When it comes to marketing a product or a service, a company has a wide range of different options – SEO, Content Marketing, Partnership Marketing, Social Media Marketing and SMS Marketing are just to name a few. Out of all these options, SMM and SMS marketing channels has gained substantial momentum and fame in recent times.

When used together, the results from SMS and SMM is a combination that is every digital marketer’s ultimate dream. But, in this post, we’ll highlight the pros and cons of both these channels individually and determine which one is best to integrate with your current marketing plan.

Social Media Marketing VS Text Blast Marketing

Reach

Reaching the target audience is certainly the first and most important step towards boosting conversion rates. Both SMM and SMS offer a great opportunity to reach a huge audience but one obviously is a winner. Today, almost everyone owns a cellphone while only 56% of Americans have a social media profile, some of which are even inactive or fake. Social Media marketers generally have to segment social media channels and profiles to find out areas that represent a higher percentage of their target audience.

SMS marketing, on the other hand, is so personal, direct and informal that more than 98% of text messages are being opened and viewed within the first three minutes of being received.

Another big problem with Social Media Marketing is that a social media message has a limited life span of maximum 20 minutes. If a marketer fails to grab attention within those 20 minutes, a message can disappear without gaining any real-time success. Text messages, on the other hand, will always be there waiting for the user to open and read it. In fact, you’ll constantly get an ‘Unread SMS alert’ until you open up the message and read it.

So, as far as reach is concerned, then obviously, no other options is better than SMS marketing.

Engagement

One of the ways you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaign is by assessing its capacity to engage more customers. With a measly 18-20 minutes life expectancy of social media messages, the marketers usually have a very limited space to grab attention of the readers and boost engagement. A text blast marketing campaign comes with a click-through rate of 36% on average and more than 86% of smartphone users generally check their phones within a first few hours of waking up. Since SMS marketing is a more personal and direct way to communicate with your target audience, it generally evokes a better response from the subscribers. With smartphone users constantly connected with their phones, SMS marketing is definitely a better opportunity for businesses and brands to smartly connect with their customers and increase engagement.

Quantity

Did you know that around 40% of messages on social media channels are ignored by the users? There is no denying the fact that SMS are relatively rare these days. However, it’s also a fact that text messages, even if they’re promotional in nature, are read within just a few minutes of being received. And that is obviously not the case with social media marketing channels.

Conversion

The primary objective of any marketing campaign is to boost conversion rates. It’s important to understand that the conversion goals always vary from one company to the other depending upon its individual business goals and objectives. When businesses make use of the right marketing strategies featuring a powerful and actionable Call to Action, they have witnessed conversion rates as high as 23%-24% compared to Facebook whose conversion rate is not more than 18%.

Automation

Automation enables SMS marketers to send bulk text messages to their SMS list based on their market segmentation and demographics regarding age, location, and personal preferences. While marketers can also send automated messages using social media, there is always a risk of your account getting restricted as social networks generally track the sending of bulk messages.

Market Penetration

If you’re running a text blast marketing campaign, you would have an inclusive list of contacts who have willfully opted-in to your SMS campaign. SMS marketing, because of its permission-based structure, is a great way to target a particular audience who is actually interested in your product range and want to hear from your brand.

Social Media marketing, on the other hand, presents a changing environment. If you’re an entrant, you’ll find your brand surrounded by hundreds and thousands of different brands offering almost the same products and services as yours.

Profitability

Businesses generally prefer social media marketing over other channels believing it to be cheaper and cost-effective. It’s true that you don’t have to invest in a penny to market your content. But, the question is there is no guarantee that people will read and respond to it.

With SMS, you have to pay some money to get started but you can be confident that your messages will be read and acknowledged by the recipients.

In conclusion, SMS definitely is a straightforward and more result-oriented way to reach your target audience. Also, to receive and read a text, you don’t have to invest in expensive tools and devices beyond owning a simple SMS-enabled phone.