We came across this question on Quora and answered it there but wanted to make sure we included it here since we wrote it!

The answer is immediacy. People have been trained to at least look at their phones when the SMS notification dings. Email marketing is filtered by mail providers and your own settings. Telemarketing is easily screened out especially in this day and age of robocalls.

What makes SMS marketing valuable is that the open rates are quite high (94% are read within 90 seconds of receipt). So your immediacy of generating a consumer response is extremely high but it also demands that you deliver the right message at that right time. If it’s an appointment reminder or a thank you message, that’s a positive outcome.

But if it’s something that appears out of the blue and is irrelevant to the consumer’s state of mind, then you’ve done nothing but harm yourself and your company’s reputation.

So if you or your company are thinking of engaging in SMS marketing, be sure to ask yourself, what is the actual/true value that we are delivering to the recipient of this message?