SYLVIANE NUCCIO

We live in an area where everything can be done from the tip of our fingers.

Starting from sending a text message or a simple email, but also starting an online business, taking care of your banking transactions and many other things you might not even be aware of yet at the moment can be done without you going anywhere, but typing keys using the tip of your fingers.

Not only keys on your computer keyboard, but more often than not your phone’s, whether it’s a smartphone or not, as a matter of fact.

With this in mind, while most people having a mobile phone can access the internet from it, a feature that they are using incessantly without the need to access the internet is text message.

With about 7 billion mobile phone subscribers (95.5% of world’s population) spending an average of 23 hours a week texting and replying to text; text message in business communication is becoming more than a good idea, it’s actually something you should seriously consider as a business owner.

In this article, I wanted to show you 6 main advantages of using text messages rather than emails to contact your potential and current customers or vendors.

1 – Opening Rate Percentage is a No Contest

The open rate of a text message is 98% against email opening rate which is less than 24%, and that’s if you manage to have a subject line that is attractive and enticing enough.

Who is not tempted to check a text message as soon as it arrives?

On the other end, who is going to open every single email that’s trying to sell them something?

As a matter of fact, that habit of rushing to open text messages is so prevalent that it’s become the nightmare of road safety where we need to constantly remind drivers not to drive and text at the same time.

So if you want to be sure to get your message across, there isn’t the shadow of a doubt that text is going to be the best medium we know today, and the 98% opening rate is an obvious reminder of this fact.

It doesn’t mean that you should drop email marketing altogether – not by any means because it also has its place in business communication, but marketers could tell you that a considerable part of their email list is actually NOT opening their emails, even though some may have a higher success rate than others.

This happens even with hot lists that were built on a specific and targeted market basis.

2 – Faster Read

The maximum length of the text message is 160 character while the length of an average sales email is 150 words (often times longer).

While it will take your potential customer just seconds to read your text, it will take them up to one or two minutes to read a sales email.

Faster read is a huge motivation to open a text message right then and there, while we are tempted to leave that email for later when we get more time to read it.

Often times that later moment never comes.

3 – Faster Reach

If your competitor is using email marketing solely, you have the heads up by reaching out to your customer or vendor via text messages.

According to statistic one-third to half of the sales happen with those who respond first, and since your text is bound to be faster than email, your chances of making sales with your text message increases as well.

Needless to say that it’s much easier to reach your target FIRST when you text message them, so keep this in mind if you want to get ahead of the competition.

4- No Subject Line Engineering Needed

The first thing to consider very carefully when creating a sales email is your subject line.

Any good marketer knows that a bad subject line alone will lower the chances that the receiver will ever open it, which means that subject lines must be carefully considered every time you send a sales email to your potential customer or vendor.

When it comes to text messages, this problem is automatically eliminated which on its own gives a tremendous advantage to text messaging.

5 – More Personal

Nothing could be more annoying and even a huge turn off for a potential customer to feel that they’re just a random name or worse even a number.

How many emails have you sent to faceless names and how did it go for you as a business owner?

Sad to say there are still some people out there who are trying to sell to faceless names and email addresses thinking that they are “good leads.”

But they couldn’t be more wrong.

Unless you’ve made the effort to build some type of relationship with people on your list, it’s as good as dead.

When you send a text message to your client, customer or vendor, it allows you to be more personal, because you could simply ask a quick question or give a simple tip that is personalized and requires a prompt acknowledgment right then and there.

A personally directed message to a specific person. Something that is rather difficult to do with email nowadays. But much easier to accomplish with text.

6 – Multiple Email Addresses Vs one Phone

It’s not rare for people to have more than one email address. As a matter of fact, many people have a special email address to deal with sales item type emails, which you’d probably be put in.

So when you’re sending them an email, chances are that your email goes to that secondary email address that they may be checking once a month or so.

However, most people still have only one phone and therefore can’t be as selective about the text messages that they receive as they are with emails.

A major reason why your text will be more noticeable than your email.

7 – Makes you Stand Out

In comparison with email, texting is still not very much used by businesses.

So, using text messages for your business communication today will make you stand out.

With email marketing, you are just one more email trying to make itself noticed, while you may still be the first and only business texting your customer or vendor at this point.

In the marketing world, it’s always good to be early in the game, and especially a game that works and that’s going to become more crowded eventually.

So, while texting for business communication is still new and seldom used, take advantage of it now to grow your business faster whether you have an online or offline business.

Sylviane Nuccio