The Key to Customer Engagement: Email and SMS

The Key to Customer Engagement: Email and SMS

Email is usually one of the first channels companies adopt to communicate with customers. It’s a reliable, effective, and secure way to share both transactional and marketing messages. But, the average individual only checks their personal email about two hours a day, which means they might miss out on time-sensitive offers and messages from your brand. When it comes to communicating these updates in real time, you might want to consider an alternative: SMS. 

In fact, 90% of all text messages are read within 3 seconds, allowing your brand to bypass crowded email inboxes and provide real-time communications to your customers that they actually read. That’s not to say your email and SMS campaigns can’t work together to drive user engagement. We believe there’s a time and a place for email, SMS, and both channels to work in tandem! 

With that in mind, we’re excited to announce the launch of our newly refreshed guide, Using SMS and Email to Engage Your Customers in 2021!

Building off last year’s guide, we’ve included helpful email and SMS best practices, common mistakes to avoid, and examples of how top brands use these two channels to engage customers. Wondering what’s new in this year’s edition? It contains detailed information regarding:

• What A2P 10DLC is, and what it means for businesses sending text messages
• New email and SMS use cases
• Best practices and common mistakes your company should avoid
• How to use email and SMS together to engage your users
• And more! 

The report also shares real-life examples of how top brands use email and SMS together to engage customers. One such brand is the vacation rental company Vacasa. 

How Vacasa uses Email and SMS to engage hosts

When guests are checking into a reservation through Vacasa, they want critical information about check-in times and entry instructions to be accessible and convenient. That’s why Vacasa adopted a multichannel approach including both email and SMS.

With an intelligent multichannel welcome sequence, Vacasa sends guests a check-in email with entry instructions and smart lock codes the morning their reservation begins. Then, it follows up with an SMS containing the entry code just before their check-in time. Their hope is this saves the guest the hassle of having to search for the email when they’re arriving on site and ready to begin their stay.

By using multiple communication channels, Vacasa ensures its guests get a warm welcome. It can also use data about which communications guests open along their journey to refine their customer profiles and send them messages on the channels they prefer for an even better experience in the future. 

Using email and SMS together in 2021

Whether you want to send alerts, notifications, or re-engagement communications to your audience, two channels can often be better than one. While there’s a time and a place for both email and SMS, these two channels don’t have to operate in silos. In fact, they shouldn’t. 

Our updated guide, Using SMS and Email to Engage Your Customers in 2021, shares everything you need to get started with SMS for the first time or ensure you get the most out of your existing SMS strategy. Grab your copy of the report now and start building email and SMS strategies that work together!