No need to panic if you don't have a mobile marketing plan.

Mobile marketing is on the move. For years now we have been told that the breakthrough is on its way. But at last, 2012 might be the year that mobile marketing genuinely becomes mainstream. It’s been a long time coming.

When Text Marketer was set up, way back in 1999, we believed that by around 2003 most companies in the UK would have adopted an integrated mobile marketing strategy. We probably underestimated the power of inertia and the fact that it’s human nature to stick closely to what you’ve always done.

So if you happen to work for one of the 70% of UK companies that don’t yet have a mobile marketing plan in place, where to start? It’s a murky and confusing world out there, cluttered with annoying terms such as QR codes (overhyped), short codes, long codes, MSDN and so on. To the uninitiated, it feels like you have to be part of some exclusive club to understand how it all works.

Getting started though, is truly just a 2 minute of affair. The best strategy is to ignore all the hype over things like QR codes and smartphone apps and concentrate on mobile tools that absolutely everyone uses. That means SMS. The starting point for the vast majority of mobile marketing strategies is to look at how bulk sms can be used as a way of communicating with your customers prospects or staff. So one of the first things that you need to do is take a look at a web-based bulk SMS tool. Once you’ve set one up you can start to explore how the use of SMS could be profitable for your business.

There is no cost to setting up a bulk SMS account with Text Marketer. You will also receive some free text credits for testing. Once you’ve logged on and started to send a few texts you’ll probably come up with all sorts of mobile marketing ideas. Please feel free to give us a call on 0117 2050202 and we can help you develop those ideas into an integrated mobile marketing plan.

Scan this with your phone's QR Code reader and watch it magically form a text message to our 88802 number starting with the INFO keyword.

QR Codes are a great way to get response from your mobile marketing adverts and even from web sites.

Although they are mostly used to embed to web/mobile site link, did you know they can also preformat an SMS or an Email message, send Geo information and much more.

For example, if you’re using a keyword on our shortcode service, you could create a QR Code that preformats a text message with the number and your keyword – try our example.

QR Codes are free to generate. Simply go to BeQRious’s QR Code generation page, choose what sort of action you want the code to do, enter the details and download the code, all free of charge.

SMS API Integration Support. Do you need the level of support Andy Murray receives?

At Text Marketer we speak to a good number of software development companies. Usually they are adding an SMS sending facility to an existing piece of software. So this might be used for sending appointment reminders, order confirmations or a huge range of other SMS notifications.

Integrating a system with Text Marketer’s SMS API so that the system can generate simple outbound texts is very straightforward. Things can become slightly more complicated if a system needs to receive texts, process delivery reports or automatically respond to the incoming text. With SMS API integration, the devil, (as so often is the case), is in the detail. Different levels of SMS API complexity needs different levels of support.

Text Marketer SMS API customers can choose the level of support that they need. Every customer has a dedicated SMS API integration technician whose job it is to be on hand to assist whenever they are needed. So if you need the fanatic support of the kind that Andy Murray’s mother provides, we will do our best. We don’t operate a ticketing system where you would have to to raise a support request and then await a response. Customers have the direct telephone number of the integration technician, which they can call at any time.

As well as the human support, we have developed a comprehensive range of SMS API integration documents. The documentation, along with code examples are designed and set out in a straightforward and logical way. We often find that with our support, successfully completing SMS API integration is far less of a hassle than originally anticipated.

We always provide a free testing account for software developers and you will also receive as many free test credits as you need, whether that’s just a few or a few thousand. if you would like to explore our SMS API, please feel free to set up a free account. You will automatically receive 10 free to credits but just drop us a quick line if you need more.

I had a rant about Bannatynes who also committed the cardinal sin of not including an unsubscribe option on their bulk sms activity. The Information Comissioner’s Office, whose job it is to set out the rules on this, state very clearly on their website, that you must…

“give them the opportunity to opt out of receiving further marketing messages each time.” 

So I’m curious to understand why Orange believe the rules on mobile marketing don’t apply to them. It’s possible that when you sign up with Orange, there’s a clause, buried in the depths of the small print, that gives them permission for all time to push you bulk sms messages. Or perhaps they would argue that the messages aren’t mobile marketing, but are merely information bulletins that customers would find useful.

Whatever their reasoning, I do wish they’d stop. If I had the energy, I’d switch networks, but realistically that’s not going to happen. Being on the receving end of sms ‘spam’ makes you realise how important it is to give customers the chance to unsubscribe.

