It’s late, and I had a long day with my kids at a theme park with 1-hour lineups and 1-minute roller coaster rides.
So, there I was waiting in line for a ride, and the mother right next to me kept on texting on her phone which got me thinking…
Which is better: sending SMS or calling your existing database?
I know what you’re thinking, why would you be thinking about that in a theme park ride line up.
Well, because I’m a marketer!!
A lot of what we do here that produces tremendous results is by leveraging SMS, Email, Voice mail, and good old-fashioned calling our client’s existing database.
This could be passed and dormant clients to reactivate them, current clients for upsell/referrals, or past leads that never closed.
And inevitably we always get into an argument with our clients…
Savvy growth-originated business owners are no stranger to marketing to their database because they understand the importance of maximizing ROI and building relationships with their database.
Because of that, most of our clients believe they have squeezed as much as possible out of their existing database and their method 9 out of 10 times using phone calls.
Our argument, on the other hand, is if you haven’t text your database whether current/past customer or past leads, you’re still leaving at least 10% of your money on the table.
But, which is better? Is it better to call your database or send text messages?
In this article, we will dig deep to answer exactly that question. Calling VS Text Messages Your Database In 2021 Which One Yields Better ROI?
Calling Your Database
Phone calling your existing customer or prospect is one of the oldest channels of marketing and selling with the expectation of “word of mouth”, mailing, and printing press(newspaper/flyers).
In fact, according to telesales, the first cold calling practice amongst businesses was made in the late 1950s from a telesales firm called DialAmerica. Ever since then, multiple companies have gone along with and implemented similar strategies.
Today, with the advanced technologies, television, the internet, and mass media marketing, people are getting more and more unsolicited computer-generated telemarketing, “robocalls” and has been a huge controversy amongst companies which the government has taken their eyes on and implemented a “Do not call List” policy in 2005.
Since then, people answering sales phone calls had dropped significantly by 33% according to NYpost statistical research last 2017. To top that off, only 19% of Americans pick up calls from unknown numbers, and women together with higher-income adults are less likely to do so according to a recent study about how Americans respond to phone calls.
But what does this all mean?
People are bombarded with advertisements daily and are overloaded between work and family. They simply don’t have the time and attention to pick up calls, especially from numbers they have never seen.
Even if they are loyal customers, they may not ever pick up your call or return your missed calls because they forgot or don’t know who this is. And even if they do return your call, you may be closed and are unable to actually answer their call.
This becomes a massive game of tag and is a huge waste of time and resources. This is also why car dealers don’t just call you to remind you of your service day.
And this is largely the problem with just relying on phone calls to market/sell to your existing database. It’s time consuming and if you cannot get hold of them, they don’t even get the chance to hear your offer.
Considering manpower, equipment, and of course service provider expenses. Like most companies looking to maximize their ROI, these costs can be potentially saved through some automation features, yet, the number of calls a person can handle will still be limited.
That is not to say that there is no place and time for calling your database, there absolutely is! Unless you’re selling eCommerce products, you cannot close a sale using text messages or over Facebook or Google ads. This is where getting on the phone is vital and massively beneficial as nothing beats talking to another human.
Sending SMS to Your Database
In our opinion, SMS, the most under-leveraged marketing channel in 2021, very few companies are leveraging SMS as part of their marketing and even fewer know how to do it right.
In fact, according to Mobile Monkey, 67 out of 100 people would rather trade text messages to confirm an appointment or inquire about services. Yet 67% of businesses are still hesitant to leverage SMS as part of their marketing according to Slicktext.
There are many benefits of adding SMS to your marketing especially for reaching out to your existing customer and database.
The famous Gary Vee (Founder of Wine Library and VaynerMedia) has openly said that after using Community (which is an SMS-based social media platform), they see a massive improvement in their engagement and ROI.
“There is an average open rate of 95%, the click-through rate of 59%, and engagement rate of 39%. Our average CTR is 6.4x greater than email and 78x greater than social media!”
Indeed SMS is a great channel to reach your customers because…
- You cannot really miss the message it shows up on your phone notification.
- People usually don’t have multiple numbers just to prevent spam, so you know you’re actually reaching them.
- Unlike phone numbers, if they didn’t see your message right away, they will see it later and you don’t have to text again.
The best thing about that is, it only costs less than a penny to send a message and you can send to hundreds of different contacts simultaneously unless.
And if you structure your messages correctly, the results generated from SMS campaigns are astounding.
A case study conducted by our own company in a course of 2 weeks shows that SMS messaging campaigns prove to deliver better results than most marketing platforms. Out of 2,560 messages/impressions, more than half of customers responded and ⅓ of those who responded were actually interested in buying or knowing more.
Of course, there are downsides to using SMS for marketing and one of them would be are you’re never going to close a sale just through texting messaging.
So Which is Better?
The answer is both.
I know, I know you’re probably expecting me to say “Of course SMS is better”. The truth is SMS is great and like I said we’ve got some spectacular results running SMS campaigns for our clients but they don’t close the sale.
The point I want to make with this article is actual whether or not you should use SMS or phone calls, but rather the idea of sequencing and understanding the role each of the communication channels plays in your overall marketing strategy.
SMS is great as a conversation starter but you will always want to get the customer on the phone as soon as you can to close the deal.
It’s all about right timing and understanding customers’ interests whether they’re more comfortable talking through text messages or maybe they’re ready for a phone call after continuing the discussion.
It is also about giving your consumer the option to communicate how they want to. The majority of the people will want to communicate through SMS first as it is less intrusive to them but some people will only want to talk on the phone because it’s more efficient.
Everyone is different, there is no reason for you to limit your communication to one channel only. Using SMS, email, and phone to reach out to your customer and database, These channels work like a charm if you combine them together with proper sequence while abiding by strict compliance with the law.