SMS Marketing vs. Email Marketing: 50 Reasons Why SMS Is Winning

SMS vs. email marketing, it’s the ultimate marketing showdown.

Remember the buzz around the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight? Fans wondered if the champ would dominate the young Youtuber-turned-boxer, or if the newcomer’s ambition and energy would come out on top.

That’s exactly what’s happening in marketing right now. Email is the old-school heavyweight champ, well-established. But you could argue it’s past its prime. 

Meanwhile, SMS is the newcomer, faster, more agile, ready to prove itself, and already achieving remarkable results for businesses who text. 

In this post, we’ll give you 50 reasons why SMS is coming out on top as the reigning champ of marketing, sales, and support communication.

(You may want to share these 50 reasons with your sales reps, marketers, investors, clients, board, executives or anyone else on your team who’s not willing to try texting yet.) 

Email vs. SMS marketing: How each stack up

Both email and SMS are powerful tools for staying in touch with your customers, generating new leads, and converting leads into customers. 

But which tool is best for your business?

A lot of businesses are stuck trying to choose between the two. However, both SMS and email can be used together to help grow your business. In fact, a well-timed SMS message can actually draw attention to an important email.

Across the board, SMS is the most underutilized channel for most businesses. The reason is simple: it's not as widely used. Adding SMS marketing into your business opens up a brand new channel your competitors aren't likely using yet. 

For example, SMS messages are great for time-sensitive notifications, short-term promotions, appointment and call reminders, qualifying leads, follow-up campaigns, and basically any message that needs to be seen quickly. 

Compare this to email. Sure, email works great for longer content. It’s also cheap to send. The problem is email inboxes are so cluttered, there's a good chance your emails won't get seen, let alone opened, read, and responded to like text messages.

When to use SMS vs. Email 

Ultimately, SMS and email are two valuable channels and fill different needs. But, as you'll soon see, the scales tip in SMS's favor for a lot of reasons.

Before we jump into why SMS is winning over email, here's a quick look at when you should use each tool.

SMS can be valuable when you: 

• Need to capture your leads or customers’ attention fast
• Run a short-term promotion to your best leads and customers 
• Send appointment, call and reminders
• Have urgent and time-sensitive notifications
• Offer tracking information, shipping details and other automated messages
• Send welcome and follow-up sequences to nurture leads
• Give personalized product offers and discounts
• Send follow-up messages to re-engage past leads

While email can be useful when sending:

• Weekly newsletters
• Longer-form how-to guides and tutorials
• In-depth product announcements
• Detailed onboarding workflows

50 Reasons Why SMS Outshines and Outperforms Email Marketing

With that said, let's get into the 50 reasons why SMS wins over email when it comes to marketing, sales, and support communication. 

Results: Texts Deliver Better Outcomes

1. SMS is 5x more likely to be read
It's estimated that 98% of texts get read. Meanwhile a "good" open rate for email is 20%. This means your texts are 5x more likely to get read than email.

2. Less time to write
Crafting a text takes about 90 seconds—or less. Plus, with the help of Salesmsg AI Texting Assistant you can create messages in seconds. Compare this to email which takes around 30 minutes to a few hours to write.

3. Higher ROI
Texting has sky-high customer engagement, and takes much less time to produce. One of our customers generated $20,000 from two simple SMS messages. Email has a solid ROI, but has a much higher time investment.

4. Texts don’t get buried in promotion tabs or spam folders
Even if you write the greatest email in the world, there’s still a high likelihood your subscribers won’t see it—especially if it lands in their spam folder or promotion tab. Compare this to SMS where your text will always appear where your customers can read it.

5. Texts close deals faster
SMS is the best channel for following up with leads for your sales team. Texting not only dominates when it comes to speed to lead, but also is mission critical for long-term follow up with leads. Texts are quick and simple, making them ideal for maintaining momentum throughout your sales cycle.

Writing Simplified: Why Texts Are Easier to Write

6. Keep it short
Texting is short. The limits of the channel make it so much easier to send out campaigns. You can test ideas quickly, run promotions, drive traffic, and more, all in under 160 characters. (Pro tip: If you’re already a Salesmsg customer, try our link shortener tool to keep your links short and sweet.)

