If you’re new to the world of marketing, you might not know much about email marketing or SMS marketing. Learning about these concepts, their similarities and differences are important if you want to improve your business, get more customers, and gain more revenue. And even though you won’t become an expert overnight, you have to start somewhere! Plus, there are always experts that can help you tailor your marketing strategies in order to really get the most bang for your buck. So here’s everything you need to know about email marketing vs. SMS marketing:
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a form of direct digital marketing that uses email to contact customers and potential customers regarding products, deals, events, etc. Think of email marketing as very similar to traditional print marketing – just through a digital platform instead of being delivered to your physical mailbox or doorstep. Email marketing was developed in response to our increasingly digital world – just like print journalism had to adapt, marketing has adapted to fit our attachment to technology.
Email marketing is a popular form of marketing because 94% of Internet users have email accounts and 99% of people who have an email check it every single day! Just think of all the people you could reach with a good email list. However, building a quality email list is easier said than done and takes some time and effort in order to get a real return. Even though there are things that you can do to build your email list through email marketing services, purchasing email lists, or using lead magnets – there’s no replacement for building your email list on your own through your website, social media accounts, word of mouth, etc. That way you are able to build rapport with your customers instead of sending out unsolicited emails from people who have never engaged with your business before.
What Is SMS Marketing?
SMS marketing, on the other hand, is a form of direct digital marketing that uses SMS text messaging to reach customers instead of emails. The different uses of SMS marketing are very similar to marketing emails – for promotions, sales, coupons, events, etc. However, SMS text marketing uses texts that are shorter and faster than email. That’s because even though email marketing was the response to our Internet-based world, SMS marketing is the response to our new smartphone-based world. People are texting now more than ever and are constantly on their smartphones now that 81% of adults in the United States own one.
Texts are great because they are pretty much instantaneous – and this is why people are more likely to at least open them very quickly. In fact, 90% of SMS messages are read within three minutes of receiving them. SMS marketing messages are obviously shorter than emails since there is a 160 character limit and they don’t include any flashy graphics that you find in email campaigns. SMS marketing messages have to be short and to the point and include a major call to action in order to actually be effective. But when done correctly, SMS marketing can have a high response rate and open rate that really help get customers in the door and cash flowing into your business.
How Can They Work Together?
Even though there are similarities, differences, advantages, and disadvantages of both email marketing and text message marketing, they don’t have to be mutually exclusive practices. In fact, they definitely shouldn’t be mutually exclusive and they should be used together in order to maximize effectiveness. This is because email marketing and SMS marketing have different audiences, different urgency, and different speeds.
Email marketing is the communication channel preferred by older generations whereas younger generations like millennials tend to prefer text messages. So depending on who you are trying to reach through your marketing efforts, you may need to employ different strategies. A text message is also more intimate than an email is, so it usually comes with more urgency since it’s right on your phone, hard to ignore, and is a call to action. So what does this mean in practice when combining the marketing tools of email marketing with SMS marketing?
Well, this means that email marketing is a great way to promote things in advance and keep your customer in the loop about upcoming sales, events, and email newsletters. However, SMS marketing is a great way to get people in the door during the sale by sending them a limited-time discount or reminding them that the sale is ending soon so they need to come by. Emails are less urgent than texts, and the content of both should appropriately reflect this fact.
On the other hand, texts are easier to personalize and direct to specific people about things that relate to them. Whether it’s texting them to let them know about a new location opening up in their area or about a cool shopping event going on in their local store, texts are a great way to truly interact with a customer. Another way that you can use SMS marketing to interact with customers is to follow up with your cart abandonments. Services like Cart Text have live representatives that will personally reach out to people who added something to their cart but didn’t actually check out. They chat with them to figure out what they need to do to get the customer to pull the trigger – whether that’s offering a small discount, free shipping, or even just answering questions about the product, shipping time, return policy, etc.
When you use a cart abandonment SMS service like Cart Text, you are able to make up a ton of revenue that would otherwise be lost by items just sitting in peoples’ carts. An email service would not be effective for this because it’s not personal or interactive enough – it’s more for general information. But when a real person texts you, uses your name, and refers to the item that you were looking at – you’ll be more likely to at least respond and hopefully go through with the purchase as a result.
What Are the Benefits?
Now it’s time to really get down to business. All of this information and nuance surrounding email marketing vs. SMS marketing might sound like a lot of work. And it is! But it’s also so worth it. Here are some of the benefits that you can gain by effectively utilizing SMS and email marketing in complementary ways:
- Create personalized content that makes it easier for you to engage with customers
- Collect feedback and surveys from customers based on previous experiences, what they want to see more of, what they want to see less of, etc.
- Communicate and build rapport with your customer list by keeping them in the loop and providing them with valuable offers
- Improve your sales numbers by reaching more people at the right time and encouraging them to buy
- Easily measure the metrics and effectiveness of your different campaigns and then make changes according to what works and what doesn’t
- Spend less money doing these things than you would if you used other methods
- Promote your brand by allowing people to share your content and gain new potential customers for free
- Fast and easy reach to people in locations all over the country and world
How to Do It Well?
I’m sure all of these benefits sound really enticing and make you want to get started with email and SMS marketing right away! However, success isn’t a given when it comes to these things and you need to make sure to do it right because you can either build customer rapport or drive customers away. So here are some ways to ensure that you are doing it right:
- Make sure that people have consented to receive your content – whether it’s through email or text.
- Make sure not to send out too many things or else you will risk driving customers away by annoying them with too much material.
- Make sure to only send out things that the customer will actually want to see and will benefit them in some way.
- Make sure to use personalization whenever possible to increase responsiveness and return.
- Make sure to time your messages well and take different time zones into account when you do this.
- Make sure to keep it short and sweet – but professional! Abbreviations work in certain contexts but marketing SMS isn’t one of them.
- Make sure to identify yourself quickly in text messages and create catchy subjects for emails that people will want to open
- Make sure to give people the option to opt-out of your marketing materials if they want to.
At the end of the day, SMS marketing and email marketing are distinct but similar concepts that can be used together effectively to directly reach your customers. Perhaps the best way to employ these strategies is to get help from the experts like Cart Text to ensure that you are able to gain customer rapport and build your brand instead of alienating or annoying people through untimely, irrelevant, or incessant messaging.
Sources:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223231
