Welcome to another episode of Omnisend’s daily tip series, where in roughly 3 minutes or less we’ll give you actionable tips on ways to improve your email & SMS marketing program and make you better marketers. 

Yesterday we talked about what to collect on your email pop-up. However, I didn’t really discuss SMS. This topic belongs to an episode of its own — this one!

Mobile number is a field I would ABSOLUTELY ask for, regardless of whether or not you have an SMS program in place. SMS is now a must-have marketing channel, and collecting this info now will be beneficial for a few reasons—here are 5 of them:

1. Like email, it is an opt-in channel — meaning people voluntarily raise their hands requesting messages
2. It will let you know whether your audience wants to receive SMS messages. If they do, you should prepare to launch an SMS program.
3. SMS can help fill the opt-in marketing gap from email unsubscribes
4. It can help reduce your retargeting costs
5. Everyone texts! It is no longer a generational cohort conversation.

SMS sends increased 94% last year compared to the year before — which, BTW, saw a nearly 400% increase from the year prior. And automated SMS grew 258% last year. 

If you’re not using SMS, you’re behind your competition. 

Wonder what simply asking for mobile numbers can do for you? Let’s look at the company Divatress. They started collecting mobile numbers and grew their SMS list to 70K in only 8 months. 13K of those subscribers are SMS only, meaning they can directly communicate with 13K customers who would have otherwise been left for paid retargeting. And best yet, they generated 123K in SMS sales in the first 8 months. The channel now accounts for 7% of its marketing revenue.

The verdict? YES, collect SMS AND email on your pop-up. 

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of our marketing tips series, Feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Until next time, happy marketing!