RCS, Digital Marketing in the 21st Century

For years marketers have leveraged a few main channels, all having their pros and cons.

The three most-common options are:

• Paid ads (~1-3% Clickthrough rate, or “CTR”)
• Email Marketing (20% open rate, 2.3% CTR)
• SMS Marketing (98% open rate, 19-32% CTR)

Paid Ads

Let’s start with paid ads. In our modern, mobile-dominated world, customers are nearly always tethered to their devices. Frequently, usage is of social channels where the user is the product—being served ads for myriad products based on search data and other website “cookies.”

Placing an ad is easy, but has a fairly substantial cost associated with it—with costs-per-click ranging between a penny and $6, and monthly ad spends easily eclipsing four figures. For such little engagement, your conversion rate must be high to amortize the cost of acquisition and make the campaign profitable.

Email Marketing

Unlike paid ads, emails are commoditized and, as a result, cost fractions of a penny to send. However, email engagement rates continue to fall, with products like Gmail introducing siloed “promotions” views, all but guaranteeing the email is never read.

So, while emails do offer detailed product information, slick graphics, and engaging videos/animations—they’re largely unappreciated, destined to languish in a sea of unsolicited advertising, spam, and phishing attempts.

SMS Marketing

Finally, the incumbent: SMS advertising. SMS offers a whopping 98% open rate, meaning your messages will be read. And while SMS is an order of magnitude more expensive than email (although we must say, our 10DLC prices are ultra-competitive 😉) the fact that everyone who receives the message will open it increases your at-bats tremendously.

However, SMS lacks something email and paid ads offer: interactive experiences and ‘rich’ media. MMS, the multi-media cousin of SMS, is capped at 1MB per message. This is generally fine for images, but greatly reduces the library of available personalized media like GIFs and—especially—videos. Modern phones can capture video in stunning 4k resolution, but if sent over the SMS/MMS channel will look like it’s recorded with a Motorola Razor.

Not only that, but SMS also inherently lacks a sense of security, as the number you receive the message from is just that—a number. It’s hard to verify that you’re actually speaking to the brand.

So, how does RCS fit in?

RCS: Digital Marketing 2.0

RCS bridges the gap by enabling interactive, engaging content sent from a verified business to a channel with 98% open rate.

A few examples are media carousels and clickable buttons.

Starting with the former, media carousels can be sent as a single message, showing a high-resolution image with options below. Let’s say, for example, you’re operating a furniture store and just received some new mid-century pieces. You can send a mid-century chair, sofa, and table set to the end user. Under each image, there’s two buttons “but now” and “see more like this.”

So, for example, if a customer loved the sofa, but wanted a slightly different print or color, they could click “see more like this.” Doing so would launch yet another carousel of similar options. Seeing one perfect for the space, they can click “buy now,” and can even pay directly within the application.

As another example, let’s say the customer isn’t really a fan of mid-century, their flavor is more of traditional furniture. No worries, because with RCS, you can add a button beneath the original carousel that says “choose your style.” Once clicked, the user sees traditional, clicks it, and is then presented with the same three furniture types, but in the traditional style.

They, like the first customer, find just the right one and execute the purchase.

This highlights the beauty of RCS: condensing the buyer journey and customer experience to a single session, in a single window, within an application that’s native to the device they’re using. No apps, no downloads, no friction.

RCS is already blowing the minds of digital marketing teams, with data illustrating 130% clickthrough rates, as compared to SMS, and 115% more revenue generation. Part of this is down to trust that customers are actually communicating with, and buying from, a real brand.

71% of people polled said they were more comfortable interacting with a verified business with RCS—highlighting just how eager customers are to engaging with the channel. The best part? Depending on your region, SMS opt-in may automatically cover RCS opt-in 🤩

Oh, and you’ll know exactly how they’re engaging with your material.

RCS: The Providing Insights that Matter

We’ve saved the best for last: the secret sauce behind RCS’ digital marketing takeover: data.

Unlike SMS, RCS offers read receipts and engagement statistics. Meaning, as a marketer, you’ll know your open rate, overall clickthrough rate, and the clickthrough rate of each interactive element within the message.

Think about the furniture example from earlier. Let’s say you’re struggling to decide what products to stock or push for an upcoming sale. With RCS, you can see that, for example, your overall CTR was 80%, but that the mid-century table accounted for 60% on its own.

Armed with this information, you know you have a potential best-seller on your hands, and can build additional campaigns around that item.

As another example, you may see that none of the initial three options had high engagement, because most people favored a different style of furniture. With the power of RCS, you can actually tie that preference back to the number you’re corresponding with—creating a “memory” of your customer’s preferences.

This data can be transmitted back to your CRM, so the next time you’re doing a sale on Boho couches, you can target only those who prefer the Boho style. In short, the possibilities are endless 😎.

Interested in RCS?

Reach out to our team, we’d love to connect, review your current marketing strategy, and help determine how RCS can improve it 🙂