7. No testing subject lines
With texting, you don’t have to spend time tweaking and testing subject lines. At first glance, readers can instantly see the bulk of your message.

8. No preview text needed
Same thing goes for preview text. Get right to the point. There’s less need to stand out, since there’s less competition inside messaging inboxes.

9. No extra steps for leads
In marketing and sales your goal is to remove as much friction as possible between a potential customer and the sale. With SMS, your leads can take action directly from your text messages. They can hit reply and send you a response, click a link, book a call, or immediately go to your store and buy your products. A couple of clicks and they’re one step further in your sales or marketing process.

10. No “above the fold” worries
Every part of your text is visible, so there’s no need to stress over layout or design. Yes, you can add images, GIFs, videos or other attachments to your SMS messages. But overall, there’s far less design concerns than building a high-converting email template.

11. You can reuse great text messages
When you find a text that works, you can re-use it again and again. No need to reinvent the wheel, like you might for emails. For example, you might reuse a high-converting text message inside an automated SMS workflow—and trigger that message based on your customers’ actions. You can now build these automated workflows directly inside Salesmsg.

Speed & Efficiency: Save Time, Get Results

12. 90-second response time
You can expect a response to your text message within 90 seconds. There’s no other medium that has a response time anywhere close to this. Compare this to email which can take hours to get a response—if they respond at all.

13. Engage multiple customers at once
With SMS marketing, you can use bulk texts or SMS broadcasts to reach a group of your contacts at the same time. But, unlike email, these mass messages open up a conversation with every one of your potential customers. When you use a two-way texting platform like Salesmsg, your leads can hit “reply” on these mass messages and instantly open up a line of communication with your marketing, sales or support teams.

14. Focus on results, not formatting
With SMS there’s no need to spend time formatting your messages, unlike emails. This frees up a ton of time to strategize new offers, create new promotions, and experiment with other ways to integrate texting into your business.

15. Fastest way to qualify leads
For your sales team: A simple texting conversation can qualify your leads faster than a back-and-forth email conversation ever could. You can even automate this conversation, by instantly sending a follow-up text message to anyone who signs up for your sales demo. 

16. Automated texting takes minutes
Email automations can be confusing and clunky to set up. But with texting, setting up automations couldn’t be easier. You have the option to build entire workflows inside Salesmsg. Or, you can integrate Salesmsg with your CRM like HubSpot and ActiveCampaign, and add automated text messages to your existing workflows with just a few clicks.

17. Texts are multitasking-friendly
Often sending texts doesn’t require your full attention. Responses are quick and easy. Inside Salesmsg, you can even use saved replies or canned responses to answer text messages even faster. For example, your support team may use many saved replies to respond to your most frequently asked questions. 

Engagement: Why Customers Pay Attention to Texts

18. Almost guaranteed to be seen
People check their texts an average of 96 times per day. This almost guarantees your text messages will get seen. Compare this email where most people begrudgingly check just to mass delete messages.

19. Texts stay visible
Unlike emails that get buried, your texts will remain accessible and visible on your leads’ phones. Your messages might even remain on their lock screen or under their alerts, depending on their phone. This provides multiple points of visibility that email can’t match.

20. Cuts through the noise
With texting there’s way less competition to get your customers’ attention. With email, you are competing with every other email your potential customers received today. That’s often 50+ emails just on the first page of their inboxes. By comparison, a short 160 character message can cut through this noise—and arrive exactly where your potential customers will see it.

21. Urgent messages get priority
As a medium, people are used to responding to texts quickly. You can use this to your advantage to send out time-sensitive updates. Compare this to email where people might only check emails once a day, and there’s a good chance your email will get missed.

22. Texts invite engagement
People reply to emails, but the reply rate is much lower than text and feels more like a one-way conversation. Texts encourage direct, two-way conversations, and open up a channel for conversation that feels natural.

23. People crave simplicity
More than ever, customers want to keep things simple. Texting fits this need perfectly. Plus, short, simple text messages appeal to people’s shorter attention spans.

