The first time I got a marketing text message, it made me mad.
It was too invasive. My texts are almost all personal, and an important part of how I stay connected with my family and friends. To see a marketing text among them was an unwelcome intrusion.
And while you can turn off text notifications the way you can turn off email and social media app notifications, why would you want to do that if it’s 99% welcome personal communication?
The Next Phase of Marketing
But I’m not surprised that marketing is turning to texting. It’s the logical next step as the way we communicate evolves: more in messaging apps, less on email and publicly on social media.
Social media was originally for personal social communication, and email was personal and professional. But it didn’t take long for sales to enter the picture. Messaging and texting are next. Maybe in five years, it will feel as normal to have more marketing than personal texts as it does via email.
From a marketing perspective, it has tremendous appeal: get people where they spend personal time. It’s the same logic that brought marketing to social media and email – and before that, to landline phones and door-to-door! (Telemarketing still exists, even though we’ve all learned not to pick up a call from an unrecognized number.)
I encourage my clients to gather phone numbers when they ask for names and email addresses in their opt-ins. None of my clients have moved to marketing texts yet, but we think about phone numbers as insurance: email open rates are down, and what if we want to actually call people and leave voicemails during a launch?
Here’s the funny thing though: I didn’t unsubscribe from those marketing texts I received, even though I didn’t like them.
I almost did: they weren’t from an automated service, they were from an actual person’s phone, and I drafted a “please don’t text me” response.
But she doesn’t send email reminders for events – only texts. And if I asked her not to text me, I’d have to rely on myself to remember when her meditation events happen… and I don’t want to. So I still get the texts. Because they’re useful. I would otherwise forget her events, and I don’t want that.
It’s like I’m already adjusting to the inevitable: marketing and sales among my texts. But isn’t it a reminder that there are no absolutes? Some marketing messages I want to receive. Others… I can opt out.
This post is part of my 100 Blog Posts in 100 Days series. View the rest here.
