Today's digital marketing landscape provides businesses with a wealth of tools to connect with their customers. Marketing is no longer about putting up a billboard and hoping your customers drive by. Between social media platforms, digital advertising, email marketing, and SMS messaging, there are so many ways to engage customers and drive results. But this range of options presents its own unique challenge. How do you use each tool effectively to achieve your goals?
In this article, we'll focus on marketing tools that enable you to communicate with customers through targeted messages delivered directly to them via email and SMS marketing. Read on to learn the ins and outs of each marketing tool, when to use SMS vs. email marketing, and ways to combine the two for powerful results.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is a marketing tactic that utilizes email to engage with existing and potential customers to achieve business goals. As long as a customer consents to joining your email list, you can send emails directly to their inbox. Use email marketing to promote products or services, build customer relationships, generate leads, re-engage lapsed customers, and more.
Is email marketing dead? No! There are several effective ways to incorporate email marketing into your overall strategy. Common types of email marketing campaigns include:
- Newsletters
- Product announcements
- Promotional emails
- Lead generation campaigns
- Abandoned cart emails
Pros of email marketing
There are several reasons to incorporate email marketing into your digital marketing strategy. Benefits of email marketing include:
- Ideal for storytelling and long-form content. In a world of 30-second video clips and 150-character headlines, email marketing presents a unique opportunity to tell customers engaging stories and interact with them via long-form content.
- Flexible layout options. This marketing channel enables extensive customization and flexibility, resulting in a final product that perfectly represents your brand. Well-designed emails can drive brand recognition, reinforce your business's identity, and delight your customers.
- Supports segmentation. Email marketing platforms enable the delivery of targeted messages using refined segmentation based on age, demographics, location, behavior, and other characteristics. Lead nurturing campaigns allow you to guide customers deeper into your marketing funnels based on their engagement, clicks, and other relevant signals.
- Easy to test. Constantly refine your email marketing strategies using A/B testing. Test and optimize subject lines, CTAs, modules, and more. These findings can inform your marketing strategy across various channels.
- Cost-effective. Email marketing is often considered a cost-effective marketing tool with a high return on investment (ROI).
Cons of email marketing
Email marketing does present a few limitations. Drawbacks of this marketing channel include:
- May end up in spam folders. Email service providers may mark your emails as spam. Marketers need to follow best practices to avoid spam filters and ensure deliverability.
- Easy to ignore or delete. Of course, the human element also plays a factor. In the daily barrage of emails most people receive, customers can easily delete, ignore, or even miss emails.
- Requires more design and setup time. When comparing email and SMS marketing, email puts a greater strain on your design and deployment resources.
What is SMS marketing?
SMS marketing enables marketers to send personalized messages to customers and leads via text messages. Like email marketing, SMS campaigns can be used to market products and services, confirm orders, promote time-sensitive promotions, and more.
Before launching an SMS marketing campaign, it's imperative to thoroughly understand its consent laws and opt-in requirements. Consumers must expressly agree to receive SMS messages from your business and have the option to cancel at any time.
Pros of SMS marketing
There are several reasons to explore SMS marketing for your business. This marketing channel has the following benefits:
- Fast delivery and immediate visibility. As soon as an SMS message is sent, your customers will receive a notification. Most consumers engage with text messages quite differently than they do with email messages. While they may allow emails to accumulate with no response, most people open and read text messages immediately.
- Concise messaging. SMS marketing enables marketers to make their point concisely and clearly—without the opportunity to bury the lead. Its character limitations can help businesses get to the point quickly.
- Doesn't require an internet connection. SMS messages rely on a cell signal to deliver rather than an internet connection. That ensures deliverability no matter where your customer is.
- Supports two-way communication. SMS messages enable a more natural conversation between businesses and customers, fostering greater engagement, especially with lapsed customers.
Cons of SMS marketing
Like email marketing, SMS marketing has its drawbacks. Limitations of this digital marketing platform include:
- Limited character count. SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, including letters, spaces, and punctuation. It can be challenging to truncate messages to this length.
- Lack of visuals. SMS campaigns can only include characters and don't support images or other branding or visual elements.
- May be flagged as spam. Like emails, SMS messages can get trapped in spam filters if businesses don't follow best practices.
- Strict regulations: SMS marketing compliance is regulated by both the TCPA and CAN-SPAM acts, which place strict requirements on these marketing campaigns.
What are the differences between email and SMS marketing?
SMS and email marketing are both effective tools for a comprehensive marketing strategy, but they aren't interchangeable. Differences between the two marketing channels include:
- Use cases. Text message marketing campaigns are ideal for time-sensitive communications, such as time-limited promotions and recovering abandoned carts. Email, on the other hand, is better for long-form content and more complex messages.
- Engagement metrics. SMS marketing has significantly higher open rates and click-through rates.
- Cost and ROI. The cost tends to be higher with SMS marketing compared to email, whereas the ROI tends to be lower.
- Design and branding. Email has much greater design capabilities, enabling consistent branding. That said, design needs can put a much greater strain on resources.
Should you use SMS, email, or both?
Email and SMS are integral to a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, but it's essential to know when to utilize each. Read on to learn when to use SMS vs. email marketing—and when it may make sense to use both.
When to use SMS marketing
SMS marketing is all about sending concise and timely messages. Use it to promote limited-time offers like flash sale alerts, time-sensitive notifications like appointment reminders, or order confirmations.
When to use email marketing
Email marketing is ideal for conveying complex messages in a long-form format. This channel can be used to onboard new customers, nurture existing leads, grow your audience, or provide detailed content about multi-tiered sales.
When to combine SMS and email marketing
In some cases, it may be advantageous to combine both SMS and email marketing in multi-channel marketing campaigns. Consider the following to seamlessly use both channels together:
- Leverage email to drive SMS subscribers. Create an SMS subscriber-only promotion and promote it via email. Encourage customers to sign up for SMS messaging to get the discount code. Doing so can help you turn email subscribers into SMS subscribers.
- Introduce via email and follow-up via SMS. Introduce a promotional campaign via email marketing, with complete details about the promotion and strong CTAs. Then, use SMS marketing on the final day of the sale to encourage last-minute purchases.
Strengthen your marketing with SMS and email marketing
Email and SMS marketing can help you create an effective marketing strategy, but it's important to thoroughly understand when to use SMS marketing vs. email.
For the best possible outcome, use a tool that offers both email and SMS marketing. Mailchimp offers a comprehensive, easy-to-use platform that enables brands to engage with customers across multiple channels, fostering a seamless and comprehensive marketing strategy.
Key Takeaways
- When used correctly, email and SMS marketing are effective tools to drive business goals.
- Email marketing is best for storytelling and conveying complex and nuanced messages.
- SMS marketing is great for concise, time-sensitive messages and limited-time offers.
- Utilize both SMS and email strategies to enhance your marketing efforts.