Texting vs Calling? Texts vs Emails? Learn The Advantages & Benefits of Texting

Email and phone calls have long been at the center of every business messaging strategy.

They’re not new tools. But they’re reliable and some of the most widely adopted forms of communication in the world.

But…

• Email inboxes are overflowing
• Many emails get flagged as spam
• People don’t answer the phone
• And voicemails get forgotten

So businesses and organizations are turning to SMS text communication to keep connected to their contacts, customers, clients, employees, and teammates.

In this article, I cover the benefits and advantages of text messaging including:

1. The purpose of texting
2. The advantages and benefits of texting for businesses and organizations
3. Text vs email (pros and cons)
4. Email marketing vs text marketing
5. Texting vs calling (pros and cons)
6. Bonus: chat, messengers, and WhatsApp vs texting

By the end, you’ll know the advantages and benefits of SMS text messaging vs email, voice, and other messaging platforms.

Read on for more.

1. Texting is fast and efficient, especially when you use business texting software
2. Texting works with 10-digit local phone numbers and toll-free numbers
3. You can save time and personalize text messages with templates, tags, media, and links
4. You can reach many people at once with text message broadcasts
5. Text messages get delivered instantly, especially if you’re carrier-verified
6. Text messages have high open rates and engagement rates
7. You can schedule and automate text messages
8. Appointment and payment reminder texts can reduce no-shows and get you paid faster
9. Text messages make it easy to collect feedback and ask for reviews

1. Texting is fast and efficient, especially when you use business texting software

Texting from your personal phone or from a business text messaging software is fast.

However, if you’re texting as a business, using your personal phone for work isn’t the best. The texting application on your personal phone comes with limited features. It can only manage a few one-way and two-way text message conversations at any given time.

But business text messaging software like MessageDesk gives you the advantage of a shared team SMS inbox.

An SMS inbox helps you filter and route inbound and outbound text messages to the right people. Think of it as a shared or private email inbox, but faster because it’s built around texting.

2. Texting works with 10-digit local phone numbers and toll-free numbers

SMS phone numbers are surprisingly versatile. You can get a new phone number for texting or text-enable nearly every kind of phone number. Your options include:

• 10-digit local phone numbers
• Toll-free phone numbers
• Existing business phone numbers
• Existing business landlines
• Short code phone numbers

In most cases, all you need to do to text-enable a landline or existing phone number is submit a number hosting or porting request. Your business texting service will take care of the rest.

3. You can save time and personalize text messages with templates, tags, media, and links

Email is the standard for business messaging and communication. It’s easy to compose an email and personalize it.

But texting is just as quick and isn’t as formal as an email. Texts give you a chance to loosen a few buttons–they’re more conversational and relaxed.

Text message software also comes with features like templates, tags, media, and links. This makes it easy to personalize text messages in friendly and useful ways.

You can save a text message as a reusable template with business texting software like MessageDesk. This template can include personalization tags that auto-insert a recipient's first name into every text.

You can also add emojis, text images and pictures, include Gifs and other MMS media, and insert links into text messages.

4. You can reach many people at once with text message broadcasts

Texting allows you to talk to more people in less time.

Email marketing is effective. But text message broadcasts and SMS marketing campaigns give you an alternative way to reach just as many people.

All you need to do is upload a contact list, create groups, attach a text message template, and hit send.

Keep in mind, you can’t send text blasts or do bulk text messaging from your personal phone. You’ll need mass text message marketing software like MessageDesk to reach a bunch of people at once.

5. Text messages get delivered instantly, especially if you’re carrier-verified

Email deliverability is a tricky thing. Email providers like Gmail actively monitor for spam messages. This means many marketing emails never get read.

Plus, the average person receives over 120 emails per day. This leaves a small window of opportunity for messages to get read.

But everyone has a smartphone or cell phone with an internet connection that’s capable of receiving texts. Text messages go straight to your contact’s mobile phone. This is texting’s advantage over email.

