SMS Mobile Marketing Best Practices

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It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned SMS mobile marketing expert, or you are just beginning, you MUST be aware of the DOs and the DON’Ts of mobile marketing. Yes, we know every marketing campaign is unique unto itself, but you will either fail or get in trouble if you do not follow these guidelines.

DO NOT Send Messages Without Permission

Never, ever, ever, EVER send a message to someone without first getting their permission first. This is the GOLDEN RULE! People need to opt-in to your text messaging service before you can start messaging them. Not only will you upset the people you messaged without permission, but it is non-compliant with regulations.

But don’t look at this as a bad thing. SMS is powerful because you have to get permission. By texting only people who have opted-in to your service, you now know you are messaging people who want to hear what you have to say! So not only will you know people are opening and reading your messages, but you will get responses and interaction from them. This only strengthens and enhances the business to customer relationship, which makes them more willing to spend their money with you!

DO Advertise Your Keyword Call-To-Action

You’re probably asking yourself, “How do I get people to opt-in to my service?” This is simple. You want to market and advertise your short code (this is your call-to-action) on any and all print materials, social media, and if you’re still traditionally marketing, on all of your TV and radio spots.

A call-to-action (CTA) looks like this: Text SHOES to 54896 for Coupons & More from Sally’s Shoe Shop!

You’ll notice there was an offer included with the short code so people have added incentive to opt-in to your service. Remember, you want to also include at the bottom of your texts a way for subscribers to opt-out of your service.

An opt-out instruction would look like this: Msg & Data rates may apply. Text STOP to opt-out.

This is good for you because it gives freedom to your subscribers. If you text them without including the opt-out at the bottom, you will not only irritate your subscribers, but this is also non-compliant. Giving subscribers freedom to opt-out of your service will make them happier and, believe it or not, less likely to opt-out of your service. Why? Because you are giving them the choice.

     DO Add Incentive To Your CTAs

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This was mentioned earlier, but this cannot be stressed enough. People really have no reason not to opt-in to your service if you are giving them something.

For example, a GREAT way to incentivize your opt-in text would be like this: Text SHOES to 54896 to get 25% of your next pair of shoes at Sally’s Shoe Shop!

Who doesn’t want a discount? On another note, the BEST way to get people to opt-in to your service is to offer FREE stuff. Now this isn’t always feasible, but it’s something to keep in mind. Always remember that incentivizing your CTAs brings guaranteed results!

DO NOT Send Text Messages Without Value

Text messaging can be the most powerful tool you use in your marketing strategy, but you need to be careful. Since SMS is such a personal and immediate medium, it can be easy to become annoying or aggravating to your subscribers. You want to remember that a lot of people still pay per text, and no one wants to be bombarded by constant texts every second of every day. This is a SURE way to lose all of your subscribers. Don’t do this! You worked hard for your opt-ins, don’t just give them up for worthless text messages. Make sure you have something to offer in EVERY text you send, or you are wasting your time and your subscribers’ time. A good guideline for sending messages out is 4-5 messages a month.

DO Make Opting-Out Easy

You may be wondering why in the world you would want to do this, but hear us out. Remember, SMS marketing is permission based. A majority of people who subscribe to your service are only doing it because they know they can opt-out at any time. You also want to note that you still spend per text (yes, it’s pennies per text, but this can add up!), so you don’t want to be sending messages to people who don’t want to hear what you have to offer. Don’t waste your money on people who are never going to listen to you, make opting-out easy!

DO Track Your Results

Don’t just run a campaign without tracking your results! You are spending money so you want to make sure you are reaching the people you want to reach. If you get the right mobile marketing platform, you can measure when’s the best time to send messages, what content is intriguing your subscribers the most, and who you are getting the most responses from. If you’re including web links in your campaign, be sure to use a link shortener such as “bit.ly” that allows you to track who is clicking on your links.

These guidelines may sound like a lot to digest right now, but in actuality they really aren’t that hard to implement. We just want to make sure that you are aware of these rules and make sure that you are compliant, while at the same time running a successful SMS mobile marketing campaign.

Godsend mobile marketers!

