Why Mobile SMS Text Marketing not Email Marketing?
 by: Vijay Shukla

Why Mobile SMS Text Marketing not Email Marketing?

With over 1.8 billion mobile connections globally, mobile marketing has now become an extremely effective tool to marketers for promoting their brands in multiple ways. With increasing population of mobile phones and decreasing usage costs, SMS (text message) is becoming a compelling proposition for direct marketers who till now relied on emails and letters alone. Very often comparisons are drawn between effectiveness of Email and SMS (text messaging). On face of it, Email seems to have an inherent advantage of being less costly than SMS. A slightly deeper study by ValueFirst Messaging (http://www.vfirst.com) reveals that being close-to-free has become the main reason for Email loosing all its relevance in terms of being effective.

Emails get blocked: An internal study revealed that most people have more than three Email accounts. Some of these accounts have become inactive as these receive only unsolicited SPAM. Various companies have installed very effective SPAM filters which block marketing mails and if not blocked by SPAM filters these land up in the Junk folder of the recipient. The marketing mails which are still able to make it to the Inbox are quite likely to be deleted from there without the recipient even taking a look at the subject matter.

SMS are always read: Now compare this with a marketing message sent as an SMS. A small element of cost associated with SMS has prevented it from being too widely used. SMS are easily personalised and are always read before they get deleted. Recipient sees the SMS immediately on receiving it and the impact and retention of the message is much higher than any other medium. SMS is not overlooked and one can be almost fully assured that once a message lands on a phone it is going to be seen, read and retained at least for some time.

SMS cover all buying segments: SMS unlike Email are pushed on mobile phones instantly. An Email user may not fetch his mails for a long time, particularly when he is using multiple accounts. In context of marketing also mobile phones cover a much larger and wider segment of potential buyers of goods and services than Email. Some of the significant segments, with substantial buying power, which get neglected by Email are house-wives, elderly people not very technology savvy, etc. Mobile population is much larger than regular Email users.

The following is the comparison of email and SMS marketing:

Reach
Email: Internet users
SMS: Mobile users

Cost per transaction
Email: Low
SMS: Medium

Access
Email: Home and work
SMS: Everywhere

Impact
Email: Low
SMS: Medium to high

Personal
Email: No
SMS: Yes

Synchronous
Email: No
SMS: Yes

Viral
Email: Yes
SMS: Yes

Conclusion: Mobile marketing is a new addition to the media mix, with great opportunities for direct interaction with customers and cost-effective data collection. SMS-based marketing is more impactful and has much higher penetration than Emails. A serious campaign, either for a brand building exercise or for short term promotions, can rely much more on SMS than Emails.

Selecting a SMS marketing technology partner that understands the medium as well the requirements is the key to success.

About The Author Vijay Shukla This article has been contributed by Mr. Vijay Shukla Vijay has over 8 years of industry experience in management consulting and providing innovative services and applications around mobile data services for large enterprise. The above article represents personal views of the author. He can be contacted at vijayshukla@yahoo.com http://www.vfirst.com webmaster@vfirst.com