Marketing to the new digitally mobile society is getting easier and easier, considering the countless new innovations in the field. Among the many ways to market to mobile consumers is SMS marketing where text messages are used to market directly into consumers’ phones. There are some who have seen great success with this method, but for the majority, SMS has not really been a big hitter. In an infographic that appeared in an article from Direct Marketing News, a reason for the bad results from SMS marketing is given. The reason is that most consumers do not really like them very much either that is to say, they prefer email as their method of receiving mobile messaging promotions.

The infographic is based on results from StrongMail and Forrester Consulting’s survey of 322 consumers. Of those surveyed, exactly half of them said that they preferred receiving promotions and other forms of marketing through email rather than through SMS or while using apps. This makes sense, considering the performance of desktop email marketing when it was still high in popularity. Now that people use their mobile devices for everything, most of them only read their email from the mobile devices. With SMS marketing, marketers can only fit so much information into a text while still maintaining a reasonable size. Mobile email gives advertisers a lot more freedom in what they include, therefore getting a better response from mobile consumers.

The infographic also states that 65% of the respondents said that they were willing to receive promotions through email at least once a week. This statistic shows that consumers actually enjoy email marketing. Personally, I find some of the best deals around in email promotions simply because they are not offered anywhere else. Most people will tell you that they get annoyed when an advertisement interrupts their SMS conversations, but with email nothing is interrupted, which is probably one of the factors that led to consumer preference of email marketing, considering 63% of the respondents said they would rather not receive any promotions at all through SMS or in-app.

However, since there is a preference for mobile email message marketing, care needs to be taken by marketers whilst using it. The infographic lays out the “Biggest Barriers to Mobile Marketing Success;” the things that most consumers run into when trying to click or read email advertisements that make them unable to. 28% of the respondents stated that the issue they see most is bad links. Another 28% said that their biggest issue with email marketing came from running into emails that had not been optimized for mobile. These are both things that need to be avoided by email marketers while trying to have a successful mobile email marketing campaign.

So, if the mobile emails are formatted and cared for correctly, it seems that people will definitely click them. Mobile email will probably knock SMS marketing out of the way, as more and more consumers begin to prefer it over SMS as a platform for receiving promotions.

Written by Michael Levanduski

Michael Levanduski is a news reporter at Performance Marketing Insider. He’s been a writer at one level or another for the past 15+ years. He has three kids and lives in Grand Rapids, MI.

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