Sunday, October 9, 2011

5 Tips For Making Your SMS Marketing Campaign A Success

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When the economy slows, most business owners look for cheaper methods of reaching their audience. For sure TV and Newspaper ads are out of reach of the ordinary business. Online keywords can cost as much as $70. However, there is one marketing method that is least exploited and that is SMS marketing. With nearly 5 billion handsets worldwide and more than 280 million mobile users in the US alone, SMS marketing offers immense opportunity.

Open rates are said to be as high as 98% and mobile phones are rarely shared. That means your campaign will reach the people it is meant to reach without interruption. So how can you hold a killer SMS campaign?

Here are five surprising tips...

1. Give one offer at a time. The human mind likes simple things. It prefers things that are less confusing and those that require little thinking. When you make things difficult and offer several choices, the natural thing to do is to take no action.

That means even if you are having a sale for several items in your store, just send out an SMS for one item. You may introduce customers to your other items on sale once they arrive in the store. Don't send out SMS telling your prospects about the 'just arrived' goods, an ongoing contest and the sale that's about to come to an end. You will create confusion and inaction.

2. Entice your SMS respondents.That means that you need to always give an incentive for action. Give a reward for replying the SMS. 'Bribe' people to come to your store. Give a prize to the first 100 customers who arrive. Give a 30% discount for anyone who comes with a spouse to your restaurants. Campaigns with incentives always outperform those without. You can always test various methods and find out what works best for your business. Coupons can work well in one business while volume discounts work better in others. The universal principal is to answer the question that's always in people's minds: what do I gain for my trouble?

3. Make your SMS campaign time sensitive. We always want to postpone things. We are never in a hurry. And pretty soon we forget everything. Make your campaigns feel urgent to avoid people forgetting them. Have a deadline or give limited items. Tell your customers that you only have 1000 pieces left and it will be first come first served. Inform them the offer is only open for 7 days and thereafter prices go up. This way it feels immediate action is required.

4. Don't send out ambiguous messages. It is better to send one long message that tells a complete story than one that says nothing. Answer the questions: What? Why? How? When? Because that is what will be in your reader's mind. Don't tell a story and then ask them to see press and posters for details. That kills your response rates. The better thing then is to send an SMS telling your customers that in today's newspaper there is information on page 13 that will be of interest to you. That makes the message complete.

5. Ask customers to spread the message.Make the campaign viral. Ask your customers to pass on the message to at least three friends. If possible you may reward them for doing this. Just imagine that the average person has 250 people on the phone book. Wouldn't your campaign be wildly successful if these people went viral? Your restaurant could suddenly become the talk of town!

Mary Wilhite is a Mobile Marketing Specialist, also known as the Mobile Marketing Queen. Teaching small businesses, entrepreneurs, and internet marketers how to attract better customers with mobile marketing devices. Get more of her mobile marketing tips, tricks, and strategies today. Just click here http://marywilhiteblog.com/


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