Did you know that only 18% of email marketing is opened, while SMS marketing is opened 94% of the time? The response rate of SMS marketing is 45% compared to 6% with email marketing? And finally, that a whopping 80% of people already use texting for business purposes? Of course, you do! We’ve all heard these stats. Clearly SMS marketing communication is king, but I won’t labor over statistics. Instead, let’s talk about why SMS messaging is more effective than email and why that matters.
SMS marketing is more effective than email marketing for three main reasons.
SMS marketing is simple
- Anyone can use it
One of the great things about SMS marketing is that it is simple for both the marketer and the customer. Anyone with any kind of cell phone can use it. All they need to do is simply text a word to a number. Once sent, the word triggers an automated message flow. Even your grandmother can do that!
- Sending links and attachments is easy
Sending a link or attachment in a text message is no biggie. And is actually one of the best parts of SMS marketing! Often, you don’t even need to take up space on your servers with either links or attachments in your SMS marketing because links and attachments are typically hosted by the text messaging platform you’re using to send SMS marketing. Hosting links and attachments this way increases download speeds which improve customer satisfaction when engaging with SMS marketing.
- It’s easy to opt-in and opt-out
No one likes to be bombarded with messages that don’t matter to them. With SMS marketing, it’s easy for customers to opt-in and opt-out. There’s no gray area. All they have to do is type YES or STOP respectively. It doesn’t get simpler than that. And you are covered because the opt-in, opt-out procedure follows federal TCPA compliance. These guidelines govern the use of automated SMS marketing messages.
SMS marketing is convenient
- Capture customers phone numbers
When customers engage in SMS marketing, their information, namely their phone number, is automatically captured. This means that if they ghost, you can still reach out to them. This is just the tip of the iceberg, though, when it comes to capturing customer information. Information collected from a customer using SMS marketing is secure and available for your marketing efforts. Even if you need to print the information, you can do it as most SMS marketing platforms allow you to download this information to a spreadsheet.
- Tag contacts
The ability to tag customers is another way SMS marketing is so convenient. When you begin to see the trends in your customer’s behavior based on your sales data, you can make proactive changes to your SMS marketing efforts. Assign customers tags based on the data you’ve collected. Then put customers on SMS marketing campaigns specifically targeted to their purchases. Doing so increases your bottom line.
One, or multiple tags, can be used for each customer. That’s why tags are as powerful as they are. Think of tags like social media posts with hashtags. Each hashtag tags that are similar. Likewise, each tag categorizes a customer into a group with other customers that share purchase similarities.
- Build versatile campaigns
With email marketing, in order for customers to engage, they have to click-through to your website. But with SMS marketing, you can cut out the middleman. Instead of having a customer perform an extra step of jumping from one page to another, you can simply build in the method that you choose to gather information.
Say you want customers to fill out a questionnaire. In email marketing, you have to build in a link your email, but with SMS marketing you can simply ask the questions and capture the answers right away. You don’t even need to ask the customers to submit the form. It definitely doesn’t get more convenient than that.
SMS marketing can do more than a simple questionnaire though. It can be used for customer service by texting a word to a number that notifies customer service representatives, for a political campaign to fundraise, for corporate communication within an organization, for a confidential focus group, and even simple notifications for members of a book club. Build campaigns for any situation and circumstance.
SMS marketing goes anywhere
- Print advertising
It doesn’t matter where, if it exists in the physical world, you can put SMS marketing on it. All you need to do is give a word and a number to text it to; plus a call to action, of course. You can put SMS marketing anywhere! You can use it on traditional forms of advertising such as billboards, magazines, and newspapers. But you can also use it on non-traditional ones such as on product packaging, in hotel rooms, on car wraps, and even on real estate signs. Anywhere you put words, SMS marketing can go. Can email marketing do that? I think not.
- Online advertising
And it’s not just print media that SMS marketing rules the day. SMS marketing can go online too! Just think about Instagram for a moment. Since Instagram is visual-based, words are scarce; only being allowed in the comment section of images. And even their links aren’t allowed. Businesses have tried to remedy this problem by simply typing out the link and hoping customers will copy-paste it to the search bar. However, SMS marketing remedy’s this situation. An SMS marketing campaign word and number to text it can be put in the comment section instead. This gives Instagram users the ability to text a word right then on their cell phone.
But it’s not just Instagram. SMS marketing can be used on a whole host of other sites. The possibilities online are endless. There’s nothing quite like it.
Sms marketing is better suited to your marketing needs than email marketing
As you can see SMS marketing is more effective at filling your marketing needs than email marketing. It’s the best way to improve your customer engagement. When you have great higher customer engagement, that means higher profits for your company. To increase your bottom line, drop email marketing and start using SMS marketing.
Carrie Duford is a blogger at TextSanity. A recent graduate of BYU, she’s perfecting her craft as a professional blogger. When she isn’t writing, Carrie enjoys all things outdoors. You can reach her at [email protected] or on LinkedIn. You can also follow TextSanity on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.