Email Vs. Text Marketing: Which Channel to Choose for Lead Generation

 

Email Vs. Text Marketing: Which Channel to Choose for Lead Generation

 

Email marketing has been around for a couple of decades, earlier than text messaging was even created. But did email marketing become better through its history than SMS marketing? We’ll find that out in this article.

 

The advantage of one over another in terms of lead generation is not absolute. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. There are five factors to consider for email and SMS marketing comparison.

 

1. Open Rate

 

Email is convenient to use and it’s free. This makes it useful for work, studies, promotions and etc. The multifunctionality seems like an advantage, yet it is not here. The reason is that people use multiple email accounts and they don’t pay attention to every message they receive there. Moreover, when they receive too many promotional messages, most of them end up in the spam.

 

Compared to email, people only have one channel to receive an SMS with. They don’t receive tons of text messages daily, so they pay more attention to their text messages. Besides, people prefer text messages for more personal communication.

 

Because of these reasons, text messages have higher open rates than emails. In fact, text messages have around 98% open rates, whereas email has about 20-40%. This corresponds with their ability to generate leads too, which gives an obvious edge to SMS marketing in this category.

 

2. Response Rate

 

Generally, email response rates depend on the database and content of the message. Cheaper databases have more random emails, so most messages either don’t reach anyone or end up in the spam folder. Regarding the content, private offers or other similar promotional messages tend to get higher response rates.

 

SMS response rates don’t depend on anything but the content. People prefer to receive special offers through SMS. Therefore, text messages that offer something special are more likely to get responded.

 

The actual numbers for email and SMS response rates are respectively around 6% and 45%. Moreover, most text messages are opened within 90 seconds after being received. This increases the chances for lead generation by text messaging, giving yet another point to SMS marketing.

 

3. Cost

 

Sending an email is obviously free, so it should’ve gotten an advantage here immediately. However, it is not as simple as that. Companies need bots to send automatic messages, sort them out and obtain statistics. Lead generation would be totally ineffective without those tools.

 

SMS marketing cost is mostly the price of each message. Providers usually offer the rest of sorting out and sending automatic text messages. Typically, the prices are different for each country and cell phone mobile carrier.

 

SMS marketing can cost companies from $20 up to $80 per 1000 messages. On the other hand, the price for email marketing bots start from $9 and can reach to $1000 monthly. Considering that most companies choose cheaper packages and they still help them generate leads, email wins this category.

 

4. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

 

Click through rate measures the ratio of clicks on the links that a promotional message contains. It is one of the most precise measures to understand the number of generated leads. Email CTR depends on the nature of the email campaign and its call-to-action degree. Usually, personal offers and discount messages get higher CTR.

 

SMS CTR is also affected by the type of the campaign. The issue here is that people reading emails obviously have an internet connection. Whereas text message receivers may not have one when they receive an SMS, which can affect the click-through rate.

 

Regarding the percentages, text messages have 19% CTR as compared to emails, which have only 3.2%. The main reason for such a difference is that text messages are shorter and people prefer receiving them over emails. Higher CTR means that SMS has a higher chance to generate leads, so it wins in this category.

 

5. Personalization

 

Personalization is essential for marketers because it makes customers feel special. Emails do a great job here allowing marketers to use various visuals to make their messages more appealing. Although it has a character limit, no reasonable message can ever pass that limit. This creates more room to get creative and personalize messages for customers.

 

Text messages also allow marketers to personalize offers and promotions. Most SMS providers have built-in templates for personalized offers. However, marketers are bound within 160 characters and can’t pass that limit.

 

Since email has much more space to use text and visuals, it is more practical for personalization than text messages. Thus, this gives an edge to email here, making the overall score 3:2, meaning that text message marketing is still better for lead generation. Indeed, it is more effective with a slightly higher price.

 
Author Bio:
 

Azat Eloyan is a digital marketer and mobile marketing enthusiast. With over 5 years’ experience in content marketing and SEO, he believes that valuable and informative content is the key. He currently is working as a marketing specialist at SendSMS which is providing SMS marketing service globally.

7 Proven Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Website

 

7 Proven Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Website

 

Since last two decades, the nature of business has drastically changed as we can see that most of the businesses prefer online industry over the old traditional way of business.

