Survey Shows Email Bombardment Hampering Marketing Return Despite Mobile Connectivity
A new survey conducted by text message marketing specialist, Reach Interactive has revealed that almost three-quarters of consumers have at least some unread emails in their mobile inbox each week as the nation succumbs to email fatigue. While email is considered to be one of the most reliable methods of modern marketing, six in ten email recipients fail to follow through on a call to action instantly, meaning brands using email to connect with customers risk shoppers not reading their messages or worse, not clicking through to the destination product, offer or website.
In comparison, SMS marketing was found to be much more effective when it comes to garnering attention or eliciting an immediate action from the recipient. Reach Interactive’s research found that the average consumer receives far fewer texts than emails, with 62% receiving less than ten a day and just 12.5% receiving over 20.As a result, the text inbox remains uncluttered, leaving more room for messages to stand out and required actions, such as scheduling a new delivery time or leaving feedback, completed.
John Hayes, Chief Operating Officer at Reach Interactive said, “In today’s communication heavy world, we’re feeling email fatigue. Mobile devices make it easy to receive, read, and send emails wherever we are, but with so many messages to get through, a huge number of emails are left unread. Even emails that consumers are keen to read often don’t have the desired impact. Across all forms of email, just four in ten consumers will take a necessary action, such as replying or clicking through to a website immediately, and a third leave it at least a couple of hours.
“For businesses that need to encourage an immediate response or risk, this is an eye-opening statistic. Our findings demonstrate a much quicker response rate of the more traditional SMS message, which makes it invaluable for important transactional messages.”
The survey results show that the average worker receives over 100 email messages a day with just a quarter of us reaching inbox zero (no unread messages). Almost half (47%) have between one and 20 unread emails in their inbox with 9% admitting they have over 100 unread emails.
Hayes added, “Our research found that over four in ten mobile phone users read their incoming text messages immediately and another 30% do so within five minutes. They’re far less likely to go unread too. A huge seven in ten of us have no unread text messages and just 2.5% have over 100, significantly less than emails. These results show that side-by-side, brands are much more likely to make an impact, grab attention and solicit a response from text message marketing rather than email.”
Despite the opportunity, the results highlighted a need for companies to get to grips with deploying effective marketing strategies around text messages to optimise results. At present, a quarter of consumers will respond to a promotional text right away, leaving room for improvement and the potential to achieve a far greater ROI. It’s an area that Reach Interactive are experts in, delivering the necessary experience and technology for businesses to improve their text marketing outcomes.
The survey quizzed 200 working and self-employed consumers to discover how they respond to marketing emails and text messages.
Reach Interactive Email Engagement Survey key findings:
- 18% of emails and text messages received to mobile phones contain marketing messages.
- 31% of participants had between one and ten unread emails in their inbox on their mobile phone.
- Just one in five consumers read an email once it arrives on their mobile phone. Some 22% wait five minutes, 18% ten minutes and 19% an hour.
- In contrast, 91% of individuals will read a text message within ten minutes, with 43% doing so instantly.
- Less than half of consumers follow an email call to action instantly.
To find out more visit https://www.reach-interactive.com/
See the full results of the Reach Interactive survey at: https://www.reach-interactive.com/blogs/sms-marketing-v-email-marketing-survey2018/