We send out monthly emails like most businesses that have a marketing strategy to stay in constant contact with their customers. Email is extremely effective in getting your information in a person’s inbox. Text marketing will take your email marketing to a new level that is read more often, more quickly, and is great for time sensitive information.
Target Audience
Email lists can be opt-in, bought, are added to when a business card is received, etc. This can lead to many people completely ignoring your messages. Although the same could eventually happen with text messaging right now most people receiving your text messages are people that are truly interested in learning about your company brand.
Time sensitive
When someone is anticipating on receiving an email from you it is typically read in 6.4 hours upon receipt according to industry standards. Text messaging averages being read within 14 minutes of being sent. This means your information is being seen quicker than it would be if it was sent as an email.
Short and Sweet
An email has the potential to be long and often is never super short. With text messaging the messages are routinely less than 160 characters in length which gives rise to being read more often.
Open Rates
It is not uncommon for an open rate for your bulk emails to average around 28-33% (industry averages from what MailChimp announces). When it comes to text marketing the open rates average around 98%.
Click Through Rates
When an email is sent it is common that one, or more, links are included. Text messages can include links as well. In an email the click through rate is around 6-7% with text messaging averaging around 36%. With a higher click-through rate you stand a better chance of getting more sales.
Considered Spam
Email is a constant stream of spam. Whether it is automatically blocked or not the average on the Internet is that 90% of all email is considered spam. This means your email could be either blocked completely from reaching your intended recipients or will arrive in their junk email. Spam isn’t completely considered spam free though. It is said that 1% is considered spam. This could be a company sends more texts than what they originally agreed or the person is no longer interested and cannot figure out how to unsubscribe from the list.
Number of "touches" for a typical sale
When you are talking about marketing the less touches you have for a sale the better. When a person is interested in what you are offering with email the touches range from 16-30 before a purchase. With text marketing the number of touches is between 4-6 based on industry averages.
Average messages received per month
Your customers receive a lot of emails per month. The average user (spam + non-spam) is around 1,216 emails received per month. This is truly a lot of information that a person needs to assimilate. With text messaging the number is much less (unless you are a millennial who is a lot higher) with the average being 178 messages per month.
Pricing
Email is by far the cheapest of the two marketing tactics when you consider how many people you can reach for a relatively low cost. When you consider the standard redemption rate of 15-20% compared to just 1% with email the numbers to tend to swing in favor of text messaging.
Conclusion
Based on that the industry averages are higher for being opened, clicked on, and redeemed with text messaging over email marketing there is a better chance of your name being more in front of a customer.
If your goal is to build your ego with sending a lot of messages whether they are read or not, then email marketing is truly the best way to go. If your objective is like most businesses wanting to get the best return on your investment, then text messaging is the best way to go.
With our Text Marketing Loyalty Program, you can get a full service (we handle everything) solution for a low cost that meets the needs of small-to-mid-size businesses. You will receive analytics about your subscribers and we will help you market your solution to achieve the best return on your investment. You can reach us at @BUSINESSPHONETOLLFREE@, email at @BUSINESSEMAILADDRESS@ or through our online contact form here.