 

Businesses now keep a budget not only for the development of their business’s website but also for its advertisement and social media promotion. After the development of the website, it’s really important to drive traffic to it. After a deep research, we have compiled the seven proven ways to drive real traffic to your website and grow your business like a champion.

 

1. Responsive and User-friendly website

 

To increase traffic and get loyal users, it is significant to keep your website up-to-date and equipped with modern features. The website should be responsive that may help users view it easily on all types of devices. To gain the search engine and the customer’s trust, your website must have the following ingredients:

 

Necessary pages – Such as About Us, Sitemap, Contact, Privacy Policy, and Terms and Condition pages to keep all data and terms of your business/website transparent.

 

Loading time – It takes only a couple of seconds for the viewer to switch to another website. So, the website loading speed should not be more than a few seconds.

 

Google Analytics Tracking – You must add a Google Analytics tracking code to track and analyze your traffic.

 

On-page SEO – To improve website rankings on the search engines, on-page SEO is must.

 

Search Engine Submission – Submit the website to search engines such as Google and Bing.

 

2. Write Quality Content

 

Write original and unique content, the main ingredient of your website, that helps you rise on the search engines. Write informative material for users, not the search engines. Given below is the checklist for your content.

 
● Keep it to the point
● Add examples and outbound links
● 100% original content
● No duplications
● Avoid content spinners
● Explain with headings, sub-headings, and bullets
● Add statistics and figures where needed
● Add a table of content to the long articles
 

3. Answer the Relevant questions on online Forums

 

In the initial stages, forums can help you drive tons of traffic to your website. The forum is a platform where users ask questions and look for their answers. Certain forums such as Quora have huge viewership. So, if you answer the relevant questions and direct it to your website by adding a link, people won’t hesitate to visit your website.

 

You have to play smart while finding a question to answer. The best practice is to find a question that has over 1000 views and add a detailed answer. Answering a question that already has 1 to 5 answers may be beneficial.

 

4. Guest Blogging

 

Writing blogs posts as a guest, on other quality blogs, can drive ultimate traffic to your website. Try to dig deep in Google to find the blogs related to your niche and contact them, if there is any possibility for a guest post.

 

There are tons of articles on the internet where with hundreds of listed blogs that offer, free and paid, guest blogging on their sites. To get a productive response, follow the steps:

 
● Search for a relevant blog
● Contact the owner asking for a guest post in a polite and effective way, stating how your post can be beneficial for his website.
● Write a fruitful and informative post, and follow their guidelines, if any.
● Add one or two links to your website or a specific page on your website.
If the said blog has high authority, it will help you to get higher ranking on the search engines.
 

5. Social Media Appearance

 

Remember, social media is among the most powerful media platforms nowadays. Facebook alone has more than 2 billion monthly active users. You can use several social media platforms to create engagement and loyal fan following.

 

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can drive you tons of traffic. How to use Social Media to drive traffic? It’s not difficult. Given below are some effective ways to use social media:

 
● Create engaging posts
● Ask questions
● Offer promotions and giveaways
● Run polls
● Run paid ads on a targeted audience
● Go live
● Answer the questions asked on your social media pages
● Create informative videos about your business or products
 

6. Google AdWords and Facebook Paid Advertising

 

Google Ad Words is one of the biggest markets for advertisers that can give you instant exposure in your target market. Facebook paid ads are also among the effective ways to reach your target audience. While starting a new business, it is recommended to keep a budget for paid advertising campaigns. You can target audience based on interests, demographics, gender, age, and other aspects.

 

7. Polls, Giveaways, and Contests

 

You can do several things to create engagement. Some of them are:

 
● Ask relevant and interesting questions (On social media)
● Run polls (It can be done on your website as well as social media platforms)
● Announce giveaways on different milestones
● Offer exciting gifts
● Offer customized giveaways to the selected users
 

There are tons of other ways to create engagement and drive traffic, but you need to do some brainstorming as per your business needs.

 

Final words

 

Experts say, there are hundreds of aspects considered by the search engines to rank your websites. So, never take your online business easy, and play smart to get the desired results. A little of focused research will give you hundreds of other ideas to drive instant traffic to your website. Also, try to study web hosting, and generate the idea on how it can affect your website SEO.