So a heartfelt plea to all our customers and users of bulk sms marketing tools. Please, for pity’s sake, include an opt out on your mobile marketing campaigns or risk seriously aggravating your punters.

For Text Marketer customers, if you haven’t yet discovered how your free opt out tool works, please find more information here.

If you’re new to this and would like to explore how sms marketing might work for you, feel free to set up an account. You’ll get 10 free text credits and of course a free unsubscribe tool.

Make it relevant and memorable

Make sure you choose a keyword that will make sense to the customer. You could choose your product, company or brand name. Or you might choose to go for a word describing your product like the TV ad here. Avoid trying to do something too clever, you’ll risk confusing people and the likelihood is that you’ll alienate your target market.

Keep it short

The longer your keyword, the more likely people are to text it in wrongly. If our text response service doesn’t recognise the keyword because it’s spelt incorrectly, then the sms response will not be allocated to your account and will be lost. We recommend keeping it to between 4 and 8 characters. The aim is to make it as easy and quick as possible to respond. Don’t make your customers work.

Let predictive text take the strain

Infuriating though it often is, most of us use predictive text. You can take advantiage of this feature to make it even easier for people to respond to your text response campaign. By choosing a predictive text word, your customers will save precious seconds and are less likely to make a typo.

Can I capture more information by asking my customers to text additional information?

Yes. The golden rule here is that as long as the keyword is at the start of the text and followed by a space, then the entire text is captured. Be careful though. The more information you ask for, the more likely it is that people will make texting errors or not bother because it’s too much like hard work. We’ve found that asking for an address for example is a step too far. Think of the hassle of toggling between letters and numbers to input a post code; fine for smart phone users (about 35%), but tedious to say the least for the rest of us.

Asking for an email address is often a great idea though. You’ll capture vital customer data at the point that they are most interested and you can also take advantage of our automated email responder. So a user texts in the keyword, followed by their email address and receives a full html email immediately by return. This additional service is free to all Text Marketer customers.

Set up an account

Setting up a text response service is a simple process and you can get the whole service up and running in just a few minutes. Stage one is to set up a free account. Once you’ve logged in, go to Incoming SMS – Set up a short Code Keyword.

We’re alway available to advise if you need help, so please feel free to call us on 0117 2050202.

From what I could gather, we were about the fourth or fifth business sms company that he’d called that morning, so he’d already got a good grasp of what was on offer in the industry.

“What makes Text Marketer different from other companies that I’ve spoken to?” he asked. Now all bulk sms providers are well versed in answering that one, so I gave the chap a brief run down, emphasising that we only use UK networks for message delivery, we have a fantastic system with some really innovative tools, our systems are robust and resilient etc. I was quite pleased with myself, thinking rather smugly that I’d done a pretty good job.

“Yes, but all those things you’ve just mentioned are available with all your competitors,” he replied.“As far as I can see, bulk sms seems to be a commodity and basically I should be buying this type of service on price.” A what? Commodity? We’ve spent years trying to create points of difference and it seems that from this prospect’s point of view, bulk sms companies were no different from gas or electricity suppliers. They’re more or less the same product but priced differently depending on who you speak too.

To be fair, he had a point. His application for bulk sms was very straightforward and he simply wanted a reliable service at the lowest possible price. So we chatted further about bulk sms volumes and discussed the best price that we could offer.

It’s clear that the way bulk sms services are perceived by buyers is changing. It’s becoming harder to talk about the benefits of using UK networks or having reliable systems as if this was somehow unique. If we’re honest, we are all offering a very similar service with similar levels of professionalism, reliability and support. Increasingly, customers will be referring back to the strongest differentiator of all. Price.

Using texting to invite your customers to recommend a friend is a very powerful way to achieve sales growth as people have been used to forwarding text messages since the beginning of texting itself.

For example, you could send out a text a few days after a purchase saying something along the lines of, “Thanks for your order. We hope you’re a satisfied customer. If you are, please tell your friends about us and we’ll reward you both with £10 off your next purchase. Your referral code is XYZ123″. (You can use our txtUs reply system for getting return responses).

This types of schemes have to be tailored for the particular business you’re in of course but, esepcially in today’s socially connected world, it can very quickly produce stunning results.

Top 20 tips to getting your member get member scheme right first time.

Offers

1. Reward both parties not just the existing customer or the friend. Both need to see benefit in the offer to make it worth their while.

