The Difference Between Email and SMS Autoresponders: Part 1
One of the great things about email marketing is the ability to send pre-prepared emails to your list automatically. Everyone who uses email has seen them, even if they don’t realise it. Many common uses are for registration confirmations, order confirmations, and customer support responses (“We got your request and we’ll get back to you soon!”). There is also a whole world of email marketing built around autoresponders. But I’ll get to that later.
While you may be familiar with email autoresponders (especially if you’re in marketing) you may or may not know you can set up a similar function with SMS messaging. In concept, it works the same way. But there are some differences in how they are used which I’ll cover here.
What's the Same?
Both types of autoresponders are triggered by an action taken by the recipient. Usually for email, the person has provided their address to you for some reason. They signed up to get a special offer, your newsletter, or other information. In SMS, autoresponders are usually triggered by a keyword sent to you in a text message. It could be a reply to a message you sent, or it could be an initial text to you from a new person not yet on your list.
In both cases, you craft a message that gets sent automatically when the person contacts you. What the message is depends on what the person signed up for or contacted you about.
Here are some examples for both email and SMS autoresponders:
Confirmation messages – These can be for any request such as subscription sign ups, orders, or support requests.
Informational – Content such as tips, purchase related information, or e-courses (sequential content delivered in chunks designed to teach).
Engagement – Asking your subscribers to connect or comment via reply or on social media is another good use of an autoresponder.
If you are familiar with email marketing (as a marketer or as a recipient) you’re probably wondering how you can do some of these via SMS. Well, that gets us to some of the differences. Even though it’s possible to do all of these with SMS, how you do them is, or can be, different.
Come back for part 2 in the next blog to see how to put SMS autoresponders to work for you.
Related Articles
What You Can Learn From a Bad SMS Message
In last week’s blog I covered how the Trump campaign sent unsolicited SMS messages to voters. This week I’m stuck on the same topic, but from a totally different angle: what we can learn from that failure. Because honestly, their biggest issue might not be violating the law. It might be the people they have writing their SMS messages. It’s time to dissect the message that spawned the law suit, and learn what we can from it.
9 Tips for SMS Marketing Success in the New Year
SMS Marketing for Life Insurance Companies
5 Ideas for Your Easter SMS Marketing Campaign
Sending Your First SMS Marketing Campaign
6 steps to sending your first SMS marketing campaign. Whether you've already decided to use fastsms, or are still trying us out - these simple steps will show you how quickly you can get up and running and sending texts to your customers.
Do This One Thing and You’ll Improve Your SMS Marketing ROI
SMS marketing is not quite like most other marketing. You have such a limited space to get your point across, just 160 characters, more or less. It’s not unlike having to create a print advert for a small space, but somehow it can seem more intimidating. That’s why sometimes it seems like marketers forget one basic rule about writing offers: Always lead with the offer! Sounds simple, right?
Using Keywords with VMNs and Shortcodes (Part 1)
Keywords are important in SMS marketing. In order to use them, you have to have two-way messaging. But does it matter if you have a VMN or shortcode? Yes, and no. In principle, they are the same. But practically there are differences. Find out all about them in this blog.
3 Questions You Need to Ask Before Choosing an SMS Provider
How is a consumer or business to know if the SMS provider they found is good or if they’ll take your money and run? There are lots of things you need to research before choosing a provider, but the following three questions are important ones to help weed out the unreliable ones.
10 Killer SMS Strategies
Nowadays, there are an increasing amount of companies using SMS marketing, but you can stay ahead of the trend by using it more wisely with our killer strategies list. Best used as part of your marketing mix, alongside other strategies, this should complement other points of contact and deliver an intuitive and responsive customer service that is unrivalled by competitors.