SMS Mobile Marketing For Schools and Universities

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SMS mobile marketing is already being implemented by schools and universitiesworldwide to make internal and external communication quicker and easier. University staffs have found that it is particularly useful when organizing open days, events for students, or simply sending updates to the students concerning on-campus activities. The beauty of SMS is that you can build a large database of mobile phone numbers so that you can contact an almost unlimited amount of people at one time (i.e. literally your entire campus.) SMS has been used to help keep administrative staff, professors, researchers, lecturers, and students up to date with any news or relevant information for the faculty and students. If you’re a school or university and you haven’t taken advantage of the power of SMS mobile marketing yet, you are falling behind! So many schools and businesses have already integrated SMS into their everyday activities to make things smoother, easier, and more efficient. If you are not one of these schools or businesses, the competition is beating you! Don’t be beat!

People seem to think that including SMS into their marketing strategy is just another thing to worry about, but in reality it’s EASY! Let us show you how!

Promote Events

Using SMS mobile marketing, you can send texts to anyone who could be interested in faculty open days, events on campus, or other events scheduled by the university. You can easily get students’ contact information during the enrollment process, and you can get faculty’s contact information through the hiring process. Remember, this is a service to them that will make their lives easier and allow them to know more of what is going on without having to run around campus. They will WANT this.

Generate New Contacts

You can create a university SMS club in which students and faculty sign up to the group by sending a text to “54869” (short codes will be given to you upon implementing SMS) with your university or school’s name. They will then be subscribed into your database and you can send anyone in the database information concerninganything they would want to know about.

Internal Communication

SMS makes internal communication unbelievably easier for schools and universities. Using SMS you can keep faculty and staff up to date on any relevant news or information, at any time. Using SMS virtually eliminates the need for bulletin boards or even emails. You also want to note that the faculty who receive these messages from you can also forward these same messages to their students if it is relevant to them.

Student Meetings

Texts can be sent out reminding students of specific meetings, club meetings, on-campus concerts, sporting events, or any other type of extracurricular activities. You can also schedule your texts ahead of time. For example, if a certain student club is meeting that evening, you can schedule a text to go out in the afternoon reminding students of the meeting. You can also be selective with who gets your message. Your messages don’t always have to go out to the entire campus.

Deadlines

SMS can be used to remind students of deadlines for assignments, projects, returning books, enrollment, or graduation.

Emergencies

Probably the most important service SMS can provide is the ability to immediately alert everyone on campus if there is an emergency. You can notify them of cancelled classes, closing of the school because of snow, accidents or tragedies on campus, or if there is a suspicious character or active shooter on campus. This is especially important considering the recent string of events concerning school shootings and college security. By using SMS to alert students and tell them what to do in the case of an emergency, SMS can literally save lives!!!

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What If I Have No Mobile Numbers?

If you weren’t able to acquire students’ mobile numbers through the enrollment process, or your faculty’s through the hiring process, you can publish your short code to any and all promotional material on campus (flyers, posters, leaflets, brochures, signs, or your university or school website.) Students and faculty can see this and can text your short code using you school’s name, which then subscribes them into your database. If none of this works, which is extremely rare, you can simply ask your students and faculty for their mobile numbers. Since this is beneficial to them, they will have no reason not to.

SMS Marketing Statistics 2012

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In today’s world, anywhere from 95-98% of text messages received are opened and read within minutes of receipt. Because of this, SMS marketing is growing quickly as a means of delivering marketing messages to clients and customers. This kind of marketing can be a great benefit to any kind of company. However you use text message marketing to reach your audience, you’re sure to get attention. Still not so sure? Take a peek at these SMS Marketing Statistics 2012 and see just how powerful SMS marketing can be.

For starters: With Four billion mobile phones out there, 86% of mobile users said that they receive or send at least one text message per week, though often it is much more. Last year alone, 7.8 trillion SMS messages were sent. It is estimated that SMS traffic will reach, if not surpass, 9.6 trillion messages by the end of this year,

25% of all of those four billion registered phones are smart phones and of those consumers using mobile phones, 30% of households said that they no longer even had a landline in their homes. Over one third of mobile phone users said that they actually prefer text messaging as a means of communication over a phone call on that same mobile device. 44% of people said that they are apt to check their phones an average of at least 10 times a day.

