Email Marketing vs. SMS Marketing: What’s the Difference?

There are channels that are absolutely critical to an ecommerce marketers tool belt and email and SMS programs are the most important owned channels for brands. But sometimes, when they aren’t done correctly, they can get in each other's way. Classic frenemies.

In today’s fast-paced digital world of ecommerce, you’ll constantly face the challenge of maintaining customer attention. With so many distractions vying for your customers’ time, finding an effective way to engage and retain them is critical. 

For decades, email marketing has been the cornerstone of digital marketing strategies, offering a broad reach and unparalleled content flexibility. However, SMS marketing is rapidly gaining traction as businesses recognize its ability to deliver quick, impactful, and highly personalized customer communications.

Both email and SMS marketing have unique strengths and weaknesses, and understanding these differences is vital to crafting an effective marketing strategy. For instance, text messages boast an average open rate of 98%, significantly higher than email’s 20% open rate. This stark contrast underscores the importance of selecting the right channel to reach your target audience.

Source: SMS Comparison

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of both email and SMS as marketing channels, highlight their strengths, and offer insights into how you can, as an ecommerce brand, leverage both to maximize customer engagement and ROI.

Email marketing remains one of the most trusted and effective marketing channels for ecommerce brands. Its ability to reach a wide audience, support engaging content, and deliver exceptional ROI makes it an essential tool in any digital marketing strategy. Let’s explore its key benefits.

With email marketing, you can easily connect with large subscriber bases worldwide. This channel is ideal for nurturing leads and building brand awareness through targeted customer communications. Segmentation allows you to send personalized messages that resonate with different kinds of audiences, ensuring higher engagement rates.

According to the Email Statistics Report, 2023 - 2027, the number of global email users is expected to exceed 4.3 billion in 2023 and grow to over 4.8 billion by 2027, making email a vital tool for effectively reaching customers.

Source: OBERLO

Email marketing is perfect for delivering a consistent flow of promotions and updates, keeping your subscribers engaged throughout the customer journey.

One of the greatest strengths of email marketing lies in its ability to support rich content like images, videos, and even long-form articles. This makes it ideal for storytelling, showcasing products, and providing detailed information about your offerings.

For instance, you can use email campaigns to feature product reviews, promotions, and compelling visuals, all within a single message. This flexibility can allow you to create an immersive experience that drives customer engagement. Furthermore, emails with visuals, such as videos, can increase click-through rates by up to 300%.

This kind of adaptability ensures that your communication strategy remains dynamic and relevant, catering to various stages of the customer journey.

Email marketing offers a scalable pricing model that suits businesses of all sizes. Different platforms provide multi-tiered pricing based on subscriber counts, making it accessible for startups and established ecommerce brands alike. 

Additionally, automated email campaigns reduce manual efforts, allowing you to focus on strategy while maintaining high customer engagement levels. 

With the increasing digitalization and widespread use of mobile phones, SMS marketing has become a vital tool for businesses that aim to engage customers directly. The number of mobile users worldwide is likely to rise to 7.49 billion by 2025.

Source: Statista

One of the standout advantages of SMS marketing is its unparalleled open rates and engagement levels. Unlike email inboxes, which are often cluttered with promotions and newsletters, text messages provide a direct line to the recipient, ensuring your message cuts through the noise.

According to Gartner, SMS messages boast an impressive 98% open rate and a 45% response rate, far surpassing email’s corresponding figures of 20% and 6%. This makes SMS a powerful tool for delivering time-sensitive messages like flash sales, order updates, or event reminders.

The near-instantaneous nature of SMS messages ensures that you can effectively drive engagement for urgent promotions and critical updates.

SMS marketing is a uniquely personal channel that enables direct communication with customers. It facilitates two-way conversations, allowing you to engage in meaningful dialogue and provide personalized experiences.

As we continue to shift toward a mobile-first world, SMS serves as a bridge between you and your audience, fostering trust and loyalty. By enabling your customers to opt in to receive messages tailored to their preferences, you can build long-lasting relationships and enhance your communication strategy.

For instance, a wellness brand, Apothékary, achieved a 75% click-through rate by taking a conversational approach to abandoned cart reminders, treating the interaction like a friendly nudge rather than a hard sell.

SMS marketing goes beyond promotions by providing a quick and efficient way to address customer inquiries and support requests. It also enables you to collect zero-party data, such as preferences and feedback, directly from customers. This valuable information, freely and willingly shared by customers, can be used to personalize marketing campaigns, improve product development, and enhance the overall customer experience. For example, you could text customers to ask about their preferred product lines or what types of products they're most interested in seeing on sale.