2. The reward to the friend must be as good (if not better) than other acquisition offers in the market. You can’t disadvantage a new customer because they were referred by a friend.

3. Test different offers for both the customer and friend. Often cash (or vouchers) is king but you can instil relevance by relating the reward to your product eg a free upgrade, free month’s subscription etc. Whatever you go for, keep it simple.

4. Placing a time limit on the offer aids tracking, although consider also having an ongoing lower reward ‘always on’ to capture any ad hoc referrals

Targeting

5. Test the best timing to target existing customers. Try to target them when they’re feeling most positive about your product for example when they’ve just made their first purchase.

6. Target your customers that came through the referral scheme themselves – it’s most likely they’ll be possible about the scheme as they’ve benefited from it

7. Include the existing customer’s name in the text message – this will help reduce the assumption it’s spam

Customer tools

8. Make it easy for customers to refer & provide them with the tools – offer a microsite where they can enter friends’ details, make sure they can do it via their phone, via social media, SMS etc

9. Ensure each customer has a unique code which can be used to link their friends’ registrations to their account. Make sure customers know this code so they can pass it out to friends and don’t have to rely on friends clicking through certain links.

10. In your MGM campaigns remind customers of the benefits of your product or service and why new customers benefit from buying from you. Not all customers will remember why they use you specifically!

11. Keep referring customers up to date about their friend’s progress. They can help to prompt the friend to ensure they complete their registration or achieve any sales criteria to gain the reward.

12. If possible, set up a microsite that provides this progress information to customers. Give them the tools to encourage their friend to overcome any barriers to conversion.

13. Remember you are not able to retain any data about the referred friend, unless you have their consent. Any follow ups should ask the customer to enter their friend’s email address again to avoid any data protection issues.

Tracking & High value

14. If possible track referrals not just conversions – that will allow you to identify key referring customers, even if not all their referrals convert in to customers.

15. Consider rewarding customers for referrals not just conversions.

16. Measure the quality of new customers being referred to you. This allows you to identify customers who are referring the highest value friends.

17. Consider giving high value referrers an additional reward to encourage more referrals of the highest quality

18. Test tying the friend’s reward into more than one purchase – this will encourage repeat purchase and minimise ‘hit and runs’.

Finally…

19. Take a look at Member Get Member schemes outside your own market to see what innovation is going on there and adapt the best ideas for your own customers.

20. Remember to constantly review & optimise your scheme. Don’t just leave it to run itself!

Created by Text Marketer Ltd – Bulk SMS Text Marketing

For many years Text Marketer has received enquiries from business telecoms companies. They are frequently asked by their clients if they know where they can get hold of a bulk sms service. This seems fairly logical. If you were looking for a mobile marketing service, a good starting point would be to ask the company that supplies your phone system and business mobiles.

So Text Marketer has launched a service that makes it easy for companies to offer sms services to their clients and create a new revenue stream.

Operations Director, Richard Hawley said:

“This new programme allows business telecoms companies to offer mobile marketing services in a structured and straightforward way, creating additional profit for the business . We know that as more and more companies adopt mobile marketing strategies, they’ll be huge growth in the number of texts sent by businesses. Our partner programme makes it easy for companies to benefit from the growth.”

The partnership programme provides companies with all the materials and support that they might need to explain what sms services are available and how they might benefit for them. This includes a series of emails that can be rebranded and sent to existing customers and prospects.

Cut out the admin.

The downfall of many ‘partner’ programmes is that they are just too complicated and end up by being an unwelcome distraction from the core business. Text Marketer’s package has been honed to make sure that all the admin systems including invoicing and payment of rebates are as slick and automated as possible. All customer support is handled by Text Marketer, so there’s no time wasted in account management.

The average life cycle of a customer using bulk sms is about 4 years, so the opportunity is to generate a long term revenue stream rather than just an initial rebate. Rebates are paid for the entire lifetime of the the customer.

Find out more about how your business can take part by calling Henry Cazalet on 0117 2050202.

To my relief, their latest mobile marketing campaign has given me the option to get the hell off their list and never be contacted again. I’ve texted in the stop code, so that should be it from Bannatynes I hope.

This whole experience made me realise just how important it is to include an unsubscribe option on mobile marketing campaigns. In fact you’re legally obliged to according to the Information Commissioner’s Office. I’m not sure what the penalties are for those companies that transgress but it’s better not to even run the risk.

