Consumers are inundated with millions of marketing messages daily, and due to the sheer volume of marketing messages flooding consumers daily, trust in marketing isn’t guaranteed.

The saying goes: “Trust is hard-earned, easily lost and difficult to re-establish.” And many forms of marketing have lost that consumer trust. A consumer’s trust in a marketing message varies widely depending on the medium used, which often determines if a message will be noticed at all, considered or ignored.

Email marketing is frequently touted as the most valuable due to its direct-to-consumer nature, unlimited creativity for messaging and cost effectiveness. However, email marketing is highly competitive for the consumer’s attention, with an estimated 293 billion emails flowing daily.

While SMS marketing is more costly and has more limitations such as character count, its higher open rate and engagement rate proves its value. Consumers trust SMS marketing more than email marketing — and here is why:

SMS Marketing is protected by phone carriers.

Just about everyone will agree that email marketing has gotten out of hand. While email platforms work hard to keep spam filters as proactive and useful as possible, they fail regularly. Phone carriers have protected SMS messaging — bulk senders require a full vetting process by the cell carriers. Email marketing software is readily available to anyone who has an email and wants to sign up; no vetting required.

In addition, cell carriers not only require an opt-in message to confirm a user wants to receive these marketing messages, but they also require the opt-in rate to stay at a healthy percentage. When the opt-out rate rises above certain tolerances, that bulk sender is put on notice.

Most email marketing softwares use a bounce rate for the ongoing vetting of a bulk sender. However, a bounce rate is simply the percentage of undelivered email messages. If you think about it this way, SMS marketing and email marketing both require brands to supply the address (phone number or email) that a message should be delivered to, but only SMS marketing requires a signed permission slip and additional customer opt-in.

SMS Marketing is protected by the user themselves.

Think about it. Consumers do not protect their email addresses. They post them on social media platforms, personal websites, work websites and business cards. They give them to just about anyone and everyone that requests it — and just about every website from news sites to blogs requests it.

Email is a line of communication, but it’s hard to argue it’s a personal line anymore. Consumers, though, protect their personal cell phone numbers, and text messaging is usually reserved for conversations between known and trusted entities.

SMS marketing is a whole new ballgame for businesses and brands looking to connect and engage with consumers like never before. Its immediacy and attention-demanding format opens opportunities for businesses to engage actively and in real-time. Consumers are giving access to a new, direct line of communication  —is up to businesses to take advantage of the opportunity for engagement.

 

Alex Snyder is CEO FrikinTech