If you rely heavily on email marketing for your brand, think again. You’ve got SMS as one of the best ways to connect with your users. So, you can’t afford to miss the lucrative prospects of SMS marketing. It shouldn’t be just emails but a combination of SMS and email to maximize your marketing efforts and brand reach. Reason? Let’s walk you through a few numbers to show a statistical representation.
As per a report by Statista, although only 25% of smartphone users prefer getting promotional texts, people who own phones are highly likely to open their SMS once, if only to delete it later. But SMS has a higher read rate of 42% than email, which is 32%. That said, 46% of users prefer receiving business or promotional communication through emails.
So, coming to the point, why should you utilize SMS marketing along with emails?
The Best of Both Worlds
It’s simple – to leverage the best of both worlds! SMS works magically for concise and time-sensitive information like sales, discounts, and new launches. Even the latest updates and security-related communication and general information. And if you want to share a detailed message with media attachments, email is your go-to option.
Both SMS and email marketing are crucial to establishing a seamless communication flow with your customers. Detailed information through emails followed by reminder SMSes helps you strike the right chords in engaging with your customers. Automating these tasks would benefit your marketing efforts, saving you time to invest in other methods to brainstorm brand propagation.
Optimize Marketing with SMS
While integrating your marketing touchpoints to operate omnichannel communication, there is no magic potion to combine these channels in one single effective way. Email and SMS go hand-in-hand, and depending on where your buyer stands in the marketing funnel, you optimize your communication.
For example, if you had shared bus booking confirmation through email when a buyer booked the ticket, on the day of travel, you can send an SMS reminder regarding the journey. In another example, you can send a text message to prompt your users to sign-up for your email newsletter containing the latest offers for booking their journey or stay.
Strategically prepared communication can help boost your customer engagement game to drive conversations and conversions. But it is imperative to know the following to decide when is the right time for email and SMS marketing or a mix of both;
• How urgent is the communication?
• What’s the length of the message?
• Will the message contain any attachments?
• Does it require send-respond-based communication?
• Is it necessary for the user to produce this communication at a later point in time?
If your communication is time-sensitive, choose SMS without thinking twice. But if you need to share more details about your products, services, or upcoming campaigns and need your customers to keep the message, then email is the right route. The right combination of both these channels is the way forward to ensure that you and your customers are on the same page.
There are certain things you should keep in mind while devising your SMS and email marketing strategies:
Permission is Necessary
This applies to both the channels. Especially for SMS, because contact numbers are sensitive personal information, you wouldn’t want to invade the privacy of your customers. It’s wise to request them to opt-in for receiving updates through SMS.
Overdo is a No-No
No one wants to be constantly pinged on their phones with updates that would prompt them to spend money. Hence, you need to keep in check the frequency of sending updates. Leveraging your customers’ time zones is a big benefit of reaching their inboxes at the right time.
Personalization is the Key
While you can play around a bit in terms of emails, SMSes are a personal communication channel. It can be used to develop a good relationship with your customers, thus improving brand loyalty. Personalize SMS to address your users directly and make them trust your brand more as they feel closer.
How Textmunication Can Help in SMS Marketing
This is the right time to start leveraging SMS with email marketing to build lasting relations with your customer base and enhance brand loyalty. Stop thinking of an SMS marketing strategy now and click on Talk to Sales because our team is set to give you a smooth ride to start using SMS for increasing your brand reach.