As this is such as important issue, Text Marketer accounts automatically come with an unsubscribe tool when the account is set up. So to unsubscribe from receiving further mobile marketing messages, all a customer has to do is text a 4 letter code to 88802. The account will then not allow you to send any further texts to that number. It’s a failsafe system that means you can’t send mobile marketing mesages to anyone that has opted out.

Feel free to set up an account if you’d like to see how it all works. You’ll get some free text credits for testing. If you decide to buy some text credits, there is no minimum order and your credits don”t expire, so you have as long as you like to use them. We’re always happy to chat through your mobile marketing plans, so do call us 0117 2050202.

It will cost them one text at their normal network rate. What exactly that is will depend on the individual’s network and tariff but is likely to be in the range of 8-12 pence. Sending a text to a short code is not included in a free text bundle tariff. So it will always cost 8 – 12 pence regardless of the network and tariff.

How much does it cost to send a text to a Txtus, virtual mobile number?

Texts sent to virtual mobile numbers cost one text at the sender’s standard rate. Texts are included in monthly free text allowance, so people on contracts will probably pay nothing at all. Pay as you go customers will be charged 8 – 12 pence depending on the network they’re using.

Many nightclubs are aware that they could be making more from their mobile marketing campaigns. This brief guide provides an overview of the main issues to consider.

Automate the process of capturing mobile numbers.
Many clubs still collect mobile numbers by sending someone round the venue with a clipboard. This is expensive, time consuming and prone to errors in transcribing. Customers are also often unwilling to give out their numbers.

Create a Text Club with real benefits
By creating a ‘text club’ that new members can join by simply texting in a keyword, you remove completely the need to manually collect numbers.

A text club needs to have real value to the customer rather than just being a way of inviting people to new events. It should have a wide range of benefits that might include the following…
· Free Queue jumping passes
· Free VIP entry
· Free entry into regular prize draws
· Regular drinks offers
· Invitation to write reviews
· Customer surveys

Ensure that all promotional activity supporting the text club mentions that the club is free and that the customer will not be sent any chargeable messages.

Promoting the Service
To generate maximum possible sign up, promote the text club via all the marketing channels that are available
· Text-enable promotional fliers
· Promote via the website
· Use posters within the venue
· Publish using on site screens
· Encourage sign up on the door
· Promote using any local advertising campaigns

Coach Nightclub promotes their text service by inviting people to join by text or by submitting their number to the web site. Their mobile database contains approximately 9000 mobile numbers.
Planet Love incentivises customers with a text to win competition, giving players the chance to win 1 of 10 pairs of tickets. This competition generated over 1200 entries in 3 weeks

Sending the Text Campaigns
You only have 160 characters to make your point, so keep you messages simple. Don’t use too much ‘txt speak’. If you use too many text abbreviations you run the risk of confusing your customers.
The text should aim to generate excitement and offer a clear reason for the customer to turn up.

Timing
Aim to get your message to customers at a time when they will be making plans for the evening. Too early and the message will be forgotten, too late and other arrangements may have already been made.

How Frequently?
Common sense applies here! If you send too frequently then you run the risk of annoying your membership. To infrequently and customers begin to forget who you are. Weekly text campaigns strike about the right balance.

Companies seem to package things in different ways, have different sms pricing structures and appear to do as much as possible to confuse the hell out of you. There also appears to be a very wide range of prices for what appears to be the same product. Why on earth does it have to be so complicated? Well for companies who are looking for a simple outbound sms solution that allows them to communicate with their customers or staff by text, it really needn’t be too tough.

There are however a few simple guidelines to buying sms marketing services that we think you need to be aware of. (If at this point you’re wondering, ‘o I see what they’re doing here, they’re gong to explain it all in simple terms and then surprise surprise, their solution is going to be the best one’, well you’re absolutely correct! But hold fire with the cynicism, we genuinely believe that this information will be useful, even if you unwisely decide not to choose Text Marketer as your sms provider.)

Guideline number 1.
Beware the sms credit.

We’ve come across a number of text marketing companies that quote their services on a per credit basis. Sounds reasonable, 1 credit means 1 text right? Wrong, unless you happen to be sending your messages to Dubai that is. Be warned that to send sms messages to the UK networks may require using 1.7 or 1.8 credits. So what on face of it might appear to be an amazing deal, actually turns out to cost nearly double what you had expected.

Guideline number 2.
Don’t buy before you tried!