 
Author Bio:
 

Pauline Jacobs is a blogger, a content writer and a freelance researcher. She has interests in contemporary sociology, cutting-edge technology, and journals on the algorithmic rise of computing. She is a current contributor to Your Last Host blogs and contents.

How You Can Generate More and Better Leads Using Quizzes

 

How You Can Generate More and Better Leads Using Quizzes

 

There is not a single day in the life of a marketer when the term ‘Lead Generation’ isn’t part of the discourse. After all, the growth and survivability of your business solely depends on the quality of leads you generate and how well you convert them.

 

Generating leads is no easy task in a competitive business ecosystem where your competitors are eyeing for the same set of customers. You may already be running an email marketing campaign and it has offered you great success so far. But you need to constantly keep adding new leads to your email list in order to ensure your marketing campaign runs on full steam. This is where online quizzes create more engagement and better scope of lead generation.

 
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Generating leads is no easy task in a competitive business ecosystem where your competitors are eyeing for the same set of customers. You may already be running an email marketing campaign and it has offered you great success so far. But you need to constantly keep adding new leads to your email list in order to ensure your marketing campaign runs on full steam. This is where online quizzes create more engagement and better scope of lead generation.

 

Quizzes are high on engagement quotient and hence they help you generate leads faster compared to other marketing strategies that you may have already explored. In fact online quizzes help businesses grow their email list by as much as 500%. You can very well sense the opportunity of growth in business and sales when you grow your email list five-fold. There are two types of online quizzes that are employed in a marketing campaign – Trivia Quizzes and Personality Quizzes. Each of these have their own advantages but most marketers prefer Personality Quizzes as they help study users’ needs and run targeted marketing campaigns.

 

Get Started With Online Quiz Maker

 

Creating and launching an online quiz doesn’t require high level of technical expertise nor does it require you to be ace in web design and development. An online quiz maker would allow you to crease quiz on a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor.

Get Started With Online Quiz Maker

From choice of design to the number of questions, the logic at the end of the quiz and the User Interface you would be able to tailor every aspect of your quiz using an easy to use online quiz maker. You can express your creativity and ingenuity while using this tool and publish a quiz within minutes.

 

How Online Quizzes Helps You Generate Better Leads?

 

Online quizzes have become the most effective ways of generating effective generating leads for your email marketing and other marketing campaigns. Let us take a look at some of reasons behind their overwhelming popularity in lead generation –

 

• Quizzes Engage Users–

 

Imagine speaking to an audience and reading out from a piece of paper. Will you be able to engage your audience? Compare this to starting with a warm-up question at the start and asking similar question throughout your speech. The latter strategy would definitely work better and online quizzes do the same. Compared to informative articles and blogs they are more engaging and hence they create more scope of lead generation. You can use a lead form in between your quiz and users won’t mind filling it up in their hurry to continue with the quiz.

 

• Gain Insights Into Users –

 

The more you know about your users your odds of targeting them are better. This is the reason most marketers these days prefer personality quizzes as an integral part of their lead generation campaign. Using personality quizzes you will not only be able to gather leads but also gain insights on what your users expect from your brand, what are they willing to spend on and what products and services they are planning to buy in near future. When you gain such qualified leads it immediately helps you run a rewarding marketing campaign.

 

• Promote Your Brand –

 

The aim with lead generation quizzes isn’t restricted to generating leads. It can be used creatively to promote your brand in front of a larger audience. If the questions and outcomes of your personality quiz are fun-filled your users are likely to share them within their social networks. This will help your quiz reach bigger audience and create awareness around your products and services at the same time generating leads.

 

To sum up an online quiz maker holds answers to your lead generation challenge. With this tool you would be able to create engaging quiz in quick time and also generate leads faster than other strategies that you would have used so far. Choose the right online quiz maker and you would offer tons of leads to your sales team.

 
Author Bio:

Mark Gill is a writer and marketing expert. He specializes in interactive content and spends most of his time online looking out for new things and implementing the best possible solutions for his work. He constantly explores trends in content marketing and uses them to increase engagement and ensure success. He has always strived for perfection and is surely on the path to achieve it.