The Mobile Marketing Blog - TellMyCell

The Five Minute SMS Marketing Primer

By now you’ve heard about mobile marketing, and if you’re reading this you probably want to know how you can use mobile marketing to benefit your business. Is it difficult? Is it expensive? What exactly is mobile marketing?

We’re going to look at SMS marketing, also known as text message marketing. We’ll explain its place in the world of mobile marketing, its advantages, its costs, and how you can launch your business’ first SMS marketing campaign today – in five minutes flat.

What is Mobile Marketing? Let’s go straight to the source, The Mobile Marketing Association: Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.

Now let’s translate that into plain English: Mobile marketing is a way for you to connect with your customers (and potential ones) on their mobile phones.

How Can I Market To My Customers On Their Mobile Phone? There are a few different forms of mobile marketing. There’s mobile search, which is search advertising on a mobile web browser, ads on the mobile web, Bluetooth ads that communicate with your phone, and apps (think downloadable iPhone or Android programs). And then there is SMS, better known as text messaging.

Why Is SMS Marketing The Best Form Of Mobile Marketing? SMS Marketing has three advantages that dramatically set it apart from all other forms of SMS Marketing:

1. Broadest Reach & Familiarity: Nearly every phone in the United States supports text messaging. Americans sent well over 1 trillion text messages last year. They love text messaging. All other forms of mobile marketing are growing rapidly, but they can only reach selected groups of your customers.
2. Cost: Hiring an app developer is expensive. Buying mobile display ads is a major commitment. Bluetooth requires the lease or purchase of physical hardware. Contrast that to text messaging. Many SMS Marketing services allow you to get started for free. A successful campaign for a small business can be launched for less than $50. As for consumers, most either have an unlimited texting plan, or at least one that comes with a couple hundred text messages every month. If not, messages only cost a few pennies. 
3. Ease: Simple yet powerful software like TellMyCell’s SMS Marketing service is easy enough for anyone to use. Signup in 60 seconds. Login. Add some contacts. Type your message. Click send. Want to build a customer list? Rent a keyword on a shared short code.

How Do Keywords & Short Codes Work: A short code is a special 5 or 6 digit phone number. It is a unique number that anyone can send a text messages to. Short codes are at the heart of SMS Marketing.

A Keyword is a unique phrase that a consumer can use to interact with you via a short code. A Keyword is unique to its short code. This means that you might see the same Keyword used on different short codes. Short codes are nearly universal in the United States. So, a short code can power a relatively inexpensive national marketing campaign. Keywords work when they are paired with a short code. A customer will use their mobile phone to send a text message to a short code. The best way to understand how keywords work with short codes is to try it yourself. From your mobile phone, text the word Joes to 88202. In this example, Joes is a Keyword, and 88202 is the shared short code.

How Do I Get Started? Head over to TellMyCell to check out our plans and pricing. Signup is free and takes 60 seconds. Your account comes loaded with ten credits so you can try it for yourself. Got more questions? Get in touch with us.

Bulk SMS Marketing For Nightlife

If you're involved in the world of nightlife -- whether you're an owner, promoter, or manager -- you know that text messaging has changed the way you do business...don't you? If not, you're handing your competitors a major advantage. So what can bulk SMS do for nightlife?

SMS marketing campaigns are easy to deploy, and are affordable for the smallest of marketing budgets. TellMyCell provides the same enterprise-class text messaging services to both small businesses and national chains.

• Neighborhood bars text message daily specials to their customers.
• Restaurants quickly communicate with employees to offer shifts.
• Nightclubs build loyalty by collecting patron phone numbers and offering VIP access.

Learn more about SMS Marketing for nightlife @ TellMyCell. Open a free account in 60 seconds.

Engaging Basketball & Hockey Fans With SMS Text Messaging

Over at Mobile Marketer Dan Butcher has a great piece about the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche, who share the Pepsi Center:

The Pepsi Center, as well as each of the three teams, will have its own dedicated SMS club: “Pepsi Center Mobile,” “Nuggets Mobile,” “Avalanche Mobile” and “Mammoth Mobile”.

Fans can join them via text message or online through a brief entry form.

A handful of messages will be blasted out to the opt-in participants each week and content will include breaking news, score updates and promotional offers. 

Mobile promotions will also be shown on the video board at all home games. Potential concepts include:

Mascot Scenario – The team mascot will be presented in a humorous situation and fans will be able to choose how the scenario plays out by voting on what happens next.

Song of the Game – Fans vote as to what song should be played during an upcoming break.

Fan Battle – Two fans will be featured on the video board dancing while the remaining fans in-arena can vote, in real time, on who they think should win the dance-off.

Hidden Object – An object will be hidden and placed under three basketballs. It is then scrambled and rearranged before finally settling in place and fans have the opportunity to vote via text message on which basketball holds the object.

MVP of the Game – A simple SMS voting format pits three players against each other while fans help decide who was most valuable to the outcome of the game by texting a keyword to a short code.

