Jimmy Kim and a colleague explain why discount incentives like "Get 15% off" for SMS signups backfire. You attract one-time deal seekers who never engage again, and at 1-3 cents per message, you're paying to reach dead numbers. Email costs far less and builds a list that actually opens your messages.
Stop requiring a discount to get an SMS opt-in. And what I'm talking about is every brand does this: sign up for SMS, get 15% off. What are your thoughts here, Chase? I think that's a good one.
I'd say that one works in a sense that it does drive opt-ins. The opt-ins you get are kind of the worst quality subscribers you'll have on SMS. And the reason being is those people typically only opted in for the actual discount. They then got the code, they used it once. Now you have their phone number and they don't really have an interest in receiving ongoing messages from you.
Yeah, dude. And I agree with you. And when you know that SMS is the most expensive channel per cent. Email costs you a fraction of that cent. SMS costs you 1 to 3 cents per message almost, unless you're with Omnisend, like they're at 0.007 or something. But sending to dead phone numbers is like the most expensive way, where sending to dead email addresses, well, it's not a good practice, but it sure is not as expensive.
