Email Marketing has been companies’ go-to solution for decades. However, with the popularity of mobile phones and text messages, SMS Marketing is quickly gaining lead popularity. Here’s the lowdown about Email vs SMS Marketing.
54.8% of global web traffic comes from phones. Both Email and SMS approaches offer unique benefits in reaching out to your audience. But knowing which approach is best for you can be pretty challenging.
And so, you need to gauge which type of marketing is more efficient for you. Here we’ll be comparing Email Marketing and SMS Marketing! Of course, we’ll look at different factors that may help you decide.
EMAIL VS SMS MARKETING: KEY FACTORS COMPARISONS
When choosing a marketing strategy, you need to consider some key factors. These are: Open Rate, Deliverability, Click-Through Rates, Cost, and Customization.
Open Rate
Consumers have become more distracted than ever with the way things are now. Years ago, Microsoft reported that a person’s average attention span was eight seconds. Additionally, recent studies show that that is slowly narrowing and even decreasing by 88% every year.
Essentially, you have a precious few seconds to get your audience’s attention before they divert it to somewhere else. Hence, this has become one of the reasons why SMS Marketing has gained a striking edge over Email Marketing in terms of open rate.
Since it offers a more direct and straight-to-the-point approach, SMS Marketing directly connects with your audience and consumers. After all, many people are glued to their phones, meaning texts have a bigger chance of being seen. Plus, SMS or texts notify users immediately.
As a result, SMS Marketing has over a 98% Open Rate. On the other hand, Emails have a 20% chance of being opened.
SMS Marketing is a more direct approach. Also, statistics prove that SMS is more effective. Thus, a marketing campaign’s success often depends on its straightforwardness.
SMS Marketing vs Email Marketing (Open Rate): SMS is proven to be better.
Deliverability
Another factor to consider then is deliverability. Since SMS Marketing gives your audience the freedom to opt in or out, it makes sense that it comprises only your engaged customers.
But, Email Marketing has a broader set reach and a relatively more extensive list. However, your emails risk being marked as spam. SMS or text messages don’t get this treatment, or at least to the same extent.
Your audience or consumers receive text notifications on their phones almost immediately compared to email notifications. With that, it’s no surprise then to know that SMS Marketing also brings in a faster response rate. It only takes them an average of 90 seconds to respond to texts compared to emails, which can take about 90 minutes.
Overall, text message marketing increases the likelihood of your target audience receiving your message. However, there are still ways that you can do to ensure that you decrease your Email Bounce Rates. These include updating your list, sending quality emails, building credibility by verifying your domain, etc.
SMS Marketing vs Email Marketing (Deliverability): SMS is proven to be better.
Click-through-Rates (CTRs)
Both SMS Marketing and Email Marketing have high CTR potential. But, what breaks or makes the deal is how well you can craft Calls-To-Action (CTAs). A good Call To Action makes your content desirable. Thus, it gives your reader a reason to click through and see what you offer. With both these types of marketing, it’s up to you to make a compelling offer your audience can’t refuse.
However, you might face a little challenge considering the character limit with text message marketing. Most times, you’re on a 160-character limit, so you have to be creative! After all, you want to convince your recipients to act on your offer.
A branded link makes it quick and easy for customers to take advantage of your offers, helping you achieve higher conversion rates.
Still, texts are shorter and easier to read than emails, with a 4% CTR rate. SMS Marketing has a 9.18% click-through rate higher than any other communication channel.
SMS Marketing vs Email Marketing (CTR): SMS is proven to be better.
Cost
This is one of the factors that may crucially affect your decision, especially when you are just starting out. So, the cost of SMS Marketing varies depending on several factors. These usually include:
- the country or region you’re from or where your audiences are;
- the number of text messages sent, and
- also the length of the message itself.
As a result, SMS Marketing can be more expensive than Email Marketing.
After all, Email marketing is the most cost-effective way to reach a large audience with non-time-sensitive messages. However, email customization is highly subjective to the business itself — the cost depends on what they deem necessary.
SMS Marketing vs Email Marketing (CTR): Email Marketing is proven to be more cost-efficient or cheaper.
Customization
It’s no secret that Email campaigns are far more customizable than SMS messages. So with the 160-character limit in its messages, you need to make sure that your messages are brief, precise, and right-to-the-point. Thus, you have to make it short but impactful. Emails, on the other hand, give you more flexibility and freedom.
Email allows you to send hyperlinks, attachments, images, videos, forms, etc. It also clearly highlights your brand’s tone and voice through colors, design, and logo.
SMS Marketing vs Email Marketing (Customization): Email Marketing is proven to be more flexible.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In conclusion, SMS Marketing and Email Marketing both have their strengths. However, from the narrative and data presented above, we can see that SMS Marketing is more effective.
Email Marketing, however, is more cost-efficient and allows you to be creative as you want with your audience. With these factors in mind, the choice is up to you. SMS Marketing vs Email Marketing — which one is best for your brand?
But, you have more marketing choices, not just these two approaches. So if you want to invest in both of them, you can also do that. But you have to remember to be wise with your budget. Thus, it’s best to try them out for yourself and then with the Analytics Tools that you can use. So, see what’s best for you to identify which approach your business should best invest in.
