounces off a gatekeeper: the office manager, the VA, the "info@" black hole that nobody checks.

You're trying to reach the person who makes decisions. The business owner. The one who'd look at their outdated website and say "yeah, we should probably fix that."

But that person isn't sitting in their inbox waiting for you. They're on a job site. They're in the van between appointments. They're serving customers. They check email in batches, if at all.

You know where they are, though? They're three feet from their phone. Always.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Here's the stat that should reshape your entire outreach strategy:

SMS messages have a 98% open rate. Email sits at around 20%.

Read that again. Ninety-eight percent. And it gets better: 90% of text messages are read within three minutes of delivery. Three minutes.

Compare that to email, where the average time to open (if it's opened at all) is measured in hours or days. For a local business owner who's busy running their operation, an email is a thing they'll "get to later." A text is a thing they read right now.

This isn't a marginal difference. It's a completely different universe of engagement. And yet, almost nobody in the web design freelance space is using SMS for outreach.

Which means the channel is wide open.

Why SMS Feels Different (And Why That's the Point)

Here's the thing about text messages: they feel personal. Your phone is intimate territory. It's where your family texts you, where your mates send memes, where your best client sends a quick "hey, got a minute?"

When a text arrives, it gets your attention in a way that email physically cannot. There's no subject line to evaluate, no sender reputation to assess. The message is just there, on the screen, being read.

This is both the power and the responsibility of SMS outreach. The phone is personal. If you abuse that — if you send something that feels spammy, aggressive, or impersonal — you don't just get ignored. You get blocked. You burn the bridge completely.

But if you respect the channel? If you send a brief, genuine, helpful message that sounds like it came from a real person? You get something email almost never delivers: an immediate, human response.

What a Good SMS Looks Like

Forget everything you know about cold email formatting. SMS is a different animal. You have roughly 160 characters before the message splits (and split messages feel less personal). Even with modern phones showing longer texts seamlessly, brevity is your friend.

Here's an example that works:

"Hi Sarah — I'm a web designer in Bristol. Noticed your bakery's site doesn't load on mobile, which might be costing you walk-ins. Happy to show you what I mean if you're curious. No pitch, just info. — Alex"

Let's break down why this works:

It uses their name. Immediately signals this isn't a mass blast.

It states who you are and where you are. Local matters enormously to local business owners. You're not some faceless agency overseas. You're a neighbour.

It identifies a specific problem. Not "your website could be better" — that's vague and presumptuous. "Doesn't load on mobile" is concrete, verifiable, and alarming.

It explains why they should care. "Costing you walk-ins" translates a technical problem into business impact. They don't care about responsive design. They care about customers.

It makes a tiny ask. "Happy to show you what I mean" — not "let's schedule a call" or "check out my portfolio." Just: want to see?

It removes pressure. "No pitch, just info" eliminates the sales anxiety. They can say yes without committing to anything.

It's signed. A name makes it human.

What a Bad SMS Looks Like

For contrast:

"SPECIAL OFFER! Professional website redesign starting at just $499! Visit DesignProElite.com for a FREE quote! Reply STOP to opt out"

This reads like it was generated by the same machine that texts you about PPI claims. It's impersonal, salesy, and screams mass-blast. The all-caps, the exclamation marks, the generic URL — everything about it says "I'm sending this to 10,000 people and I don't know who you are."

Delete. Block. Reported.

The line between effective SMS outreach and spam is tone. Sound like a person, not a promotion.

The Art of Being Brief

Email rewards detail. You can include observations, build a case, link to examples. SMS rewards economy. Every word needs to earn its place.

Some principles:

Lead with their name. It's the single most effective pattern interrupt.

One problem, not five. In email, listing multiple issues demonstrates thoroughness. In a text, it feels overwhelming. Pick the most compelling issue and lead with that.

Use conversational language. Write how you'd text a friend's friend. Not formal, not slangy. Just natural.

End with a question or a soft offer. Give them something easy to respond to. "Would you like me to send over what I found?" is easy to say yes to.

Don't include links in the first message. Links in SMS trigger spam filters and raise suspicion. Wait until they respond. Then you can send a link to your audit, portfolio, or whatever's relevant.

When SMS Works (And When It Doesn't)

SMS isn't a replacement for email. It's a different tool for different situations. Knowing when to use each is what separates a thoughtful outreach strategy from a shotgun approach.

SMS excels when:

Email works better when:

The most effective approach? Use both. SMS to start the conversation. Email to deepen it. The text gets you noticed. The email lets you demonstrate expertise in depth.

Compliance: The Boring But Essential Part

Let's address the elephant in the room. Can you just... text random business owners?

The legal landscape around SMS marketing varies by country and region, and you need to understand the rules where you operate. This isn't legal advice, but here are the broad principles:

In the UK (PECR + GDPR): You can send unsolicited messages to businesses (not consumers) where you have a "legitimate interest" — offering a service relevant to their business. You must identify yourself and provide an opt-out mechanism.

In the US (TCPA): The rules are stricter. Automated text messages generally require prior consent. However, manually-sent, one-to-one messages to businesses about their commercial interests exist in a grey area that many practitioners navigate carefully.

In general:

The key distinction is between mass automated messaging (heavily regulated) and individual, personalised business-to-business communication (generally more permissible). Your outreach should genuinely be the latter — not the former dressed up to look like it.

When in doubt, consult the regulations in your jurisdiction. Being compliant isn't just legal protection — it's good practice that makes your messages more effective anyway. The things that make SMS legal (personal, identified, opt-out-friendly) are the same things that make it work.

The Psychological Edge

There's a deeper reason SMS outreach works so well, beyond open rates and read times. It's about the frame of the conversation.

When someone reads your email, they're in "email mode" — scanning, filtering, categorising. Your message is one of dozens. The mental frame is: "who wants something from me?"

When someone reads your text, they're in "conversation mode" — the same mode they use with clients, friends, and family. The mental frame is: "someone is talking to me."

That shift in frame changes everything. They're more likely to respond conversationally. More likely to engage genuinely. More likely to treat you as a person rather than a pitch.

And once you're in a conversation — a real, two-way conversation — the dynamic shifts entirely. You're no longer a stranger in their inbox. You're Alex, the web designer from Bristol who noticed something wrong with their site.

That's a person. People respond to people.

Putting It Together: A Simple SMS Outreach Process

Here's a practical workflow you can start using today:

  1. Find a local business with a website that has at least one obvious, specific issue
  2. Verify they're a real, active business — check Google reviews, social media, phone number
  3. Draft a message under 200 characters: name, who you are, what you noticed, why it matters, soft offer
  4. Send between 9 AM and 5 PM on a weekday — respect business hours
  5. If they respond, shift to a helpful conversation. Answer questions. Offer to send more detail via email
  6. If they don't respond, wait 5-7 days and try one follow-up: "Hey Sarah — just checking this came through. No worries if now isn't a good time."
  7. If still no response, move on. Two messages maximum. Never harass.

That's it. No complex funnel. No automation sequence. Just a human reaching out to another human with something genuinely useful to say.

The Opportunity Is Now

SMS outreach for web design services is massively underutilised. Almost everyone in your space is competing in the same crowded inbox. The few who are using text messages are getting response rates that email marketers would weep over.

This won't last forever. As more freelancers discover the channel, it'll get noisier. But right now, today, a well-crafted text message to a local business owner stands out simply because almost nobody else is doing it.

The barrier to entry is essentially zero. You have a phone. You can look at a website. You can write a sentence.

Start with five messages tomorrow. See what happens.