When you choose a text messaging company you’re making a reasonable commitment, so it’s worth getting it right. You should be allowed to test the service, have a play, make sure you’re happy with everything before you start spending your cash. Does the system do what you want and expect it to? How was your support request handled? Did the support team seem experienced?

Guideline number 3.
Don’t reinvent the wheel.

The chances are that your use for sms marketing will have been done before either for a company in your sector or possibly a competitor. So choose a company who can advise you on the best way to run and structure you campaign. Why make mistakes that have been made before. We’ve all had the ‘rookie error’ experience and they can be costly. (You can always ignore the advice if you don’t rate it!)

Guideline Number 4.
Price is important… but make sure you’re comparing eggs with eggs

We all buy on price, it’s our basic instinct. What makes things slightly more confusing in our industry is that there are a huge number of possible services, and a huge range in the quality of these services. I’m not just talking here about the ‘value added’, nice to have stuff either, I’m referring to the basic reliability of being able to send a text and it actually arriving on the phone with no delay.

If you’re buying other telecoms services such as phone lines, the product is pretty much always the same; not so with sms services. There are hundreds of ‘gateways’ that sms providers can use to access the UK mobile networks. Some of these are woefully unreliable and do not support even the most basic tools such as delivery reporting and sender ID, (who the message is from.)

It won’t be a surprise to learn that the lower quality gateway can be offered at a lower price than premium gateways. For some applications, where a client is sending hundreds of thousands of messages a month, then these gateways make perfect sense, but for many companies who might be sending a few thousand or less, this is a serious false economy. It’s also worth keeping an eye on how pricing effects your monthly spend on SMS marketing. If you are sending 1000 texts a month, a price difference of 0.6 pence per message makes a whopping £6 difference on your monthly spend.

Text Marketer has decided to go down the premium route for a reason. We dabbled for a matter of hours with a cheaper gateway but the phone started ringing almost immediately with customers wondering why messages had not arrived. We quickly reverted to our direct UK connection.

So you’ve guessed it, Text Marketer ticks all the right boxes.

• We have a simple and straightforward pricing policy.
• We aim to provide the highest possible service for the lowest possible price.
• We provide customers with a free account with free credits
• We pride ourselves on being pretty competent and able to provide relevant ideas and advice.

Give us a call on 0117 9249207 and we’ll do our best to demonstrate that we’re not talking nonsense but can actually deliver on this. We look forward to hearing from you

Getting into your customers' mobile phone address book is the 'holy grail' of mobile marketing.

People’s mobile phones are precious to them. For many already, it’s how they organise their entire lives. And this trend is surely only set to continue – well, according to every study I’ve ever read!

Getting in to your Customer’s mobile phone address book

This should be your holy grail. Most people’s mobile address books stay with them forever, moving with them as they change devices too, automatically. Most smartphones also synchronise contacts with Facebook, Google and other social networking systems.

If you can get your business name and number into their address book, there’s good chance your customer will remember you for a long time! Also, if you send them a text message in the future, it pops up as from your company name, not just a generic number – just like it does from any friend of theirs.

How do you go about this?

It’s simple. We’ve tested this on many occasions and it works.

1. You need a txtUs virtual 07…… mobile number for your business.

2. Export all your customers’ mobile numbers from your database.

3. Send them a simple message from your Text Marketer account (using your txtUs number as the Sender ID). Something like,
“Hi from Carluccio’s restaurant. This is our new text messaging number which you can use for booking or general enquiries. Please save us to your address book“.

Done.

The benefits of doing this aren’t immediate, they’re more a medium term strategy. But, from all the evidence we’ve seen, it is simply the holy grail of mobile marketing.

Am I allowed to send my customers a mobile marketing campaign? Customers have given me their mobile numbers but they haven’t specifically opted in to receiving text messages.

This is one of the most frequently asked questions on the subject of mobile marketing and  I thought it would be worth clarifying the rules regarding ‘opt in’. The easiest way of doing this is to copy and paste the letter of the law directly from the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office.) Website.

On the site they have a helpful FAQ’s sections where the following, very specific question is asked.

“Reminder: Career Development Workshop (Networking Skills) at 2.45pm today. Cavendish Room, Hamilton Centre. Entrance behind HSBC Bank. Refreshments provided.”

So by sending students a gentle text reminder it considerably narrows the scope for extravagant excuses about why they didn’t attend. In this example, an additional incentive of free refreshments is offered. Very generous.