95% of all mobile users (both smartphone and non-smartphone users) have been connected to by brands that are using SMS marketing to reach their customers. Regarding ad awareness, the average mobile based campaign utilizing SMS marketing significantly outpaces online ads. One third of consumers say they interact with a brand via text message on a regular basis. They do this by opting in to regular messages with promotions and incentives on the brand’s website, scanning QR codes, or texting in keywords to a mobile short code.

Of the 250 million mobile users in the United States, about one fourth use their phones to access the internet for browsing, searches, shopping, games, and more. 9/10 mobile searches lead to action, and half of these searches eventually lead to a purchase. With 50% of local searches being performed on mobile devices, it’s pretty clear that mobile isn’t going anywhere. Why not use it to your advertising advantage?

Speaking of advantages, here are some that SMS marketing offers:
In all the emails received each day, so many are spam: upwards of 30%! Users have found their way around this with spam filters, and are less likely to open an email they find unfamiliar because of this. In SMS marketing, though, only about 10% of daily received messages are considered spam. Because of this, users aren’t as prone to brush them off without first reading through them. This reading through often leads to further action. For some facts: Only about 6% of marketing emails are opened and responded to, while SMS Marketing campaigns have a much higher response rate-45% to be specific.

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With all the marketing images consumers see daily, marketers constantly have to create new, engaging imagery and campaigns all the time. The fact that SMS messages are direct to the customer is definitely a big plus- even if someone is on the go, they’re very likely to check their text messages and see what you have to say. Another perk is that there is so much less need to compete with other media in this form, because it is a fairly new way of marketing products and ideas to clients.

With all of these statistics in your favor, it’s not hard to see why SMS marketing is a great tool to add to your marketing repertoire!

Bulk SMS Text Messaging; Send SMS Anywhere in the World

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Bulk SMS messaging is a way to send high volumes of text messages to potential customers, suppliers, employees, and partners that allows you to connect and interact with them. Oftentimes companies will use bulk SMS messaging for entertainment, enterprise, and mobile marketing purposes. More specifically, you can send alerts, reminders, notifications, or announce competitions where the receiver could win a prize or trip. This is a service currently offered by SMS company AnchorMobile and you can use this SMS gateway provider service virtually anywhere in the world.

To use this service, you first need the software. There are several software packages available for bulk SMS broadcasting and these packages allow the user to add as many phone numbers as the user would like. The user can manage these phone numbers in several different ways; whatever best suits the user’s wants and needs. Most SMS software applications allow you to upload lists of phone numbers using a TXT or CSV file. If your system is more refined, it will automatically remove any duplicate numbers and will validate all numbers to ensure they are indeed real cell phone numbers before sending the mass text messages like ours does. To take it a step further, you can also schedule your text messages to be sent at specific times throughout the day, or space your messages out across several days, weeks, or even months. Again, remember that these messages can be sent nationally as well as internationally using AnchorMobile’s mobile marketing platform.

There are several ways to help your mass SMS text messaging campaign benefit your company or business. To be more specific about what was mentioned before, you can use it for alerts to inform people about important events or situations, you can use it for reminders to remind people about appointments, events, and payments, and you can use it to promote competitions and actively invite people to participate in your competition using two-way messaging or SMS advertising You can use two-way messaging and short codes to ensure a direct line of communication with your customers. Notifications can also be sent to inform customers, suppliers, and partners about relevant information, developments, or changes to plans or your organization. Other ways to use SMS is through personalized priority messaging, which is basically a way to make sure you are sending the right information, to the right person, at the right time. Reservations and bookings can also be made through SMS messaging to make, confirm, or change them.

With AnchorMobile’s ability to send bulk SMS message almost literally anywhere in the world, the possibilities are endless. Bulk SMS text messaging is an easy way to reach anyone you need to in real time. Not only is bulk messaging a great way to reach customers and increase revenue flow into your business, but it can also be used internally to streamline communication within your company and speed up the communication process so you can focus on the bottom line.

To learn more about acquiring an SMS Short Code or Long Code to originate the bulk SMS and pricing per nation, contact an AnchorMobile consultant today.