With many people reliant on mobile phone technology, SMS and MMS are both highly effective at increasing customer engagement and communicating with target audiences or existing customers. While text message marketing has one of the highest open rates of all marketing types, choosing SMS vs. MMS can make or break your campaign's success for different reasons.
Whether you implement SMS, MMS, or both into your marketing strategy, you and your customers can mutually benefit. It’s essential to understand each type’s best uses. Doing so can help you strategise the most effective messages to increase your return on investment.
Understanding SMS Messaging
SMS stands for Short Message Service. SMS messages have a character limit of 160 words in each message. Messages longer than this length will send multiple messages, each up to 160 words in length.
SMS’s implementation in 1985 as the first standard in mobile communications makes it the oldest text messaging system available in the United States and other countries. Short Message Service requires a mobile phone plan and a working cellular network to send and receive texts.
Thanks to the instantaneous nature of SMS messaging, it’s easy for companies to reach their target audience because potential customers don’t need to download additional software to engage. SMS messages are faster and often have a higher opening and conversion rate than email marketing. Bulk personalised SMS messaging systems are available for businesses looking to expand their reach and attract more sales.
Understanding MMS Messaging
MMS stands for Multimedia Message Service. Regarding SMS vs. MMS, MMS messaging offers much more flexibility as users can include images, GIFs, videos, subjects, and more. Users don’t have such short word count limits, with many carriers allowing up to 5,000 characters per message.
The freedom MMS messaging provides has made it especially popular in the United States. Yearly MMS activity averages at 96 billion messages.
MMS’s flexibility allows your business to utilise imagery to announce special events, provide exclusive information, and attract customers in other eye-catching ways. With the largest eligible MMS file size depending on carriers and the receiving devices, you can send MMS messages up to 300KB in size.
Differences Between SMS and MMS
Regarding SMS vs. MMS, there are some key differences. Capability, pricing, and accessibility differences between each can determine which you use for your marketing strategy.
As SMS is the oldest text messaging system, it has significantly more users and is widely available, unlike MMS. Therefore, businesses wanting a larger reach should consider SMS. However, despite SMS’s higher popularity, MMS boasts more capable and flexible characteristics due to fewer limitations.
Pricing models are typically higher for MMS users as sending more data warrants higher prices. Pay-as-you-go plans cost you credits with each sent message. Furthermore, monthly plans often include SMS and charge extra for MMS messaging features.
Common SMS Uses
It’s not always appropriate to include images, videos, or additional content in every text. The most common SMS uses are simple, straightforward communications. In these cases, using SMS vs. MMS allows you to share brief messages with essential information, such as the following:
- Emergency text alerts: Emergency communications don’t require fancy imagery. You can send business location closures or other warnings affordably.
- Appointment confirmations and reminders: Confirming or reminding clients of future appointments is another widespread way to utilise SMS messaging. You can significantly reduce revenue losses.
- Item delivery notifications: SMS is also perfect for product delivery status updates as these messages have short character counts and don’t typically come with image or video updates. SMS makes it easy to share vital information to a customer's phone number.
Ideal MMS Uses
When it comes to SMS vs. MMS, the most suitable use for MMS is sharing messages with pertinent media to increase conversions, customer engagement, brand awareness, and problem-solving. It’s especially helpful for the following situations:
- Event invitations: Announcing and inviting customers and clients to special events with an MMS message feels significantly more welcoming than a plain SMS message. Add a picture or GIF to catch recipients’ eyes, or share additional details with an included video.
- Marketing campaigns: Attracting customers to your website, social media profiles, or e-commerce store is especially challenging with increasing competitors. Increase click-through rates and conversions by including relevant product images to get customers to return to their abandoned cart or take advantage of a special offer.
- Customer support chat: Resolving customer issues is significantly more difficult over text-only chat. With MMS, unhappy customers can send images and videos of damaged products, paper receipts, and more to facilitate a smoother, more successful resolution process.
Despite the higher expenses of using MMS, strategic implementation can significantly boost your company’s revenue. Those looking to save money upfront should consider SMS.
Determine Whether SMS vs. MMS Is Best for Your Business
To answer whether SMS vs. MMS is better for your business, you must understand the message you wish to communicate. You should also grasp the audience with whom you’re communicating. While SMS is best for simple texts and MMS is better for grabbing readers’ eyes, these rules aren’t set in stone.
You can get specific advice regarding your SMS vs. MMS marketing needs from our team at touchSMS. We offer years of expertise and can help you determine which is best for your business. Contact us at +61 2 9518 7455, or 1300 794 419 within Australia.