Interactive SMS Marketing Tutorial / Text Message Marketing Tips
Written on Tuesday, March 23, 2010
This article has a collection of Tips & Tricks on Interactive SMS Marketing / Text Message Marketing. These are all from my personal experience over the years, during which I have seen countless marketers (or their clients) make the same mistakes over and over again.
Most of these are pretty straightforward to follow, and I have written them (or tried to anyway) in an attempt to show you how you can easily improve on your campaigns, or, if you're just starting out, what to look out for, when buying and setting up such mobile marketing campaigns.
First, some background, for those of you not entirely familiarised with the idea of Interactive SMS Marketing. It's called interactive because consumers are required to initiate the process of participating in the campaign, by sending in an SMS to a short code, or virtual number, starting with a predefined keyword, and usually followed with some other text.
You're seeing loads of examples of this every day, sometimes even without noticing it (or if you're already in our business paying more attention to the mobile marketing ad than the rest of the page content.. ), which are usually of the form 'Text XXX to YYYYY to Win/Vote/etc'.
But let's get to the gist, and on to the actual hints & tips:
- Know your audience
This is the single most important factor, and it is the same with any marketing campaign in general. With mobile marketing however, you are targeting people in a much more personal level. Their mobile is their most personal valuable electronic device. Being so personal, people are very (and I do mean VERY) picky about what they see and do on their mobile. It is important you take the time to think about the people in your audience as individuals, not as a mass. If you think it through and plan your campaign well, you will be rewarded!
- Pick your rate / tariff
Continuing from the bullet above, your audience usually fits an age range / social class, etc -- but more importantly (for this bullet -- not as a life philosophy) a wallet. Think about how much they would spend. Don't think about how much YOU would spend -- you are not them. This also depends on the value of the 'prize' or the service being offered. It is certainly worth it (if you can afford it) to ask people in your target audience before you start your campaign what they'd be happy paying (then charge a tiny bit more).
- Get a good deal
Just because you picked the right tariff doesn't mean you'll be maximising your profit. If you don't own the short code (which is VERY expensive if you're just looking to start an SMS campaign), depending on where you are in the world, you'll be charged setup fees (per short code / keyword / sub-keywords, etc -- this depends) or you'll only receive a share of the revenue generated by the SMS (e.g. for 20% share you'll get 0.2 euro for every 1 euro (+VAT) SMS people send in. Or you might get charged both. Do a little market research cause it can really make a difference.
- Choose between short code / virtual number
- Pick a good shortcode / virtual number
- Pick a good keyword
Your short code's all setup, but you still need a keyword to bind to your service in order to make it all work. A keyword is the first sequence of letters until the first SPACE character. (Note: some SMS marketing platforms (google to find a suitable one) will trim leading spaces (i.e. when the SMS starts with a space), others will treat this as 'no-keyword'). You want your keyword to be i) easy to Remember , ii) easy to Spell, iii) Relevant with your service iv) Short. I use the RSRS shorthand ro remember this.
- Also buy/use misspellings of your keyword(s).
I've turned this into a separate bullet because I think there's extra value here. DO NOT just get ONE keyword. People misspell the whole time (and not just bad spellers -- everyone does this). Also get (if you can afford it) every possible misspelling you can think of to maximise participation. For non-English speaking countries (such as Greece) get the same keyword in both languages, and account for spellings of the non-English (e.g. greek) word with latin characters as some mobile phones might not have greek installed or turned on.
- ADVERTISE -- publicize call-to-actions!
Now you might be good to go, but you're nowhere near done yet! Now that you've gone into so much effort to design a service specifically for your audience, they will all want to participate! They just don't know about it yet! Now is the time to go out and tell people about your fantastic new service / contest / vote / quiz / etc. Again think of what is the best way to approach YOUR target audience and use the appropriate medium (TV, print, radio, internet, etc) or even better a combination of these with the same call-to-action. The more people find out about your campaign the more will participate!
