SMS Marketing

SMS Texting - The Ultimate Marketing Tool 

What exactly is SMS Texting and why is it going to be the Ultimate Marketing Tool?

SMS Texting is nothing less than the new medium to keep in touch with your customers and prospects and it is the hottest marketing tool in history so far .

Maybe it can be compared to email 10 years ago, only a lot heavier.

To understand the impact that marketing your business with SMS texting will have in the coming years let's start with some cold facts at the moment of writing this article.

• People on this planet: 6 billion + (at the end of 2011: 7)
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• People on the internet: 1.8 billion
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• People with a mobile phone: 5 billion of which not less than 91% keep it near to their person 24/7 and 97% of the text messages get read!

The latest trends:

• 1) local search (just have a look at what Google's doing right now!)
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  and
  
  
• 2) internet users are rapidly trading in their PC accounts for a mobile account
  (or have both, but will be using their mobile account a lot more than their "static"
  PC account the coming years).

What does this mean for local businesses?

More and more local businesses meet their competition on the internet and go belly up, or at least rapidly lose customers to webshops and other internet suppliers.

It's obvious that ordering products on the internet has some advantages over having to go to a local shop - think wasted time, bad wheather, parking space, not being able "to look at the goods" before going to the store (do they have what you're looking for in this shop, or do you have to spend your entire afternoon shopping?).

What can be easier to just go online and punch in the wanted item into Google and then into a price comparing website to see where to find the product and who offers the best price for it. If they have their online order form ready, then searching and ordering will take 10 minutes tops, which is only a fraction of the time needed to go to the mall and shop for an item a hot prospect could be desperately looking for.

So what can those local businesses do to stay in the race?

• 1) Make sure they are found in the search engines when someone asks a local search;
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• 2) Make sure they are found in the search engines when someones wants to see if a specific product is available and well priced within driving distance;
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• 3) Make sure they have a mobile website ready as addition to their "normal" site;
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• 4) Use the latest technology to keep in touch with their prospects and clients.
  

SMS Texting

That technology is now available for any business, no matter how large or small and it is called SMS Marketing using the texting possibilities of mobile phones.


And be warned, this is only the beginning!
With all the apps being offered right now, it will only be a matter of time before any business can have its own app and have its customers install it on their smart phones!

So what exactly is SMS Marketing?

Simply put:

• -A business gets a "key word" that describes their product, brand or action (Think "burger1" for Mac Donald) and a number their customers can send their SMS text to
  
  (Mac D. could put signs on their tables or menu stating "send burger1 to 3141 and we will keep you informed of all our events, latest products and special offers".
  
  Hell, they could even put a QR Barcode on all their promo material, so that interested parties wouldn't even have to type in the key word and number, but instead could just take a picture of the barcode with their smartphone to have everything typed in for them!);
  
  
• -Customers would send this text message ("burger1") to the given phonenumber (or take a snapshot of the QR Barcode) and Mac D. would have all their mobile phone numbers available to send them text messages.
  
  Are tuesday nights a bit slow? Send out a message like "This tuesday regular customers get 1 Quarterpounder free with every Happy Meal - Just show this message".
  
  Or (e.g. for a local shop): "The new collection arrived! You get first choice and a surprise if you buy this week!"
  
  
• -To avoid misunderstandings: This would only have to be 1 text message that would be send to all customers that had sent in the given company key word ("burger1") at any given time!

Can you see the vast possibilities for your shop yet? There are no borders, your imagination sets the limits! Don't get left behind! Sign Up for our Service Now!