Email is an extremely efficient form of communications. It’s safe to say it isn’t going anywhere soon. But in the marketing world at least, it seems email is on its way out. Just about every one has signed up to receive a business’s emails or newsletters in order for that great, initial incentive. You get that first deal, you use it and you’re happy. But the emails keep coming day after day. After weeks of deleting them unread, your email service probably starts putting emails from that company straight into your junk folder which you purge every now and again. It’s understandable why many consumers are getting turned off to email marketing.

Goodbye email

According to a recent study, the average consumer will receive over 400 commercial emails each month. That’s more than ten per day. Furthermore, 35% of consumers say they’ve chosen to unsubscribe from a business’s emails simply because of the frequency of the emails. Most telling of all, the open rate for commercial emails is approximately 19.7%. Only 1 in 5 consumers that don’t unsubscribe are actually opening up the commercial emails they do receive. It’s apparent from these numbers that many consumers are growing tired of incessant spam emails. Though email marketing may have worked in the past, consumers in the mobile age prefer to engage with brands and shop for deals on their own terms using their mobile device.

Hello Rich Media Messaging

As the popularity of email marketing diminishes, the popularity of text message marketing continues to increase dramatically. While it takes the average person 6.4 hours to see an email, 90% of mobile users will open a text within three minutes of getting it. It’s more immediate and much more likely to be seen. Today’s commercial text messages are no longer just limited to text. Rich Media Messaging (RMM) lets brands engage more deeply with consumers by sending texts including images, video, and hyperlinks. Best of all, consumers are much less likely to be worn out from receiving them.

The takeaway

Marketing experts warn that if businesses aren’t careful, text message marketing can go the way of the email. If businesses take the same content from emails and send them as texts, or if they send them with the same frequency, consumers may eventually experience burn out with text messages. Businesses should strive to only send relevant content via text and respect their customers enough to not bombard them with constant text messages.

Source: marketingland.com/goodbye-email-hello-rich-media-messaging-89184