If Julia Roberts can get SMS at the Golden Globe, than you can reach anyone with SMS

The SMS revolution globally has staggering numbers for penetration as literally 100s of Billions of text messages are being sent per annum. The medium of text messaging has matured also in the financial sectors where banking notices, parking meters, and collections companies are using SMS to get a hold of people. The reality is that people read their text messages. The messages are small enough that they can look, read quickly, and respond. Even Julia Roberts within the Golden Globe Awards commented on how many messages her friends where sending her live at the event because she was sitting beside Paul McCartney. If text messages can penetrate the Golden Globe awards to Julia Roberts, than you can reach anyone with a text message.

How Can SMS Be Used As A Marketing Tool?

Direct Marketing and Public Relations

Direct marketing is fairly straight forward. A bulk SMS company either sends a message out on behalf of your company to your user base or to their user base. The direct sms marketing is much like the fax marketing companies that would allow you to outsource your large scale faxing, invoicing etc, to them and or allow for you to send marketing messages out to the fax numbers they have.

From the over 15 different companies and individuals I have interviewed in this field they have said:

1. Direct SMS marketing is most effective with a promotion or contest
2. Campaigns where it is free to reply back or at least they receive something of greater value if they reply back is important
3. Something that they can react on immediately, such as a code to send back, simply reply back and be entered into a database for whatever was offered, or a telephone number for them to call. Either way, a method of responding immediately is important
4. The company name or person’s name in your company the target market may know or would be familiar with should reply and should be in the text copy
5. No trick messages, such as, just wondering how you are doing, I am meeting at “location of advertiser” for lunch. Some companies in the early days sent out these misleading messages to try and promote their location. Some still do this within online mediums such as Craigslist.com, Gumtree, Yahoo, Skype, etc. People are becoming smarter, and the trick messages anger people more than just an honest message such as “consider going to XYZ tonight”. The same thing in stock market promotions, people would send messages out saying “I am buying XYZ.OB, did you talk to your broker today… We spoke this morning” Messages such as this one will get people in trouble.
6. Alerts work well, especially if it is an alert to remind everyone of something, such as its Wednesday tomorrow, all flowers on Wednesday are 50% off at City Square Florists. This could be targeted down to the school people go to, the location, area, city, network, etc. The alert and reminder messages are good. Within the stock market, people used the Alerts to notify people when a press release went out or filing had been made. This is information distribution and is much more respected than trick messages.
7. Be able to let the individuals reply back, and store the replies within a Database associated to their number and personal information if you have it.

It is important if you are using SMS marketing, that you have your own SMS or Mobile Phone CRM for storing all of the phone numbers and contacts, communications, and removes. It is just not functional to try to manage a phone for example as a CRM. The numbers and names are there, but the SMS function doesn’t store them in a functional manner, it separates the text messages into their own sub-application with an inbox folder, etc. Inexpensive Mobile CRM software at least allows you to install the contacts into the database, send messages on mass, communicate one-on-one, and store the communications, messages, and history in a database. Generally systems such as XM Pro will utilize your computer, a SIM Card and GSM Modem. This enables the logging of communications in and out within a CRM. It is ok to use a mass marketing tool via SMS, but you need to be able to capture the contact information and manage the ongoing communications and leads yourself. Much like email marketing, if you are going to pay for a message to go out, you should be able to manage and keep the relationship after without having to go back again and again to the same email marketer.

If you are interested in setting up an inexpensive SMS CRM for your sales force or public relations company, contact info@smsdatabasecommunication.com

Part II: SMS for Mobile Social Media, Relationship Marketing, and Public Relations – Next Post! http://www.smsdatabasecommunication.com