And the way to get even better text message delivery is by registering for verified A2P 10DLC text messaging.

Business texting platforms like MessageDesk make this verification process easy. All you have to do is submit a form with business or organization information.

6. Text messages have high open rates and engagement rates

The average person receives dozens of emails every day. But only 17% of people have zero unread emails. Whereas 74% of people have zero unread text messages.

By comparison, text messages almost always get read immediately. 98% of texts are read in under 1 minute. Plus, average response times are much quicker than email too.

So text messaging allows you to be one of the 10 text conversations your contacts receive each day. This means your messages are almost 10x more likely to get a response.

This matters because business communication revolves around reply rates. With texting, you can manage more engaging conversations at once and get more replies.

7. You can schedule and automate text messages

Just like email, you can automate text messages too.

Scheduling text messages for things like appointments and payment reminders is the first step. But you can set up text message autoresponders as well.

Autoresponders are text messages that send automatically. They’re triggered when someone texts a keyword like, “SCHEDULE”, “HELP”, “BOOKING”, or “PRICING” to your SMS phone number.

Texting services like MessageDesk even allow you to chain these text messages together for multiple responses.

Automation even helps to set customer service expectations. You can send a text when you miss a call or when you’re away or out of the office.

This eliminates manual phone calls, voicemails, and emails. It also keeps you from having to answer the same questions over and over again.

8. Appointment and payment reminder texts can reduce no-shows and get you paid faster

Struggling to reach contacts, customers, and clients through email and voice? Too many appointments no showing? Having cash-flow problems?

Text messaging makes it possible to schedule appointment reminders, payment reminders, and other messages in advance.

You can reduce your no-shows and accounts receivable in several ways:

1. Send reminder texts for an upcoming appointment or payment.
2. Confirm appointments and payments once they’re scheduled or clear.
3. Send a text message for all missed appointments and payments.
4. Collect payments and schedule appointments through a link in a text message.

Using all of these options can reduce your accounts receivable and appointment no-shows.

9. Text messages make it easy to collect feedback and ask for reviews

​​Texting makes it easy to follow up with someone after they’ve had a great interaction with your business or organization.

Anyone can send NPS surveys and CSAT polls in a text. All you have to do is send a text message with a link to a Google Form. You can also use a tool like Survey Monkey.

With texting, it’s also easier to send more timely messages with links that ask for a review.

Catch a person at the right time and they’re more likely to leave positive feedback. All you need to do is include a link to your Google review page in your automated text messages.

The difference between email and text comes down to engagement and response rates.

Emails get about a 20% open rate and about a 6% response rate. Texts have a near 98% open rate and a 45% response rate.

Plus, only 17% of people have zero unread emails. Whereas 74% of people have zero unread text messages.

Email vs text

Email marketing vs text marketing

Email is actually the most widely adopted form of digital communication in the world.

Personalized email marketing campaigns allow businesses and organizations to nurture customers, deliver engaging content, and personalize messages.

But as a marketing channel, email often suffers from low engagement rates.

Text vs email engagement rates

In fact, the average person will send 25% more texts than emails. That’s an average of at least 15 texts vs 12 emails per day.

The average person also receives far more email marketing vs SMS marketing. Many emails go unread and even get deleted without ever being opened.

So it’s no wonder then that email also has lower engagement rates. We’re talking about 20% open rates and only 6% average response rates. And that’s on a good day.

Compare that to text messaging. Text messages have up to a 98% open rate and around a 45% response rate. In fact, 74% of customers will even respond to a text from a business within an hour vs 41% for email.

Customers are also much more likely to mark advertising emails as spam. So when it comes to receiving emails, some audiences may never even have the chance to see your message.

Why would someone email instead of text?

What are the cons of texting compared to email marketing?

A big difference between text and email is that email marketing gives you more space to tell a more visual story.