- Show cost, if applicable
If there's a cost for the consumer associated with sending in an SMS (which there most probably is), tell them about it! Don't let them find out on their phone bill -- you will feel their fury, I kid you not! Put it in small letters beneath the call-to-action but NOT tiny - you are not trying to hide it from them, you want them to make an informed decision (that's why their participation is so valuable after all!). You just want them to know what it'll cost them. Only state the cost, don't tell them 'only 1 euro' is little to pay. They might still think it is, but don't be the one to tell them -- let them find out!
- Send participation confirmation SMS
Be sure to send back confirmation SMS messages to all incoming SMS. That way people know their message has been received and processed. Otherwise they might end up more than one SMS, which, yes might mean more profit for you, but it also means frustrated participants! And they often go to lengths such as complaints to local telecoms authorities - do you really want that?
- Give feedback about incoming SMS
If your SMS marketing campaign is such that you can give direct feedback to your participants about their incoming SMS, do so! If it's a radio or TV show, do comment about people's views and opinions. It will make them feel valued, and they will keep on participating. And you will build your very own audience of followers!
- Tools
It will be useful if the software tools you will use to view and manage your incoming SMS automate routine tasks such as exporting to file, reporting, running draws (so that you can give out prizes), sorting and searching through incoming SMS messages, etc. Just making a note of this as another thing to be aware of. Most software/providers offers this sort of functionality, but do tick it off your list before you pick one, or you will regret it!
If you have something you wish to add or any comments you'd like to make please feel free to do so in the comments section. Or contact me directly.
Posted in
sms,
sms marketing,
text marketing
|
Very good article. If you really want to do a business, then do it right way. Permission based mobile marketing, opt-out features, Help commands, etc. For businesses it makes perfect sense to allow a flawless (98%) communication with their customer.
cell phone text messaging
Interesting post. I found interesting mobile predictions on morganstanley.com. I also found this interesting site: a bulk sms service
Some great ideas [John].
As a web SMS service, we have seen significant growth in predominantly the small to medium business sectors. We have even seen some businesses now gererating 100% of there bookings through SMS marketing. The key to the whole thing is very specific targeting. A. by location and B. by interest. You must be completely relevant to the user otherwise they will consider your message spam.
We have also been educating our clients to make sure they do a few things very clearly.
1. Identify themselves within the message.
2. Personalise the message with the recipients name
3. Explain clearly why the recipient has received the message; and
4. Allow a simple opt-out process.
By targeting, personalisation, identification and opt-out within the message you have the best chance to not only be not treated as spam but to generate an enquiry. Bulk SMS marketing gets a bad rep because marketers do not follow these rules, and even cheap SMS is still a reasonable cost, so why waste money with badly targeted spammy campaigns?
With a free SMS opt-out number and message personalisation features Burst SMS systems are designed to make it easy to send SMS campaigns as spam compliantly as possible in order to generate the maximum possible response. If anyone is interested check us out at BurstSMS.com
Don't forget about Picture Messaging - MMS
Another new trend is picture message marketing. Similar to text message marketing but companies can now send pictures directly to the phones of their customers. I've seen it in action and it seems to be more effective than text messaging marketing.
sms marketing singapore
When people make connection with the company.. it helps in branding..
Some great tips here around building a proper, effective and ethical sms marketing campaign. Permission is always key and participants must always feel that they are in control and can opt out at any time
It is essential to always have an offer or special deal and avoid bland marketing messages.
The Mobile Marketing agency that you choose must also have a proper understanding of marketing and not just offer the software.
Conor
www.textrepublic.com
Today's market in sms messaging is cheap but it is not so cheap that almost anyone will take a chance with using it. Face it pennies count and change adds up quick!
The cheapest packages run roughly around $500 - $1000. About $.05 - $.03 a text. If you buy in larger bulk say 50k SMS's you can get down to $.018.
How is it that you can get an unlimited plan for your phone but you can't find an unlimited SMS marketing plan!
Well...that is what SlideSMS.Com does. They offer you an UNLIMITED plan for you bulk, business and personal SMS. Also the service is International. So you get flat rate SMS to anyone or anywhere in the world...It's About Time!
Take SlideSMS for a test. One of the few services that will actually let you send real usable sms right from their site without signing up, signing in or waiting for a sales person to get back to you just so you can be registered for a trial. When I want to test an SMS system, I want to test it now!
Another useful article thanks a bunch.