24. Short messages drive action
Texting is meant to drive your customers and leads to the next step. Which makes it perfect for follow-ups and moving leads through the sale process, running flash sales, and sending appointment reminders. Email is good at conveying information, but much harder to get people to take action.

25. Texts feel like VIP communication
Texting feels incredibly personal. Part of it is the medium, but you can also send personalized messages to make your leads feel like you’re only talking to them. It’s a simple way to make your customers feel like the only VIPs who matter.

Trust & Security: Texting Respects the Customer

26. Texts are opt-in only
In order to receive texts, customers must opt-in and give their permission. This creates a trust-based channel where leads will be much more engaged and interested in your business.

27. Texts face fewer spam risks
The mobile carriers have already taken steps to make sure texting stays a spam-free place, by requiring businesses like yours to agree to certain compliance regulations. At Salesmsg, we walk you through how these compliance regulations work, so it’s easy to get started. These new regulations mean your text messages won’t get buried in spam (like email) and your customers will continue to enjoy the texting experience.

28. Inbox fatigue doesn’t exist
There is no such thing as “texting fatigue.” Unlike email, text inboxes remain uncluttered and manageable. The nature of texting and instant response ensures this won’t become a future problem either.

29. Texts feel less intrusive
Sometimes just opening your email inbox can feel overwhelming. Compare this to texts, which are simple and easy to respond to. Coming from a business, texts are usually welcome (like marketing messages with discounts), helpful (like support messages), or are valuable (like sales team responses) and help to drive a sale forward with follow-up messages. 

30. Better for sensitive information
Texts are ideal for secure updates like appointment confirmations, account notices, and communicating other sensitive information. You’d rarely, if ever, share sensitive information via email. 

Personalization: Make Messages Matter

31. Texts feel personal by default
Texts feel intimate and personal. Texting is used to communicate with family and friends, so just using this channel creates this friendly vibe for your business.

32. Texts offer instant, surprising personalization.
We’ve seen plumbers, electricians and other in-house professionals send text messages to their clients before arriving in their homes. These personalized texts often include the name and photo of their plumber or electrician. This way, clients know in advance who to expect at their door, and feel more comfortable welcoming these technicians into their homes. This unexpected personalization would not be possible with emails, that clients may not check in time. It’s only available with texts.

33. Easy to personalize
Your team can personalize every text you send. With Salesmsg and data from other CRM platforms you can easily add personal details to make your messages feel like it was written specifically for them.

34. Even less-personalized texts feel authentic
Texts are 100% conversational. Even if you’re not personalizing every message you send, this conversational tone makes your messages more relatable and compelling.

35. Texts build stronger relationships
The one-on-one nature of SMS fosters trust and builds rapport over time. The simple act of back and forth communication helps your leads and prospects build a bond with your business.  

Simplicity: Fewer Resources, More Results

36. No HTML design needed
Forget about having to use layouts and templates, or customize your texts with HTML. With texting, there’s no design needed. Plain and simple communication wins.

37. No advanced education required
Everyone on your team already knows how to write a text message. No advanced courses or education needed. That means your sales reps, marketers and support team can all start sending text messages to your leads and customers. 

38. Focus on your product
Texting frees your team up to spend more time perfecting your product or service, rather than polishing lengthy emails. With texting you can get your time back, while still achieving great marketing results.

39. Texts cut the corporate tone
Texts feel friendly, approachable, and human. Compare this to emails, which often feel stuffy and corporate. Texts help to build a bond, while emails can create the feeling of you talking at your customers and leads. 

Texting Platforms Make SMS Easier

40. No need for complex design tools
When crafting emails, you need to use complex graphic design tools, or hire a designer to do the work. With texting, all you need is a platform like Salesmsg.

41. Straightforward setup
Texting platforms like Salesmsg couldn’t be easier to use. You can connect Salesmsg with your CRM like HubSpot in just a few clicks. Then you can add automated messages to your existing sales, marketing, and support workflows. This means little to no learning curve for you and your team.

42. Integrates seamlessly with CRMs
Salesmsg is designed to work seamlessly with your existing CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and ActiveCampaign. Once you’ve connected your two platforms, you can use Salesmsg to easily text your existing CRM contacts.

