E-mail marketing vs. SMS marketing. Which is hotter?

by qwqw

Posted: 12 years ago 17 replies

OFFLINE MARKETING

Some say e-mail marketing is dead. They say Go For SMS marketing. It's hot. 99% open rate, bla-bla-bla.

Let's see what is hotter.

How many SMS lists you are personally subscribed to?
Are you willing to provide your phone to anyone who asks?
Are you afraid of getting on spammers lists or telemarketing lists?
What do you do if you start getting too many SMS?
What if you can't get off SMS list despite numerous STOPs?
Is it easy to unsubscribe form SMS for you? How much efforts does it take?
Is it worth the unsubscribe efforts to get on the list in first place?

How many e-mail lists are you personally subscribed to?
Do you use your primary e-mail for that? If not why not?
Fear of geting on spammers list?
Is it easy to unsabscribe from e-mail list? How much efforts does it take?

Final question.

If you were to choose between e-mail and SMS subscriptions which one you PERSONALLY would go for?

Just want to see the real picture which media is used more and therefore hotter.

#email #hotter #marketing #sms

auditt05 12 years ago

SMS.
No matter how much personalization is done on the internet, I never look into my Junk Box, and repeatedly add ad spammers even if they are from trusted domains.
The SMS, is something that I almost MUST read.

In real life, with my previous employer, Targetted SMSs generated hundreds of leads.

Its easier to target based on GEO and Monthly income (based on monthly phone bill) and ask the telco operator to target the ad based on these.
Just my 2 cents.
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- beeswarn 12 years ago
  
  How many SMS lists you are personally subscribed to? 4
  Are you willing to provide your phone to anyone who asks? No. Nor am I willing to provide my phone number to anyone who asks for it.
  Are you afraid of getting on spammers lists or telemarketing lists? No.
  What do you do if you start getting too many SMS? Cancel subscriptions to the ones I don't want.
  What if you can't get off SMS list despite numerous STOPs? Reply with ABUSE and let the carrier handle it.
  Is it easy to unsubscribe form SMS for you? Yes
  How much efforts does it take? A little more than no effort, but not much more.
  Is it worth the unsubscribe efforts to get on the list in first place? Subjectively speaking, yes.
  
  How many e-mail lists are you personally subscribed to? 1
  Do you use your primary e-mail for that? If not why not? No. Hard lesson learned the hard way.
  Fear of geting on spammers list? Fear no. Prudence, yes.
  Is it easy to unsabscribe from e-mail list? No. How much efforts does it take? More than you'd think.
  
  If you were to choose between e-mail and SMS subscriptions which one you PERSONALLY would go for? SMS
  
  With these question selections, condescending phrasing and the indefinable "hotter" qualification, this reads like an authentic agenda-driven AP survey. Either that or you're a first-year grad student at a third-tier land grant university.
  
  Care to respond with what you intend to do with our answers?
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  qwqw 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by beeswarn
  
  [B]
  
  Care to respond with what you intend to do with our answers?
  
  Not going to sell anything. I'm not a WSo believer.
  
  Asking to find the real picture what real people prefer these days.
  
  Please do not try to find the under water current. There is non.
  
  If it bothers to answer then don't.
  
  Thanks
  
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Alex Makarski 12 years ago

@qwqw you're making a fundamental mistake that we all make way too often. The mistake is... you are NOT your market. Whatever you do or feel towards SMS or email is of zero relevance to the only correct question: Does YOUR MARKET prefer to marketed to via SMS or email? And the only way to answer that is buy testing, not by running a focus group.

And the answer you'll probably find is that both work, and they work best when used together.
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macker2298 12 years ago

I guess that due to the new smart phones sms is hotter but i must say that i hate getting them even more than emails
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Aussieguy 12 years ago

As much as I have loved the idea of sms marketing, I don't personally like them(!). But then, as Alex' pointed out above: I am not necessarily my market (I'm not a FB'er either, so that proves the point).

I recently read an excellent article (don't have it at hand) that talked about email marketing for the 40+ crowd, and sms for those in their 20's. Not sure about the in-betweens, that's where I'm at and maybe we're just confused!

But really.....don't think in your own terms, think about businesses. If I was selling a service to nightclubs, I'd be selling sms, not email marketing so much. 'Cos that's what their crowd is using! Doing a newsletter for your financial advisor? Probably an email might be a better choice!

It is a good question though. Age isn't the only factor after all. For example, a fishmonger's market isn't primarily very young people, yet they may do well with sms.
So it's yet another, "it depends". And, there is really nothing to prevent a business from trying either or both to various degrees.

