Email and SMS both are heavily utilized at their respective positions. Before we start comparing the two, let us understand the influence of each on the digital market.
On average, the amount of time spent by people with their phone has increased in the past few years. The fact that smartphones have made it easier to reach a wide number of people remains undeniable.
Studies show that the open rate of SMS and emails are more than any other form of marketing. Text messages have a greater open rate by 90%.
An SMS appears to be very personal. It will reach only whom you intend to share. Even if you are addressing your text message to a group, it will be personal for each one of them.
Sms helps you to establish a one-to-one connection with each and every receiver of yours. Which will appear extremely beneficial to generate traffic for your business?
How to juggle both?
If we receive both an SMS and an email at the same time, we will automatically open the text message first and then the email, if not later. Which proves, that people are inclined to text messages more than emails.
What we can do is, send a small portion of the information through SMS and use it as a teaser for the email. In simple words, urge the reader to read the email through the SMS.
Tell them why and how.
Very few people like to be directed, rather they want to know how to exercise their own will. Be it email or SMS marketing, we cannot dominate our customers.
Take, for example, there is a fantastic offer available at your nearest shopping mall. You can send a text message informing about the offer and you can use your email to tell your subscribers more about the offer. This way, you will engage your readers on both platforms.
Keep them engrossed?
Once you have a list of subscribers what you need to do is maintain their attention with your emails and text messages. If you fail to do so, you will end up losing traffic. As a marketer you can arrange for SMS contests, SMS polling sessions can be launched to show that you value the opinion of your customers.
Remember, you have just a few seconds to either fit in for your customer or get rejected. Whatever you do you have to be in these few seconds. Every step of your matters.
Now, that we have discussed how to balance both email and SMS simultaneously, we shall now see which of the two surpasses the other.
Let us have a look at the statistics-
How many sent?
74 Trillion emails are sent per year.
269 Billion emails are sent per day.
2.4 Million emails are sent per second.
While 8 Trillion texts are sent every year.
22 Billion text messages are sent each day.
And, 15,220,700 texts are sent each minute.
How many received?
On an average, 121 emails are received by an office goer each day, while he receives merely 67 text messages every day. However, 49.7% of all email appears to be SPAM.
How many opened & responded?
If 15,220,700 SMS are sent each day, SMS open rate is 98% and the response rate is 45%, while email open rate is just 20% and the response rate is 6%!
Time to respond?
An average person would take 90 minutes to respond to an email. While he would take just 90 seconds to respond to a text message. Most of the text messages are read within 5 seconds of receiving.
Which is beneficial?
Who is not intrigued by an offer? 75% people would prefer an offer sent via text message. Even 65% marketers admit that SMS marketing appears to be more beneficial than email marketing.
53% people prefer text messages that inform them about fraud and service outages, while, 34% people would prefer emails telling them the same.
55% of customers like to get an SMS appointment reminder, while 35% customers would opt for a reminder through email.
After a long debate, you are sure to come to the conclusion that SMS marketing is definitely beneficial than email marketing. However, you will have to arrange a careful balance of both email and SMS to receive interested customers and retain their interest in you.
