Email marketing has been in boom ever since the PC and Macintosh devices have flourished in nearly all homes across the worlds. It has provided marketers with a personal approach to marketing directly to their existing and potential customers.

However, with highly controversial open rates, being in the range of 25%-35%, marketers have started to consider other forms of direct marketing. Email marketing was pretty much a step-up for marketing through letters. It could be seen as a more environmentally friendly way of being dismissed by most receivers. Email marketing has never been able to fully realise its potential.

Here is a list of differences between Email marketing and SMS marketing:

Email- Open rates of 25%-35% are said to increase slightly with increase in the number of campaigns sent out each month. This can be viewed as spamming in some cases.

SMS- Open rates soar at about 99%. This is quite magnificent in terms of getting your message out there effectively. Furthermore, 97% of these messages are opened in the first 15 minutes.

Email- As mentioned above, the open rates can increase only with excessive campaigns being sent out every month. This reduces the availability of original content, can increase cost and is still not guaranteed to be opened by the readers.

SMS- Due to the high exclusivity of this method, it is expected that customers can respond to the offers in less than 4-6 text messages.

Email- Email marketing can only serve as promotional tools for marketing products and services.

SMS- Owing to the high open rates, SMS marketing opens up possibilities of being used as an reminder service for time-sensitive offers, appointments and staff communications.

We do not encourage our clients to stick to just one form of marketing and ignore the others. We simply urge them to try everything and see what works. We hope our information about the differences can help you to plan your next marketing campaign.

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Planning The Most Effective Campaign Is Only Achieved By Keeping The End Goal In Mind

Effective SMS marketing campaigns are being rapidly adopted by all types of businesses. They prove particularly helpful for retailers, restaurants, pubs, nightclubs and so on. However, they are not limited to promotion and marketing. They can also form an integral part of employee administration.

In our previous articles we examined the different ways of planning an effective SMS marketing campaign by focusing on key aspects that ensure positive and profitable outcomes. In this article, we will take a closer look at measuring the SMS campaign success.

Here is what success may look like:

• Cross linking customers to social media pages and increasing traffic on the company website.
• Informing customers about time sensitive deals and supporting impulse buying behaviour.
• Service providers can save time and money by asking for appointment confirmations via an effective SMS campaign.
• Invite the right amount of crowd to your restaurant, nightclub or bar on special occasions and in the light of special deals.

While these are the expected outcomes, you cannot always wait till the final outcome to judge the responsiveness and measure the SMS campaign success. That is exactly why we have compiled a small list of iterative observations that you can make as you go:

• Always offer your customers an opt-out from receiving ongoing communications. The rate of opt-out can help you determine whether your content and targeting is effective.
• Website analytics can help you to quantify the click through rates if you’ve been circulating website URLs through the text messages.
• Alter your contact list based on messages that are not being delivered. These numbers have most likely been disconnected and create additional costs.
• Conversion can also be observed by examining the number of visitors that made a purchase that was encouraged by the SMS campaign.

Our team of SMS marketing experts would be more than happy to give you more detailed information that is specific to your type of business. To know more about setting up a campaign, give us a call on 1800 823 859 for a free quote.

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