How often do you actually check your email when it’s not work related? How many unread emails from the thousands of companies you’ve subscribed to are sitting in your inbox? Event promoters spend hours drafting polished email newsletters to announce lineup drops, pre-sales, and ticket tier changes. But when those emails actually go out they either get buried under hundreds of other promotional emails, diverted to spam folders, or opened weeks after the show already happened. 

Email isn’t completely dead, but for high urgency ticket sales, it is simply too slow. Fans aren’t constantly checking their inboxes, and when they do, they are rarely in a buying mindset. You need to be straightforward and quick, replacing traditional email blasts with targeted SMS flash alerts allows you to put ticket links directly in front of buyers the moment intent is at its highest. It turns a multi step process into a single tap on a lock screen. 

The email problem

The average email inbox has become a graveyard of unread messages. The average email open rate for the marketing and advertising industry is 39.05% with a click through rate of 1.11%. When you rely on email to announce a presale or a limited ticket offer you often get delayed reactions. Fans will check their email hours or days after the email goes out and by then the offer has already expired. You also run into an issue caused by algorithms on Gmail, your email may be redirected to the promotions tab which isolates promotional emails from primary inboxes which reduces visibility drastically. Ticket buying is an impulse decision driven by excitement and FOMO. When you delay the message you kill the momentum. 

The power of SMS

SMS flash alerts bypass inbox clutter entirely. Text messages have an average open rate of 98% with a click through rate of 20%. Which is way higher than the email benchmark average for both categories. When fans receive a text alert, it triggers an immediate push notification on their lock screen. This instant visibility can direct fans to spontaneously purchase a ticket. Sending a text like “Presale is live now, Grab your tickets before they sell out” accompanied by a direct link will create instant traffic to your checkout page within seconds. Because fans are already on their phones, clicking an SMS link opens your ticketing landing page and now they can complete a purchase in seconds using Apple Pay or Google Pay. 

To get the most out of SMS marketing without annoying your subscriber list, follow a couple key rules: 

• Keep it short and urgent, focus on one clear message and include one direct link. 
• Offer real exclusivity, use SMS for time sensitive benefits like early access presale codes, flash discounts, or priority skip the line upgrades. Fans will then value these notifications and choose to keep them on. 
• Time it right, send alerts when fans are most likely to act immediately. During lunch breaks, late afternoon or immediately after an artist announces their tour on social media. 

By pairing first party fan database tools with instant SMS messaging, AdmitONE helps you reach fans instantly and turn lock screen notifications into immediate revenue. Instead of burning your marketing budget on social ads or sending emails that sit unread for weeks, switch to SMS flash alerts on AdmitONE and sell out your next show in minutes. Take full control of your customer data, slash your marketing spend, and turn every presale announcement into an instant sellout with AdmitONE today.