A study found that over two-thirds of consumers prefer texting with customer support over other channels, citing speed and convenience as major factors. 

Additionally, SMS opens doors for user-generated content (UGC), allowing you to invite customers to share photos, reviews, or testimonials through mobile messaging. These contributions not only enrich marketing efforts but also strengthen community bonds.

Relying on a single method of customer communication can limit your reach and impact in today's world of various communication channels. Combining email and SMS marketing creates a communications strategy that leverages the strengths of both channels, ensuring a seamless customer journey and maximizing engagement levels.

Email marketing and SMS marketing excel in different areas, making them ideal counterparts in a well-rounded marketing strategy. While email is perfect for nurturing leads, sharing detailed updates, and driving email engagement, SMS offers immediate, personalized interactions that cut through the noise for time-sensitive messages.

Apparel brand True Classic exemplifies the power of combining email and SMS.  By implementing Postscript's Onsite Opt-in for SMS list building, they streamlined their SMS acquisition process, keeping customers on the site during opt-in. This resulted in a 3x improvement in their SMS acquisition rate, allowing them to leverage the immediate, personalized interactions of SMS marketing.  This enhanced SMS list building, coupled with their existing email strategy, likely contributed to their impressive 40% growth in automation revenue in just one week, demonstrating the synergistic effect of a well-integrated email and SMS approach.

Combining the strengths of both channels enhances the customer journey and drives measurable results. This balanced approach allows you to communicate effectively while optimizing your marketing strategy.

Using multiple channels creates a unified and engaging customer journey. This synergy is particularly effective for scenarios like:

• Abandoned Cart Reminders: To encourage checkout, send an email with a detailed cart summary and a timely SMS reminder.

• Exclusive Offers: Notify high-value email subscribers of exclusive discounts via SMS to create a VIP experience.

Combining data from email and SMS marketing provides a holistic view of customer behavior. Tracking metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and response times across both channels allows you to fine-tune your strategies.

For instance:

• Use SMS data to identify high-response times and replicate that urgency in email campaigns.

• Leverage email insights to refine SMS content for specific customer segments.

Multiple factors affect the choice between email and SMS marketing. A thoughtful evaluation of these elements ensures that resources are allocated effectively and ROI is maximized.

Different objectives call for different approaches:

• Brand Awareness: Use email marketing to build your brand’s presence through email campaigns that feature rich visuals, storytelling, and detailed updates.

• Lead Nurturing: Keep prospects engaged over time with automated emails offering personalized content.

• Sales Promotions: Deliver flash sales and urgent offers via SMS to encourage immediate action by your customers.

• Customer Service: SMS allows for quick responses to inequities or password resets, while email provides more comprehensive support and feedback collection.

Your audience plays a critical role in deciding which channel to prioritize. Preferences vary based on demographics, device usage, and communication expectations:

• Younger Audiences: Mobile-first users often prefer SMS for its speed, simplicity, and ease of access.

• Professional Audiences: Some consumers prefer email for its ability to deliver detailed information.

Both email and SMS have unique cost structures, so it’s essential to consider your budget and ROI potential:

• Email Marketing: Offers scalable pricing models, making it ideal for larger subscriber lists.

• SMS Marketing: Involves per-message costs, which are justified by higher engagement levels and response rates.

To thrive in today’s competitive ecommerce landscape, leveraging the right tools for SMS marketing is essential. Postscript offers a robust platform specifically designed to help your ecommerce brand maximize its marketing efforts and achieve measurable success. 

With Postscript, you can transform your customer communications into a powerful driver of growth and engagement. Here’s how we can help your business

Postscript’s seamless tools allow your customers to opt in and let you build a loyal subscriber list who are willing and ready to engage with your brand.

Craft tailored SMS messages and campaigns designed to meet your business goals, from time-sensitive messages to promotions that drive immediate action.

Strengthen your customer journey with personalized, mobile-first interactions that foster loyalty and boost conversions.

Combine email and SMS marketing for a holistic communication strategy that ensures maximum impact and efficiency.

Request a demo today to unlock the full potential of SMS marketing for your business by partnering with Postscript. With features designed for ecommerce success and a focus on driving results, Postscript is your go-to solution for creating meaningful customer communications.

Get in touch with us to learn more about our powerful tools and strategies. Whether you’re looking to start sending engaging text messages or refine your existing approach, Postscript is here to help you succeed.