For each of the above, content and voting results are displayed in real time on the video board, thus providing an interactive atmosphere for the fans.

Read the whole thing @ Mobile Marketer.

Five Advantages Of Mobile Marketing Over Online Marketing

There's a good opinion piece up at Mobile Marketer, written by Frank Powell. He lays out five advantages that mobile marketing offers over online marketing:

1. Omnipresence
2. Reduced targeting errors and improved data management
3. Improved time relevance
4. Location awareness
5. Increased intimacy with the device and via the device

Want to see just what those five bullet points mean? Head over to Mobile Marketer.

'Texting the Tuscan Sun' Using SMS To Verify If That Bottle Of Wine Is Authentic

We're gonna look at an interesting use of text messaging today. You may or may not have heard about a recent scandal in the Italian wine world (if you don't know, Italy experiences food/wine/olive oil scandals with some regularity).

This is what went down:

The Italian government investigated the 2003 vintage [of Brunello] and found that several of the 250 producers in the consortium had adulterated their wines. Brunello can only be produced using 100 percent Sangiovese grapes grown only in a small demarcated area surrounding the village of Montalcino. It then must be aged for two years in oak barrels, and then another four months in bottle, and a Brunello cannot be released until five years after the harvest. With the 2003 vintage, however, it was discovered that some winemakers fraudulently used grapes other than Sangiovese. Over 700,000 cases were impounded, and around 1.3 million liters were eventually stripped of the prestigious denomination of origin.

Brunello doesn't come cheap, so what's a wine consumer to do? Enter the text message:

The producers of Brunello di Montalcino — the coveted and mythologized Tuscan red — announced they would be using mobile phone technology to assure consumers that their very expensive bottles actually contained Brunello di Montalcino. Now, after you plunk down $60 or $80 or $100 for the 2004 vintage, you can send a text message with your bottle’s ID number to the Consorzio del Vino del Brunello di Montalcino. In return you’ll receive a text verifying its history and authenticity.

Read more at The Smart Set.

From The FAQ: What Are Some Of The Advantages Of Using SMS Marketing?

What Are Some Of The Advantages Of Using SMS Marketing? In 2009, Americans sent over 1 trillion text messages. Over 90% of text messages are read. Want to cut through the noise? Text messaging has quickly supplanted email as the direct marketing channel of choice for savvy brands. The text messages we send for you are delivered directly to the carriers. They'll arrive in your customers' hands in minutes.

20% Of Opt In Email Campaigns Are Never Delivered - It's Time For SMS Marketing

MediaPost's OnlineMediaDaily ran an article yesterday about opt-in, permission based email campaigns, specifically their delivery rates. The results should give serious pause to every small business relying on mass email campaigns to reach their customers:

Despite minor improvements, about 1-in-5 commercial, permissioned emails still fail to reach consumers' inboxes, according to new research from email and reputation management firm Return Path.

In the second half of 2009, 19.9% such emails never reached consumer inboxes in the United States and Canada -- representing only a slight improvement over the first half of the year when 20.7% such emails missed their target.

You're probably thinking, wait a minute, my email campaign software reports much lower bounce rates. Well, it appears you're not getting the entire picture:

"Many senders believe that their email campaigns are achieving a 95% to 98% delivery rate," said George Bilbrey, co-founder and president of Return Path. However, "senders still do not have the correct data to accurately determine true ROI."

"If senders and ESPs count only their hard bounces as emails that failed to reach consumers, they're not getting an accurate metric as to how many emails actually made it into subscriber inboxes," Bilbrey added. "Ultimately, only emails that reach a subscriber's inbox can be opened, clicked and converted into a loyal and active customer. Remember, sent minus bounce does not equal delivered."

So what can a business owner do about this? SMS Marketing. First, text message marketing messages are strictly opt-in - your customers must give you permission to text them. But, as we've just learned about opt-in emails, permission doesn't seem to be enough anymore. So why is SMS different? Let's go to the one stat that reveals all: Over 90% of text messages are opened. Not 90% of messages are delivered. Over 90% of text messages are opened. What about delivery rates? Every group text message you send via TellMyCell is passed directly to the carriers, who in turn deliver the message to their customers (your clients).

....

Email marketing is important, and its not going away anytime soon. However, when you consider inundated inboxes and spam filters that are blocking up to 20% of legitimate, permission given marketing messages, you need to consider better ways to reach your customers. Text messaging, for Fortune 500 firms and small businesses alike, is increasingly the solution.

Learn more about SMS Marketing at TellMyCell.

From The FAQ: How Do I Launch An SMS Marketing Campaign

How Do I Launch An SMS Marketing Campaign On My Own? TellMyCell is a do-it-yourself SMS Marketing platform. While we work with Fortune 500 clients, we know that most businesses don't have the budget for an expensive, agency-run campaign -- and that's why we built TellMyCell. Our SMS Marketing platform is web-based, it's easy to use, and its affordable for any budget.

