Marketing for local businesses no-nonsense advice, personal experiences and lessons learnt

Email v Text

Which should you use for marketing your local business, email or SMS?  Let’s take a look at the differences.

• Email is free to send, SMS isn’t.
• An email can be as long as you like, whereas an SMS is limited.
• An email can include pictures and images.  Not an SMS.
• An SMS can be written and sent in minutes, whereas email requires time and money to be composed and sent properly.
• Most people read emails at home or in their office, whereas with SMS it’s wherever they happen to be when they get a text.
• Text messages get noticed instantly. Emails often don’t.  Some people take days to notice a new email.  Some emails are filtered into spam or junk folders, so never get read.
• Over 95% of texts are opened immediately versus around a quarter of emails.

Which is best depends on what you want to achieve. 

If you want to say something to your customers that isn’t urgent and you want them to engage deeply with your message, then email is best for both you and your customers.

On the other hand, if you want to say something right away or you want certain people to be the first to know about something, there’s no doubt that SMS is best for you and those customers that want to be the first to know.

Is your salon looking very quiet next Monday through Wednesday?  Why not send an SMS to the stay-at-home Mums in your address book and make them an offer they can’t refuse?  Perhaps promote a luxury service rather than a standard cut, so that you don’t prevent them booking their usual monthly trim. What’s better, an empty salon or a busy one with customers paying half price for things they wouldn’t usually buy?