Comparing email vs text can be tricky because both can help you get the job done but they often produce different results.
Each has its own pros and cons, and you may deem one (or both) as the best for your business depending on what kind of goals you’re looking to achieve. Do you wish to improve your open rates in the next few months? Or maintain a high click-through rate?
So, let’s see which one works better for inbound marketing campaigns.
How email and text marketing work
Email marketing is primarily used to send informative and valuable content along with links to other websites. However, when used incorrectly, it can be seen as spam and irrelevant, thus may bring negative impact to your overall inbound marketing strategy.
Would you agree that the same thing can be said about SMS marketing?
Like email, SMS can also be used as a tool to send valuable content along with links to other sources of info like landing pages. However, when abused, it can annoy a customer as well.
Opt in mechanisms
Both are permission-based (via a web or actual form) although they’re being governed by two different authorities in the US. Email is regulated by the FTC CAN-SPAM Act while SMS is governed by the FCC TCPA.
Email vs Text: When put to work
People are always within reach of their mobile phones 24 hours a day. Not to mention the fact that the open rate for SMS is almost 100% and the click-through rate is 19%. The open rate alone is considered up to 6 times higher than the kind of results (20%) email will ever produce.
So, if it’s your goal to reach out to customers instantly, SMS should be on top of your mind. Most text messages are read and responded to within 90 seconds while the response time for email is 48 hours.
Between email vs text, which one to choose?
As you can see, text marketing may look very similar to email but better in terms of producing customer engagement. But this doesn’t mean you should remove email marketing completely from your inbound marketing campaign for it is still here to stay.
What you can do is add SMS marketing to your overall strategy to widen your reach and boost your sales. It can be an effective tool to send out promos, appointment reminders, alerts, or invitations instantly whereas you have email as another channel to distribute image-based updates.