How Much Does TellMyCell Cost? You can pay for your SMS Marketing campaigns in two ways. You can buy credits for 5 cents a piece. Or, you can signup for one of our monthly plans, which include per-credit discounts, and free Keywords. Please note: While Plan Credits do not roll over month to month, Anytime Credits never expire. Either way, you'll never sign a contract, and you'll never pay for incoming messages.

Want to learn more about SMS Marketing? Check the Frequently Asked Questions at TellMyCell.

SMS Marketing Q&A: What Are Mobile Coupons

TellMyCell has been powering SMS marketing campaigns for over six years - and over those years we've been asked hundreds of questions. We recently updated out website with a new set of Frequently Asked Questions, which is a great resource if you want to learn the basics of text messaging and mobile marketing. What we're going to do in our new Q&A series is go a little deeper. So, with that out of the way, let's get to it.

Question: What Are Mobile Coupons?

A mobile coupon is exactly what you'd expect - a coupon that's stored on a mobile phone, rather than being printed on a piece of paper. So what can a consumer do with a mobile coupon? The same things that they've been use printed coupons for – to receive discounts, rebates, etc. on products and services. So, as you can see, the concept of a mobile coupon is pretty straightforward.

There are two ways to send out mobile coupons. They each have their pros and cons.

Mobile Barcodes - Create a barcode, using a standard format, and then get that barcode in your customers' hands. Mobile barcodes offer deep tracking. Unfortanately there are many standards for barcodes, and even more standards for barcodes on mobile phones. As if that wasn't complicated enough, most phones don't support any (let alone many) of these formats out of the box. Offering your customers a mobile coupon is a great way to build brand loyalty and spur sales; requiring them to download an iPhone/BlackBerry/Android app (assuming they have one of those phones) to receive your coupon is not so great.

Mobile Coupons As Text Messages - Text messaging based mobile-coupons offer nearly universal reach. Americans send 4 billion text messages every day. They love text messages, they're familiar with text messages, and most importantly, there's no learning curve/software hassles if your mobile coupon arrives in the form of a text message.

What's the catch? You can’t track text message coupons with the same depth as you can track barcode images. Text messaging certainly offers tracking, just not with the same depth, automation, and precision of a mobile barcodes. Of course all the data in the world isn't useful if the majority of your customers can't receive your coupon. The decision between barcodes and text messages is one that every business has to weigh. In the future we expect barcodes to standardize and spread, but for now, the downsides are far greater than the upsides.

So how does a consumer redeem a mobile coupon sent as a text message? Sticking to our theme of exactly what you would expect, the consumer pulls out their phone, opens the text message, and shows it to the retailer.

Want to get started with mobile coupons? Check out the SMS Marketing page @ TellMyCell or click here to view pricing and signup in seconds.

SMS Marketing Q&A: How Do I Send A Text Blast?

Today we're starting a new series, SMS Marketing Q&As. This is the first post.

TellMyCell has been powering SMS marketing campaigns for over six years - and over those years we've been asked hundreds of questions. We recently updated out website with a new set of Frequently Asked Questions, which is a great resource if you want to learn the basics of text messaging and mobile marketing. What we're going to do in our new Q&A series is go a little deeper. So, with that out of the way, let's get to it.

Question: How Do I Send A Text Blast?

First let's address the definition of a text blast. A text blast is synonym for a mass text message. What's a mass text message? A single text message that your company or organization sends out to a list of contacts - 10 people, 10,000 people, or in the case of The Obama Campaign's VP announcement, about 3 million people.

A mass text message or a bulk text message is the common way of referring to such a message...so where did the term text blast come from? That's a question for a linguistics expert, but we're pretty sure that the phrase originated among email marketers who are in the business of sending out email blasts.

So, back the question...How Do I Send A Text Blast? There are two ways to send a text blast. If you've got an unlimited text messaging plan, a phone with a massive list of contacts (which supports sending text messages to multiple recipients, and a whole lot of patience, you could send out the message using your phone. If you're sending your text message to ten people who are personal contacts, this approach might make sense. For an SMS Marketing campaign this just isn't going to work. This is where an SMS marketing platform that provides text blasting services excels. 

Sending a Text Blast using an SMS Marketing service such as TellMyCell is fast, simple, and affordable. Here's how it works:

1. Sign up for an account. You can pay as you go, or you can choose a monthly plan.
2. Choose your recipients. Got a list of opted-in contacts? Upload them. Otherwise we offer a full set of tools to build up your list of contacts.
3. Type your message - not on your mobile phone, but using our simple web interface.
4. Click Send.

Your message will be delivered to all of your contacts within minutes. If your contacts respond, we'll automatically deliver them to your account Inbox, or if you like we can forward them to your email or mobile phone.

So let's review:

• A text blast is a text message sent to multiple recipients.
• You can send a text blast using TellMyCell's easy, affordable SMS marketing platform.
• You'll save time and money, using our web-based interface.

Check out our text blasting information center to learn more about our service, or sign up for a free, no obligation trial.