Do you own or work with a Small Business? Are you interested in being able to text and email your customers?

While SMS and email work separately as vehicles for lead gen in marketing, you have to wonder: what happens when you get them to work together?

Lead Branch asks – and answers – that question!

Let that metric sink in.

That’s a big sandbox of prospects to work with. Even better: 95% of texts get opened within three minutes. So it’s easy to see text marketing is here to stay.

Now with email marketing sitting on an obviously lower open rate – approximately 21.33% across every single industry – you can easily make the case that you should ditch the INBOX in favor of SMS.

But we stress a big ‘no’ to that idea. Here’s why:

That right there tells you, you can’t deny the power of email marketing. Sure, it’s a slower burn in cleaning a list, segmenting, lots more pitfalls with getting complaints or crickets in no opens for days for whatever reason.

But here’s the thing: when you see the value of having both – working together to maximize a list that doesn’t just include an email address but a phone number – you get a marketing campaign that just won’t quit.

When a text campaign works off the data of an email list (or vice versa), you can see the writing on the wall – SMS and email were made for each other.

⦁ Both are scalable
⦁ Both are shareable
⦁ SEO doesn’t affect either one
⦁ And you have resources to combat spam

You can even A/B test and segment without a problem (because, again, both SMS and email can operate on the exact same list of contacts).

It is, however, critical you know when to use either the most.

High ROI demands a focus on already easily automated email marketing campaigns. Not to mention users very much expect emails all the time. How much ROI, though? Litmus reported revenues of more than $35 for each dollar spent.

Compare that to a Google search campaign!

(That’s 3,600% vs. just 200%.)

Yet email does suffer from lower CTR and open rates due to email providers and their SPAM folders. It’s all good, though – because that’s where SMS comes in.

Try open rates as high as 98%! Everyone just loves opening up texts. Plus in this day and age, the Gen Z’ers seem to prefer it over email.

Yet if not managed strategically and conservatively, SMS can be intrusive, not to mention you’re limited in size and multimedia limits.

You maximize all metrics. Use both to encourage survey responses and reviews. Play off the strengths of each campaign format –

⦁ Want higher response rates? Go SMS.
⦁ Need to use higher quantities of video? Stick with email.
⦁ Need users to opt in? Try SMS.
⦁ Looking to qualify those users and know more about what they want? Email may be the way to go.

The point is you get to do a lot of cross-channel marketing to maximize the ROI on just one contact. Use text to rev people up on an upcoming email newsletter, perhaps. Work on an email sequence to gather more contact info, such as phone numbers, so you can leverage an SMS campaign.

It works both ways.

And just in case you might’ve missed it…. Lead Branch manages both!

So it may be worth your while to see what we can provide. You just have to remember: you don’t need to choose between one or the other. It’s not a battle between campaign styles.

It’s literally an olive branch. From Lead Branch. Saying these two types of campaigns – email and SMS – can, in fact, work together. For the better.