Email Marketing vs. SMS:
Which to choose for business in 2022?
Marketers rushed to move on to subsequent technological developments from radio to the Internet. Companies can enter the market exclusively through electronic media or use a combination of marketing tools to reach a wide target audience.
Marketing has a number of purposes, including introducing people to companies and products, encouraging consumers to adopt specific products, and promoting a positive public opinion about a company, product, or service.
Internet marketing is very flexible and allows companies to create targeted campaigns with a wide reach. So which type of marketing is more effective: email marketing or SMS? Let’s get on with it!
Email marketing is the promotion of company products through emails. An email marketer collects a subscriber base, prepares and sends newsletters, and monitors their effectiveness.
Email marketing is a universal channel. It is used in B2B, online stores, services, web services and even show business. And mailing lists have the highest ROI.
What Is Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful internet marketing tool for business development. This is the construction of communication between the client and the business through email-mailings. It is believed that email marketing is similar to spam, but this is far from the case. Letters are sent to customers without breaking the law and with prior consent.
Advantages and disadvantages of email marketing for business:
| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Direct contact with the client, the opportunity to build a dialogue with business customer for many years | Often hit by spam, as today many mail services have high-quality filters to combat spam |
| Good result for small investments | Many users do not use email or check it rarely |
| Full control at all stages, the ability to automate all processes | You can use the contact database of only real customers, and if you don’t have them, then there will be no one to send letters to |
| Easy to use email newsletters | You will not be able to fraudulently obtain contacts, as this may be illegal |
| Receiving important targeted actions from subscribers (comments, requests, contact details, saved free materials, etc.) | This marketing tool is not suitable for audience building |
| Promising, namely – increasing the number of email users worldwide |
While there are downsides to emailing, this tool is a good long-term marketing strategy when you have an established customer base that you need to keep in touch with in order to increase your repeat purchase rate.
How To Build a Customer Base of Contacts?
In email marketing, there are several ways to gather a base of subscribers and potential customers:
- Posting a subscription form on your company’s website or online store
- Placing a subscription form on the company’s social media pages
- Use of the email address of the store’s customers with the prior consent of the mailing list
You should place the subscription form on the first or second screen so that the subscriber can easily notice it. The design of the form should be concise, but also stand out and attract attention. You can use various animation elements, arrows, and drawings.
For the email marketing service, it is necessary to encourage the user’s desire to leave their email address. For example, offer a customer a nice bonus or useful material in exchange for his e-mail address.
It is important to monitor the quality of your contact base, and constantly communicate with the client, paying attention to him and showing care.
What Is SMS Marketing?
SMS messages now have huge potential in the world of marketing. On average, we receive 3 messages a day and open them within a couple of minutes after the beep. And given that a person looks at their phone an average of 150 times a day, the message is unlikely to go unnoticed.
For the purpose of mass informing real and potential customers, many companies prefer to send messages. One of the easiest ways to do that is through an online SMS gateway. Experts say that SMS-mailing is much more effective than sending letters to email boxes. Let’s take a look at the benefits and limitations:
| Benefits | limitations |
| The message will be read by the addressee in 90% of cases within the first 3 minutes, since smartphones are at hand and notify of a new SMS. | Before sending messages, you must obtain the consent of the subscriber to receive messages. |
| There is no need for an Internet connection, because SMS comes directly to the smartphone folder. | Impossibility to get new customers, as SMS-mailing is aimed at communication with existing customers. |
| The text is characterized by maximum simplicity and clarity; a few bright lines are enough to attract the attention of the client. | |
| Preparing an SMS mailing saves time, there is no need to create templates, spend money on layout with design. | |
| A report for each SMS will allow you to predict the results of informing. | |
| SMS marketing shows appealing cost-effectiveness. Just take a closer look at SMS official pricing. |
SMS to potential customers is sent not only by classic retail outlets, but also by online stores and services. Not to mention banks, Internet providers and mobile operators.
In this promotion, the main role is given to the text. For SMS to be effective, it must be catchy, pushing for action – buying goods or purchasing services.
How To Merge SMS Or Email Campaigns?
In most cases, SMS and email successfully complement each other. Combine them and use them for different purposes and types of alerts.
1. Use As a Reminder
Sending SMS notification to the client that an important letter has been sent to the email. The mechanism is such that if the user does not read the first letter, he will receive an SMS mailing list, if he has read it, the next letter from the series will be sent to the mail.
2. Combine Channels
Since sending email campaigns is cheaper than SMS, you can set up scripts that save money, i.e. emails move from the cheapest communication channel to the most expensive one. For example, you can start a chain with free push notifications and send SMS only to those who have not read the push and email.
In Conclusion
Email marketing and SMS are two of the most popular online marketing tools right now. Experts vying with each other praise one or the other channel, measuring conversions and the speed of collecting leads. But why choose when you can combine both tools?
Connecting multiple channels allows you to build a client’s path from meeting to making a deal, which means creating a single sales funnel. At each stage, the buyer receives incentives that help them make a decision.