43. Supports advanced automations
From workflows to triggers, texting platforms allow you to automate messages with ease. Plus, these automations can be integrated with the other platforms you’re already using.

44. Mobile-friendly by default
Texts are built for mobile-first communication. A lot of people read emails on their mobile devices, but not all emails are optimized properly to be read on phones. That can lead to a clunky reading experience on mobile.

45. No rendering issues
With texting you don’t have to worry about your messages looking odd, or not rendering properly across different devices and screen sizes. All SMS and MMS messages look great, no matter what device they’re using to read your messages.

46. Team collaboration is built-in
Text message marketing tools like Salesmsg offer personal and shared inboxes, which make team communication easy. This is a great way to ensure your leads always get a response and you don’t leave your customers and leads hanging. 

47. Advanced features make texting more attractive
Emails have not evolved much in the past 30 years. But just recently, texting has. Here at Salesmsg, we introduced our new AI Textbots last year that actually text on behalf of your team. You can set up these AI Agents to respond to customers’ text messages, instantly qualify leads and more. That’s something email has yet to offer.

Why Customers Love Texting

48. More than 50% prefer texting over email
Data shows that consumers prefer texting over email for certain business interactions. This number is even higher when looking at the largest customer-bases right now—Millennials and Gen Z markets.

49. Texts reduce decision fatigue
Texting helps customers make quick and confident decisions. Texting can help to inform the sales process and streamline your sales funnel, helping to reduce buyer friction with every text you send.

50. Texts convert better
If one thing is true time and time again, texts simply convert better than emails. They have higher open rates and response rates, which means instant communication and better results, whether that’s for sales, replies, or new support tickets solved.

Pros and Cons of SMS and Email

We went deep into how SMS edges out email as a marketing channel. But just because it's superior doesn't mean it's perfect for every business and use case. Emails still have their place. 

Here's how each tool stacks up side-by-side:

Which Channel Scales Best?

It’s important to look at how SMS and email marketing can scale with your business. You want a tool that can grow with your business and support your growing team.

Let's look at how each stacks up.

SMS marketing is built for small to medium-sized teams. More specifically, Salesmsg is perfect for teams of 10+ and agencies who want to implement SMS across their entire client roster.

You can easily send automated text messages to thousands of recipients while also offering a personalized experience. Although email marketing campaigns work great for reaching larger audiences, it’s difficult to provide that same level of personalization.

Sending email messages can be more cost-effective. But you have to measure this against SMS's high ROI and instant engagement.

Finally, you have to consider the overall investment of email vs SMS. With email, you have to invest way more time, energy, and resources into the content, design, and management itself. You also have to hurdle over spam filters and compete for attention from every other email in your potential customers’ email inboxes. 

Conclusion: SMS Marketing is winning 

If you consider all factors, texting is faster, easier, and more impactful than email.

With better open rates, stronger engagement, and simpler workflows, SMS is the ideal tool for businesses that want to connect with customers and drive results.

If your team hasn’t made the switch yet, consider how much time, energy, and resources texting can save. Right now, you can try out Salesmsg for 14 days free. Go check it out. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Is email or SMS more secure?

SMS text messaging is generally safer because messages go directly to your recipient's mobile phone and are transmitted through cellular networks. Emails pass through multiple servers, which increases the chances of interception, and is more prone to spam and phishing. 

Is email the most effective marketing channel?

Email is an effective digital marketing channel for specific use cases like in-depth user onboarding, email newsletters, and longer-form content. However, SMS messages usually outperform email since they're more personal and have a higher open and response rate. 

What are the most common ways SMS is used in marketing?

SMS marketing is commonly used to send time-sensitive updates, personalized promotions, flash sales, reminders, follow-up messages, and more. You can also create SMS welcome sequences and automated SMS nurture sequences to improve your sales process. 

What are the three advantages of SMS marketing?

Compared to other marketing channels, SMS has a 98% open rate, notifies subscribers of messages immediately, and has much higher reply and engagement rates. Plus, it doesn’t require an internet connection to send messages.