As consumers spend more time on both business and social conversational channels, companies now have more chances to interact with customers at every point of the customer lifecycle, from marketing initiatives to pre-sales assistance to post-purchase support. Let’s look at the three main conversational marketing platforms.
The situation benefits both parties. Brands can spend less on operations while maximising their efforts to engage customers, and customers can benefit from improved customer interactions with less hassle.
What could be better than being able to quickly get your favourite brands?
Innovative marketers, in particular, are utilising these conversation channels and continually developing new means of connecting with clients and prospects. But every company’s drive to modernise its marketing eventually raises the same query:
Which marketing channel— WhatsApp, SMS, or email—is the most effective?
We summarise the most recent data and outline the benefits and drawbacks of employing a few of the most popular customer engagement channels for marketing to provide an answer to this issue.
email marketing
Contrary to endless stories proclaiming the demise of email every year, users are still engaged on this channel. However, different audience segments have varied preferences and behaviours.
We gain a better understanding by breaking down the data by generation:
Pre-millennials (74%), followed by post-millennials (72%), think email is the best way to hear from brands.
Therefore, organisations need to understand the client’s age demographics because it directly impacts the channels they should prioritise.
Email usage data:
- 99% of email users frequently check their inboxes.
- 4 billion people use email daily.
- In one hour, 22% of email campaigns are read.
Additional intriguing email statistics include:
- 8 out of 10 people open a brand’s welcome email generating four times as many opens and ten times as many clicks as other kinds of emails.
- When brands send less than five newsletters per week, open and click rates are generally higher.
- The average email clickthrough rate is 1.3%, and the average bounce rate is 10.1% across all industries.
It’s also important to stress the value of ensuring your client experiences are mobile-friendly. Pre-millennials use mobile phones 59% of the time for checking their email, and post-millennials use them for 67% of their email access.
Get busy if you’re one of the 27% of businesses that still need to optimise their emails for mobile devices!
SMS Marketing
The enormous global reach of SMS is one of its most significant benefits. You now have a channel that enables you to communicate with clients worldwide when mobile data isn’t always available or accessible for the consumer. Add to that the capability to send messages without the internet.
SMS statistics
- Email has a 22% open rate compared to 97% for marketing SMS.
- 90% of SMS texts are read within three minutes.
- The use of SMS marketing is growing.
- 58% of people say they prefer companies to contact them by SMS.
Consumers are more likely to consent to marketing SMS from brands in the e-commerce, retail, healthcare, financial, and banking sectors than other businesses.
It is evident from the information above that SMS is a fantastic channel for cutting through the noise to enhance customer engagement and income due to its high open rate, clickthrough rate, and even the simplicity of connecting directly to customers.
WhatsApp marketing
There are three variations of WhatsApp, one of the newest engagement channels:
1. More than 2 billion individuals use the app worldwide.
2. The Business App designed for small businesses
3. The Business API, which has functions to assist big enterprises and enable WhatsApp functionality in their programme.
The fact that WhatsApp allows all forms of rich media, including photos, videos, and animations, is a definite plus. With WhatsApp, businesses can engage customers with engaging, interactive content more efficiently than ever.
With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is the world’s most popular and widely regarded messaging platform.
- According to WhatsApp statistics, 5 million businesses have signed up.
- WhatsApp is deemed simple for business discussions by 68% of users.
- WhatsApp is being considered by 61% of businesses as a new channel.
The data on WhatsApp reveals a wide range of marketing options. Given that it is created expressly for one-on-one talks, it is one of the three channels mentioned above that brings businesses and customers the closest together. Furthermore, the increase of this engagement channel is growing globally.
So, should you market to customers through WhatsApp, SMS, or email?
The answer is based on your business requirements, objectives, and target audiences. You must first understand your clients to choose the channels that will best serve your business and its goals.
To ensure thorough coverage of their target audience and profit the most, most firms opt for a combination of them. For instance, a business might use WhatsApp for advertising and SMS for urgent notifications and newsletters.
How can Saascoms assist?
Once you’ve chosen your channel plan or need some help determining a strategy, make contact and let us advise you on your best approach. Email, SMS, WhatsApp, and even more customer communication channels are all areas of expertise for Saascoms.
We are a market leader in conversational messaging and client engagement solutions, so let us help improve your customer connections, increase revenue, and develop new customer experiences.
Lets discuss how we can help.
Our award-winning technology is proven to increase customer engagement and increase results.