SMS vs WhatsApp in business
SMS Campaign Ltd
As businesses look to interact with their leads for that next sale, or would like to market their product to a targeted audience, they are turning to text messaging as it has a 98% open rate.
Benefits for a business, is that text messaging is immediate.
Analytics will provide useful information regarding the target audience and possible conversion.
Text messaging apps is fast becoming more popular as time passes by, these claims are also becoming more apparent.
One of the chat services that has gained popularity is WhatsApp.
It has more than 600 million active users and currently offers instant messaging, voice messaging and video messaging.
With that being said is it time for businesses to bid the traditional SMS goodbye and replace is with a Text messaging app?
In this discussion we are going to look at both the conventional SMS messaging and the alternative being WhatsApp.
Advantages of SMS
The good thing about text messages is that you can send and receive one even if you don’t have an internet connection.
If you find yourself in a secluded area with no internet in sight, you can always rely on SMS to communicate with others. SMS is still people main form of communication without smartphone’s.
If you are not big on SMS and only use it whenever the need arises, you really don’t need a smartphone – a regular mobile phone is just what you need.
SMS Platforms such as SMS Campaign can provide useful realtime analytics for businesses that would like to see the reaction of their audience and these platforms can personalise bulk messages at a low cost.
Disadvantage of SMS
Your audience might not be fans of SMS anymore.
Network charges could be costly because why would they spend money on messages if they can send a message for free?
Regular text messages come with a price and if you’ve run out of text charges, it’s not possible to send any more messages (only applies to individual users tied in with a network price plan)
Advantages of WhatsApp
WhatsApp is free to download and use.
You can exchange instant messages with your friends without having to worry about extra charges on your monthly bill.
As long as you’re connected to the internet, you can use WhatsApp as long as you want.
You can also participate in group chats in WhatsApp and even send photos and videos to your contacts
Disadvantages of WhatsApp
If you’re not connected to the internet, you can no longer use WhatsApp.
You won’t be able to send or receive messages, although you will start receiving the missed messages once you got an internet connection.
It is a social media platform for instant messaging and group chats, which consists of friends and family.
Not great for utilising in a business if groups were set up they may not wish to get spammed with marketing information and would like to opt out.
This could be classed as intrusion, hence better to use a SMS provider who operate within the ico/data protection guidelines.
Also you cannot bulk personalised messages.
Final Word
If you are looking to use text messaging for your business, then SMS messaging would be the preferred mechanism to use.
There are many SMS Platforms out there that offer various services. One of which is SMS Campaign.
This platform will allow you to Bulk SMS messages, personalise and schedule a text campaign to your audience and offer tools such as realtime analytics to help with your lead conversions.
Here are a couple of references for businesses that can use SMS text messaging to help in logistics or lead sales generation.
Click on the links here and here.
On a personal level text message apps, like 'WhatsApp' are great for a social presence.