SMS vs. Email: When Should You Use Which? (9 Use Cases)

Email: the tried and true patriarch of digital marketing.

SMS: the approachable son whom everyone is surprised to realize is already middle-aged—yet still relevant to the young folks.

In reality, both of these characters are important to the digital marketing landscape.

Email has indeed proven itself to be a tried and true way to reach people.

Yet SMS in many ways is more approachable and relevant.

So when should you use which?

In what cases are you better off going with email, and in what cases should SMS be your avenue of choice?

Let’s go through some examples.

When to Send an SMS

With SMS, you have less flexibility than email. (And probably a smaller audience, because people are less willing to give out their phone numbers.)

But although it’s a bit more limited of a medium, it’s one that effectively reaches almost all of the people you do have in your audience.

So when are the best times to use SMS?

Appointment / Event Reminders

Appointment and event reminders are one of the most useful ways businesses can use SMS.

Sending your reminders via SMS will help make sure people actually see them—unlike email reminders, which will likely get ignored or missed.

And if people are actually seeing your reminders, they are much more likely to actually show up to the appointment or event.

For example:

• Health appointment (dentist, doctor, etc.) reminders
• Salon appointment reminders
• Customer appreciation event reminders

Urgent Notices

SMS shines when it comes to time-sensitive information—because it can reach people much more quickly than SMS and people are almost certain to actually see your notice.

Thus, SMS is perfect for notifications about things like flash sales, limited-time offers, or urgent updates.

For example:

• An ecommerce store could announce a surprise 3-hour sale on a popular item.
• An airline could notify passengers about last-minute gate changes.
• A local restaurant could advertise a spontaneous happy hour to boost slow evening traffic.

Brief Updates

When you need to convey quick, actionable information that you want to make sure your audience knows, SMS is ideal.

These kinds of messages are concise and to the point yet convey important info.

Some examples include:

• A fitness studio sending a notification about a class cancellation.
• A bank alerting a customer about a low account balance.
• A software company informing users about a critical security update.

Delivery Confirmations

Some data suggests that more people prefer receiving delivery confirmations via SMS.

And it makes sense—people want to know when their products have arrived, and SMS gives them a quick update that they’ll actually notice.

(This category is self-explanatory, so no examples are needed!)

Customer Service

In some cases, using SMS for customer service can be appropriate. It gives your customers the opportunity for quick, real-time communication via a medium they’re very used to using on a regular basis.

Some examples would include:

• A SaaS company helping customers troubleshoot problems with their online subscriptions
• A retail store helping customers with questions about their order
• A hotel allowing guests to text for room service or local recommendations.

When to Send an Email

While SMS certainly has its uses (and is very often underutilized), you don’t want to forget about trusty old email.

In what cases is email a better option than SMS?

Here are some examples.

Detailed Content

Email is a better medium when it comes to communicating more detailed information.

While SMS are designed to be short and limited in scope, emails are meant to be “electronic mail” and therefore it’s acceptable to be either short or long.

That kind of flexibility makes email good for things like:

• Product launches with multiple features to highlight
• Explaining policy changes or updates to terms of service
• Providing step-by-step guides or tutorials
• Sharing detailed case studies or success stories
• Announcing major company changes

Visually-Rich Content

Along the same lines as the “Detailed Content” point above, email is the way to go if you want to do a lot of visual storytelling in your message.

SMS has very limited options for formatting, but email allows you a lot of freedom to incorporate visual elements—different colors, fonts, formatting, images, and so on.

Which means email is ideal for:

• High-quality images and infographics
• GIFs
• Visually-appealing layouts

Long-Form Newsletters

Email is ideal for sharing comprehensive updates. Since it’s a more flexible medium, you can curate a lot of content and it won’t be considered unusual by your audience.

Some examples:

• A marketing agency sends weekly marketing insights
• A SaaS company sends monthly updates on new features
• A clothing retailer sends monthly lists promoting new site content

Inconsequential Transactional Messages

While some transactional messages are more urgent and would be appropriate for SMS, others are not urgent, so it may be irritating for people to be bothered with them on their phones.

With email, you can send out the necessary (or helpful) notice while not being too intrusive.

Some types of transactional messages that may be more appropriate for email include:

• Order confirmations
• Receipts
• Shipping notifications
• Misc. detailed information

Should You Send Both?

In some cases, sending both an email and an SMS would be a good way to make sure you cover all your bases when you want to send a notification to your audience.

But we would recommend not doubling up too often—one study found that only 35% of respondents felt that it was “very helpful” to receive both an email and a text message. And 33% found it repetitive.

So go ahead and use both, just do it sparingly.

When Should You Use Which?

So we’ve seen that both SMS and email have their place in the digital marketing realm.

SMS is great for updates that are brief and timely—updates that you want to make sure people actually see.

Email is great for more complicated content, visually-rich content, or content that you want (or need) to send but isn’t the most important.

And in some cases, if you really want to make sure people see what you’re saying, you can do both together.

Most people are well aware of the effectiveness of email. But are you taking full advantage of SMS?

Get a free trial account here so you can explore how to best use SMS for your own business.