The widespread increase in the use of mobile phones has made it quite easy for marketers and advertisers to reach their target audience and get favorable results.
In this digital age, the average adult spends a majority of their time on their phones, and they are mostly either texting or browsing through emails. In such a scenario, it is an obvious thing that marketers will want to exploit this to their advantage and target customers on their phones. This leaves them with two strategies which are the most popular when it comes to establishing their presence. One is Text Message Marketing, and the other is Bulk Email Marketing.
Both these connecting tools have been around in the digital space for many years now. And both are efficient and effective ways to give timely information, discounts, offers, etc., to customers about the product or service. But the question is which is a more reliable and better method for targeting consumers in the long-run and which will bring greater results. With that, we need to take a deeper look at both of them.
SMS Marketing
The biggest drawback of email marketing is the greatest advantage of Text Messaging marketing, i.e., open rates of density. People usually open a text within 4 minutes of its arrival.
Another bright side is that you only have 160 characters to express what you want in your texts. This is even an advantage as marketers can tell their customers about the information related to their products or services in lucid terms. A short, to-the-point message has higher chances of earning a prompt reply from the other side.
The only biggest disadvantage of Text messaging marketing is that you find difficult in obtaining customer’s phone numbers. Without getting phone numbers, its rock climbing thing to create the consistent database of the customers and also a time-consuming process.
Text message can also be a great medium through which marketers can carry out pay per call campaigns. They can include the phone numbers in the message content and generate more leads and prospects with the number of phone calls received. A text message can prove beneficial for bringing more people to your website or link. You can add short URLs in your message and directly bring customers and prospects to the given link.
Email Marketing
One of the biggest pitfalls of emails is that they have a tendency to get into the spam box. Users receive plenty of emails daily which they don’t even see, so there is also the issue of emails sitting unread and unnoticed or simply being deleted without being opened. Inboxing becomes difficult as almost 66% of email traffic is considered spam.
Email has become an old-school marketing strategy because customers are looking for quicker two-way communication means. There are issues like email filters, spamming, domain and IP address blocks that include in the pitfalls of email marketing.
After scrutinizing the pros and cons of both Text and Email Marketing, I will compare them to the following factors-
1.Open Rates
As we mentioned earlier, almost 99% of text messages are read by the people, which is quite more than the emails. The text also has a personal touch to it and receiving one from a brand feels like receiving one from a close friend.
With emails since the possibility of going into spam or being unnoticed sits high, it has a much lower opening rate as compared to text message.
2.Mobile Penetration
Currently, more than 60% of people in the world own a mobile phone, and only 40% have access to the internet.
While the rate of internet users are not increasing as compared to mobile phones users. So, it is a clear fact that a Text Messaging campaign is much stronger and effective than email campaign to reach the maximum audience.
3.Time-saving
SMS campaigns are not cost effective but also time-saving. With the character limitation, you have to cut the story short and hit the target right away.
On the other hand, email campaigns require imagination and planning. You have to design, create long drafts of email, get it approved and then wait for a response after it gets sent out. This process is very time-consuming as compared to text message.
4.Click-through rate
Click through rate is the percentage of people who direct to the marketer’s website by clicking on the link given in the message. The average CTR of text messaging is almost 36% whereas that of email is only about 8-9%.
The reason for this gap is that emails consist of a long message before giving the link, whereas, text messages are short and precise. People don’t have time to read the entire email message and then reach to the link. Thus, Bulk Text marketing always has the upper hand on email marketing.
5.Quality vs. Quantity
Texts have to stay confined to their 160 character limit, making them easier and faster to read for customers. Emails, pack a lot of insignificant information, and customers have to wade through a wall of content before arriving at the main point.
Conclusion
Text Messaging and Emails both come with their own set of boons and banes. Yet, it suffices to say that Text is more adept at getting a quicker response from customers than email which takes longer to read and reply.
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