Sure, you can text images and gifs using MMS. But you can’t style your text messages in the same way that you can with an email.

Text messages also have a character limit. This character limit may vary based on your messaging provider, but texts are meant to be brief. They require you to get to the point faster than email.

These are the pros and cons of texting.

So email works great for long, in-depth customer communications. Whereas text message marketing is best for short messages, calls to action, and immediate engagement.

This makes SMS vs email great for delivery notifications, appointment reminders, out-of-office messages, and more. Texts can quickly encourage customers to take actions like, “schedule an appointment”, “pay invoice” and “redeem offer”.

In the end, a well-rounded messaging strategy will take advantage of SMS and email marketing. You need both. They each serve a complementary purpose.

Phone calls are obviously the tried and true standby when it comes to customer communication. They used to be the only way to get an instant response.

But communication preferences are changing, and telephone culture is declining.

Some 76% of consumers recently reported that they don’t like talking to businesses on the phone.

What if you’re calling from an unknown number? 1 in 4 consumers won't even listen to your voicemail. People just don’t pick up the phone.

They want conversations to occur quietly, in their own time, and at their convenience. This is why people prefer texting vs talking. Texting is less obtrusive and more discrete.

Call or Text? Texting vs Calling

Telemarketing vs text marketing

Phone calls aren’t going away - we’ll always need them. Phone calls also used to be the only way to get an instant response and build an emotional connection with customers.

But calling and texting are both instant. The advantage of texting is that it's 7 times more likely to get a response.

This is partly because 76% of consumers aren’t answering the phone due to a massive rise in spam robocalls.

Plus, texting is also more efficient than calling.

Telephone calls aren’t a scalable way to engage customers. You can only complete them one at a time. Advanced VoIP telephone systems and autodialers can make calling at scale more efficient.

But it’s still not as fast as texting. Texting makes it much easier to reach more people with the same message faster.

Why would someone call instead of text?

So what are the benefits of telephone communication? Why would someone call instead of text?

It’s hard to quantify, but a human voice can make a big difference when it comes to building a connection.

Talking on the phone can sometimes make or break a sale, close a deal, keep a customer, or secure a donation. There’s just nothing more human than a personal phone call.

This is the make-or-break difference between calling vs texting.

Calling is also sometimes a better medium for finding faster solutions to complex problems. When a customer is describing a problem, it's sometimes faster to call.

Chat and messengers like WhatsApp, WeChat, and Facebook Messenger offer another way to reach audiences.

These conversational messaging tools include:

• Chatbots
• Website forms and widgets
• Slack
• Microsoft teams
• Messenger
• WhatsApp
• WeChat
• Snapchat
• TikTok

They’re all free, easy to use, and made for instant messaging that tends to feel more personal than formal.

Like texting, the messages on these platforms get sent and received instantly in real time.

But they have some drawbacks.

For users to send and receive messages they need to have the app installed on their phones.

All of the messaging takes place on the app’s dedicated network. These networks are separate from the cellular networks you’d use to send SMS messages.

This is where SMS has the advantage. Everyone has a phone number and nearly every mobile phone comes equipped with a built-in, native text messaging app.

As a business or organization, this means SMS gives you access to a much wider audience. Social messaging apps are limited by the fact that each person in the conversation has to have the app.

So if a contact hasn’t downloaded the app, and isn’t logged in, they’ll never receive your message.

SMS vs chat, messengers, and WhatsApp

Final verdict: email and voice versus texting

Text messages don’t replace email or voice - they complement these channels. Text messaging fills in the gaps left in your engagement strategy.

Everyone has different communication preferences. Some messaging tools just do a better job of reaching different people, at the right time, and in the right way.

This is why I advocate for text messaging as a complementary way to reach your contacts and customers.

Ready to start texting your contacts and customers? MessageDesk is here to help with smarter, simpler business text messaging.

Feel free to start a free MessageDesk trial or meet with a messaging expert for a demo.