We’ve seen a number of universities such as Sunderland, Southampton and Bristol all using bulk sms service in this way. The main reason for this is that it’s so effective. If you’ve received a text reminder about a specific event, ducking out seems harder and even a bit rude.

Cost is also a significant factor. As there are no set up or ongoing costs, sms services can be up and running for just a few pounds. This means that individual departments or courses can start their own bulk sms programme without having to go cap in hand to the finance department.

Text message services have come down significantly in price in the past few years and there is far more scope for colleges and universities to take full advantage and use sms for a range of different applications.  With over 98% of texts sent being actually read, there’s no doubt that by using an sms service the message will get through. Delivery reports for each bulk sms campaign sent will also show preceisely when the message landed on the mobile.

Please call us on 0117 205 0202 if you’d like to find out how sms might work for you. Whether you’re a business, or a government department, it’s likely that there’s a way that it could benefit your organisation.

What’s different about texting to landlines?

The major difference is that the text is read out to the recipient. This changes the ‘tone’ of the message completely and can feel a lot more human. The current BT ‘text spokeswoman’ has a mature, calm and professional voice which can really enhance the impact of your message. Give it a try.

Timing of your text message is more critical

The landline is, of course, not with your customers all the time ….

Think about when your target audience is likely to be home and critically, when they will receptive to your message. 7.30 am when they’re getting the kids ready for school, 6pm when they’re in the middle of cooking dinner or 11pm when they’re off to bed are not likely to be winners! And although the message will queue and keep trying to deliver, don’t send them in the day if your audience is likely to be at work so the first thing they get after a busy day at work is your message.

A great way to give a new boost to response rates

When a customer's mobile number is no longer valid, you can text their landline number and ask them to rejoin your list.

It’s a fact of modern life that people change their mobile numbers on a regular basis. If you’ve been SMS Marketing for a while you’ll notice that your delivery rate to mobiles will diminish over time. But, many companies also hold the landline number for customers which hardly ever change.

So, for customers where the mobile number is no longer valid, try a separate SMS marketing campaign to their landline numbers to give a new boost to your response rates. (Tip: you could also send a landline campaign asking people to text to join your special offers list if they are still interested, using our SMS Response system).

It’s costs the same

Texting to landlines is the same cost as texting to mobiles. There are 2 critical things to do technically when you set up a landline campaign but apart from these, it’s exactly the same.

Experiment with the message

Because the message is read out, experiment with the wording and send yourself some examples. Althought BT’s ‘spokeswoman’ is great, there’s a few words she has problems with but equally there are many words and sentences that sound fabulous.

All Text Marketer accounts can be used to send to landlines at no extra cost, you will receive delivery reports as well.

So, is it effective?

In many circumstances, yes. In truth, as with all these things, it is important to test. Follow the few simple rules about testing how your message sounds when read out by BT and thinking about the timing of delivery and you could find, if it’s right for your target market, that it’s better than texting to mobiles!

But, this can be avoided with a simple text message reminder the day before.

A recent real-world case study posted at Mobile Marketing Magazine illustrates the point beautifully;

“Global Hair Limited, in Peacehaven, near Brighton, has 4,700 clients. The company was experiencing issues with client missing appointments, creating an increasing amount of spare time for the salons stylists and costing the business lots of money in missed revenue. To address the problem, the salon deployed a text messaging solution with dramatic results, as Global Hair Director Emma Fulgoney explains.

She says:
“SMS reminders have improved our amount of no-show clients who may have forgotten the date and time of their appointment, therefore leaving a stylist in the salon with sometimes up to two and a half hours of down time, which is clearly bad for business and profits. We calculate that our number of no-shows has been reduced by approximately 70% since we’ve been using TextMagic and we expect this number to improve further as we obtain more clients’ mobile numbers.”

GET YOUR FREE SMS ALERTS SOFTWARE TRIAL

Using Text Marketer’s ‘designed for users, not technicians‘ online SMS software (a free trial account with 10 free credits is available), it can take as little as 20 seconds to copy and paste a list of numbers, write a quick reminder message and hit the send button. Texting reminders costs around 3p per message.

In addition to this, using Text Marketer’s revolutionary txtUs product means you can also receive instant replies to the messages you send (to confirm yes to the appointment or no and re-book for example) and receive all the responses in your email inbox & reply via email too.

