• by Ray Schultz , June 29, 2021

Consumers have turned to texting during the pandemic, with 61% saying they have increased the time they spend on it each day due to COVID-19, according to Text Marketing: Click-thru Rates & Omnichannel Marketing Strategies, a study by SimpleTexting. 

In addition, 78% say that checking, sending or answering texts is their leading activity on smartphones. Overall, consumers have increased their screen time by almost 50% between 2019 and 2021. 

Even better (for marketers) is that 61.8% have subscribed to texts from at least one business in the last year.  

But texts should be sent in moderation. Here are the issues that would cause recipients to unsubscribe 

• Too many text message alerts from the business — 59.5%
• The content is no longer meaningful to me—27.2%
• Receiving text messages at inappropriate times — 6.2%
• Lack of variety in the text messages being sent — 4.5%
• Other — 2.7%

Of the consumers polled, 43.1% receive texts from one to three businesses, while another 33% get them from four to six firms. And 14.8% receive texts from seven to 10 businesses, and 9.2% from 11+.

Among business marketers, 52.5% say opt-in rates have increased, while 37.2% say they have remained the same and 9.9% say they have decreased.  

In contrast, 47.7% said opt-in rates went up in 2020, 47.4% that they were flat and 4.9% that they had decreased. 

Businesses use texting for the following purposes: 

• Sales and promotions — 37.5%
• Customer support — 27.3%
• Text-for-info — 12.1%
• Event or appointment reminders — 9.4%
• Internal communications — 7%
• Emergency alerts — 3.9%
• Sweepstakes or contests — 1.6%

The study also found that 70% of business owners and marketers use other mobile messaging channels such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to communicate with customers.  

In addition, 46% of firms collect phone numbers using web forms. 

Also, 40% include text as part of their omnichannel marketing strategy and 35% say omnichannel campaigns that include texting have stronger conversion rates. 

SimpleTexting surveyed over 1,300 U.S. consumers, business owners and marketers.