BETTER TOGETHER

It’s easy for Team Text to poke fun at the “old workhorse” of email mass communication. In some people’s eyes, email is slow and clunky, while modern text messaging can be quick and fun. Email has been around for more than four decades, while texting only launched in 1992! But email has some advantages. While texting requires you to get your point across in 160 characters or less, email lets you provide detail and support.

OMNI-CHANNEL MARKETING IS THE FUTURE

Don’t be too quick to dismiss email being as past its prime, or say that texting is the only form that matters. Both text and email marketing can be important to your outreach. Simply put, not everyone receives email and not everyone reads texts. If your business uses both, you’ll connect with a larger audience than if you focus on one or the other.

CUSTOMER PREFERENCES

As email addresses age, customers unsubscribe due to email volume, or migrate to other email platforms. Having a text opt-in for customers can ensure continuous communication. And some wireless customers specifically ask to not receive texts. This could be due to costs, perhaps they find texting a challenge, or they simply don’t like the format. If someone is accustomed to email, they may not like the immediacy of texting. A marketing plan that relies on texting only may not reach as many people as one that involves email.

SHARING AND FORWARDING

Encourage customers to share your marketing and you’ll increase your reach. Forwarding can be handy for campaign and referrals, even a simple message like “if you like what we have to say, forward it to someone else who might too.” This is easier and less likely to be blocked via email, which makes it important to market via both email and text.

DIFFERENT LEVELS OF DETAIL

Different writing skills are needed for each format – a text gives you a small amount of space to get recipients excited enough to click a provided link for more info. Email gives you much more space to make your argument, so you can paint more impressive word pictures. Or you also could embed photos or graphics in a responsible email, something that can’t be done in a traditional SMS text, and may use up extra bandwidth in an MMS text.

OMNI-CHANNEL COORDINATION

iZigg lets you customize which messages you send to your audience according to their communication preferences and specific history and purchasing activity. You may have a group of customers who want more info about a particular product or service, so you can target them first with a text, and then follow up with an email. A longer campaign can even follow up an email with an additional text. These types of cross-channel communications can send similar info via text, email, or social media.

However someone discovers your business, make them aware of the easy ways to interact. This can go beyond “follow us on Facebook/Twitter” to “sign up for our texts” or “sign up for our email newsletters.” And then mention all of these in every communication, such as a section in your newsletter about texting. This could go a long way to building loyalty – especially if there are distinct advantages for trying each format, such as different deals and promotions

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS?

Follow the practices above to improve client engagement and watch satisfaction rates soar! And check out our other articles for more advice on specific industries and use cases.