Again, for me personally, I prefer email. I get quite a few (compared to zero sms), and I just delete them when I don't feel like reading, and open when I do feel like taking a look.
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checklinks 12 years ago

In my opinion sms marketing is hotter than email markinging. Because so many persons prefer sms only better than email.
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Exel 12 years ago

Here is an article from few days ago discussing a survey about email and sms preference for promoting:

MediaPost Publications Email Preferred Over SMS For Promotions, Especially In U.S. 03/28/2012
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MonteMichaels

12 years ago

Originally Posted by brisbanebr

Email marketing is lot better than SMS marketing. Most of the time I found SMS an annoying thing, so does others. I have heard a lot about SMS marketing, but seen very few who are using it. On the other hand, email marketing is still one of the oldest and most preferred way of marketing and it works....

People consider email annoying also, but what makes SMS great is that the people on the list are laser targeted. They chose to be on the list and have to continue to stay on it. Sure many will drop off, but I would rather have 150 targeted subscribers who will see my ad than 2000 who may or may not even open it.

Posted from Warrior Forum Reader for Android

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Aaron Doud 12 years ago

SMS is less spam.
SMS takes less time to read.
SMS is easier to unsubscribe.

For these reasons SMS works better for restaurants and such with small messages. But email is still something that you need to do for longer messages.

Either works within a given marketing plan. Depending on what your client's needs are and how the total marketing plan works.
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- qwqw 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Aaron Doud
  
  SMS is less spam.
  
  I guess it's just a matter of time until technology will evolve
  
  Originally Posted by Aaron Doud
  
  SMS takes less time to read.
  
  But you still have to read it whether you want it or not. E-mail on the other hand takes no time to read at all. Just delete. One click and no reading whatsoever.
  
  Originally Posted by Aaron Doud
  
  SMS is easier to unsubscribe.
  
  To unsubscribe from e-mail takes one click.
  
  To unsubscribe from SMS takes 5 clicks.
  
  How is that easier?
  
  Thanks
  
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johnnieslist07 Banned 12 years ago

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- colesraymond Banned 12 years ago
  
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  Alex Makarski 12 years ago
  
  It's like asking, what's better, books or movies?
  
  The best stories usually start out as a book and are then turned into a movie...
  
  or they start out as a movie and are then turned into a book.
  
  Similarly, a smart business would use both to maximize results.
  
  Say, you are an information marketer. Your method happens to be webinars, teleseminars, and live events. You may have noticed (kinda hard not to) that out of 100 registrations only 10-12 actually show up at your webinar (whereas in the past it could've been 25-30). BTW, these are the numbers I hear about quite consistently from many people.
  
  So now you add SMS reminders to the mix and voila, you bump your average from 12% to 15%. If you're any good at marketing math, you know it's not a 3% bump but a 25% bump, and you have achieved it at a very low cost. How? By using email and SMS together.
  
  A 25% bump in almost any business means going from losing money to making it, or from scraping by to making a small killing at it.
  
  Now, if you are an offline marketing consultant, the right question to ask would be, which one is easier to sell profitably, email marketing or SMS marketing?
  
  I haven't promoted SMS yet so don't have any personal experience to draw upon. However, as far as email marketing goes, almost anything is easier to sell profitably than that because you are competing with mailchimp offering free accounts of up to 500 subbies and icontact offering free accounts of up to 100. And then email is so ridiculously cheap you can only make money by charging a consulting fee on top. Which nobody wants to pay because email has been around so long they "think" they know how to do it.
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  
  "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." -Confucius
  
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philipdwyer 12 years ago

It's true that I am less apt to give my cell number than my email, but that only means that if I did sign up for SMS, then I would be more apt to buy via cell.
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HarrieztPotter 12 years ago

I prefer to use sms sms because it will always be open and read because it is more simple than using email, so I think marketing is the best use of the Email Marketing SMS Marketing .. succes for you
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everge 12 years ago

SMS as it is targeted and you need to opt in..better read rate....better conversions...
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Gary Joseph 12 years ago

Let's face it... everyone likes to receive an SMS. We just feel because there is a cost for each text, that there must be some worth from it.... However getting the number is the hardest part.

Of all the SMS Marketing that I get, they are linked to services, like getting a massage (saying they have 20% off) or a dentist (saying they have 15% off teeth whitening)... random things like that.
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madison_avenue 12 years ago

It depends on the industry for something like restaurants SMS is good because you send out coupons and discount messages, but they need to be targeted i.e to list of that restaurants previous customers, not randomly sent out.

For information products, email is better as you can send them to specific urls.
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E-mail marketing vs. SMS marketing. Which is hotter?

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