I need to send out text messages to individual customers throughout the day (normally about 35 or so). Should I use email to sms or should I logon to my bulk sms account and use that?

Response

Both are a great way of getting a text message out the door quickly and easily and which you choose will really boil down to what works best for you. There are however some differences between the two methods which I’ve outlined below.

Email to SMS Advantages

Email to sms uses your existing email, so you don’t need to switch from one sms system to another.
Replies to you messages are also routed straight back to your inbox, so you don’t need to login to access your replies. Text responses also include the original text, so you can see what the person was replying to.

Disadvantages

You could easily send a message that is over the standard 160 characters. This would use than more than 1 text credit and there’s no way of alerting you to this before you send your text.
To pick up delivery reports for email to sms, you would need to login to your bulk sms account.

Online Bulk SMS Account Advantages

You have ready access to all the tools of the dedicated bulk sms system.
Delivery reports can be accessed in a few clicks and you have a character counter that tells you how many sms credits you are using for each text.
Template library messages can be accessed, so you don’t have to rewrite the text each time but simply modify a template text.
Speed. You can send a message from just one screen and this might be marginally quicker than sending an email.

Disadvantages

The web based account is a standalone tool, so you need to toggle between this and your other business systems.
Replies can be routed to you email but won’t contain the original message, so you don’t know what the person is replying to.

We suggest trying both email to sms and online bulk sms for a few days and seeing which one works best. If anyone else has any questions about how to optimise your sms activities, please feel free to get in touch on 0117 2050202.

According to some research compiled by TGI MobiLens and released by the Direct Marketing Association, it seems that the older generations are fast becoming avid users of mobile social networking too.

There’s been an increase of 50% in the number of over 50′s using their phones for social networking purposes. The DMA believes “this market could offer a number of opportunities as they are more likely to have spent more on expensive holidays or on credit or debit card purchases.”

This seems to be more concrete evidence that there’s plenty of buying power in the baby boomer generation and marketers should not underestimate their quick adoption of new technologies.

Mobile marketing using a simple bulk smsmechanic remains by a dramatic margin the most effective direct marketing channel. With its low cost and astonishing open rates of around 97%, companies who ignore it could miss out on an easy way to dramatically increase their sales.

Bulk sms campaigns can be set up in a matter of minutes and the response is almost immediate. If your organisation is new to mobile marketing and you’d like to see how it might work for you, please set up a free account. You’ll receive 10 free text credits which will allow you to test the system at no cost.

Alternatively, please give us a call on 0117 205 0202, we’d be delighted to suggest a bulk sms strategy that might work for you.

NEWSFLASH! Text Marketer launches lowest ever priced Bulk SMS system & updates competitor price comparison chart.

I finally admitted defeat though when I logged on at the weekend and saw that our latest new customer is a company called The London Christmas Tree Company. They are sending out bulk sms campaigns to last year’s customers, encouraging them to place their order with them again.

“The festive season is upon us once more, so order your Christmas Tree today! Order either online or via phone on 02071933039 quoting ‘TEXT’, and you will receive free mistletoe and holly when we process your order. Visit londonchristmastreecompany.com for more details or alternatively, reply to this text and we will call you back!”

With December just 2 days away, the retail frenzy now really begins to hot up. Everyone’s after our Christmas pound and using a business sms service is a very effective way of getting your message heard amongst the marketing clamour. So here are our top 5 tips to getting the most out of your seasonal bulk sms campaigns.

1. Get in early
Now’s the time to be getting your ideas into the heads of potential customers. Leave it much later and some people will have already finished their mad spending and will be relaxing smugly with mulled wine and minced pies.

2 Be clear
At this time of year more than any other, we’ve all got the attention span of gnats, so make sure your offering is clear and that the benefits of it are punchy and easily understood.

3 Make it easy
What people want is an easy life. Don’t make your customers jump through hoops to buy your product or service. See things from your customers’ viewpoint. Be cynical – think why your customers wouldn’t buy from you and fix those reasons.

4 Repeat your offer
As with any direct marketing channel, you need to get your message across more than once. You’ll get a far better return on your bulk sms campaigns if you send your message at least 3 times.

5 Don’t use text speak
Most of us hate it. If you need to use more characters to get your point across then you can send up to 612 characters. (Using more than the standard 160 character will use more than 1 text credit.)

So good luck for you Christmas bulk sms campaigns and if you’d like to discuss how your business might benefit from mobile marketing, please give us a call on 0117 9249207.