The Mobile Marketing Blog - TellMyCell

3 Reasons to Use SMS Marketing for Event Promotion

 

Looking to increase the footfall at your next event? Whether it’s a conference, exhibition opening, concert or nightclub event, SMS marketing should be part of your planning kit. Text message marketing makes it easy and affordable to reach out to large numbers of people via mobile - and for recipients to share texts and spread the word on your behalf.

Here are three ways SMS marketing can make event planning easier and more effective.

Get People Talking

SMS is a great way to spread the word about what you have planned for your upcoming event. Have a special guest in attendance? Or want everyone to know the delicious menu you have planned? Mass texting is a fast and easy way to get in touch with all of your mobile subscribers with the latest event updates and announcements, building excitement in the lead up to the big day. It’s also a useful way to send subscribers a reminder a day or two before the event - this can help to increase the last-minute number of sign-ups and decrease the number of no-shows.

 

RSVPs

Allow mobile subscribers and invited guests to pre-register for your event via their cell phones. This simplifies the whole process:

 

• It makes it easy for you to keep track of who’s coming and who’s not
• It’s a quick and convenient for your guests to RSVP, making them more likely to register
• You can then use mass texting to send them important updates and personalise the experience for them
• It also makes it easy to keep tabs on who registered but then decided not to attend, helping you identify areas that you might need to improve to increase attendance next time

Post-Event Feedback

You can put SMS marketing to use to help you plan even better events in future. The two-way nature of text communication makes it ideal for collecting feedback from your guests after the event. Guests are more likely to respond to a simple text poll, question or survey via the convenience and speed of mobile than they are online or via mail. Whether you choose a short poll, survey, ask guests to simply rate the event or send any feedback they like, you’ll gather valuable information. It’s one of the quickest ways to find out what worked and what didn’t, what guests loved about your event and the areas that need improvement. Use the info you’ve gathered to improve future events, planning and communication.

The Dos & Don’ts of Using Humor in Your Text Marketing Campaign

 

Incorporating humor into your text marketing efforts can help you grab attention and engage more with your audience. It’s also a great way for your brand to show some personality, helping it stand out from the crowd. A surprising, new and funny campaign can attract a whole new audience and increase your subscriber numbers too.

But get the wording or the topic wrong and you run the risk of alienating or even offending your subscribers.

 

If you’re keen to add some funny to your next text marketing campaign, here are some simple dos and don’ts to help you get it right.

Choose Your Topic

What do you want to joke about? Choosing a subject that directly relates to your brand will help your text marketing campaign achieve more impact. You might want to avoid sensitive areas like politics and religion, which run the risk of alienating or offending some of your subscribers. Food, fashion, law, retail - whatever your business, joke about your own area of expertise.

 

Lighten Up

You want to keep your funny text campaigns lighthearted and clean. Forget the toilet humor or anything rude or brash, as if you misjudge this it could lead to some offended subscribers and damage to your brand. Stick to simple jokes, plays on words, and make the most of puns - they’re a great way to raise a smile through the written communication of SMS messaging.

Make It Snappy

Remember you only have 160 characters to get them laughing. This means keeping your jokes, puns or phrases short. Forget overly long, multiple messages, which will only cost more to send. Get to the punchline fast with some succinct, snappy copy. This is where puns work really well, allowing you to get a laugh simply, through language.

Don’t Forget Your Brand Voice

Your brand’s tone of voice needs to be strong and consistent across all of your marketing channels, and this includes your text marketing campaigns, whether they’re humorous or not. Putting on a sudden change to a dry, sarcastic tone when the rest of your marketing has always been upbeat is only going to confuse your subscribers. Think about a funny tone that fits, and focus on lighthearted humor, which has wider appeal, rather than negative or sarcastic humor that can leave some people cold.

5 Ways to Make Your Mobile More Secure

 

Banking, shopping, doing your taxes, sharing and storing photos and more - as smartphone capabilities grow so too do the opportunities for hackers to get their hands on your private info. So how do you go make sure that your smartphone and the information it contains remains safe? Here are five straightforward tips to put to use this year:

Auto lock it

Your first line of defense when protecting your mobile is to set it to lock automatically. Set up a password that’s convenient to type and easy to remember. Chief technology officer for Perimeter E-Security, Andrew Jaquith, advises you stick to a password that’s long enough to "pair it with an auto-destruct policy - fail eight times to enter the right password and it deletes the data on the phone - to be sure your data will be safe."

To create a tough password that’s not easy for an opportunist or hacker to break, those in the know advocate the use of 15 characters. They’re 90 times more difficult to decipher than 14-character passwords. And you should always use a mix of letters and numbers to make your password a strong one.

Patches are your friend

Mobiles, like PCS, need regular patching to get rid of any weaknesses that might have popped up after the release of the device. Chief Technology Officer for security firm Lookout, Kevin Mahaffey, advises that users always accept updates.

"When you are prompted on Android, update," he says. These updates are there to keep you and your data safe. "For iPhone users, it's a bit more complex. You need to plug in and update your apps," he added.

Say no to shady apps

Steer clear of malicious apps, like the DroidDream app that attacked a quarter million Android devices inside a month, by only downloading from trusted app stores. Stick to popular apps to stay safe, and check out those app reviews -  those with a large number of comments and reviews are likely to be safer too.

Forget about jailbreaking

It can be convenient for sure, but there’s a reason mobile security experts warn against ‘jailbreaking’ your phone. Jailbreaking removes the digital-rights management that locks your phone to a certain carrier. The problem with doing that is the bulk of your phone’s security is directly linked to code signing and software sandboxing, and your device’s security can be instantly compromised when you mess with that.

Remember to back-up

Just like we’re always lectured to remember to back up our hard drives, the same is true for you mobile data. Thankfully, today’s smartphones make that easy. Getting into the data back-up habit means you’re far less likely to lose any important data, even in the event of a hack.

"Now that there is over-the-air syncing and updates, it's really easy to restore your phone," cloud security firm Zscaler’s Michael Sutton explains. "If your phone gets taken or the data deleted, it takes 30 minutes and your phone is back to normal."

5 Mobile Marketing Ideas for Valentine's Day

 

Second only to Christmas in terms of holiday spending, Valentine’s Day isn’t just a special occasion for couples, but for retailers too. Whatever your industry, your marketing strategy can use a little adjusting to take advantage of the surge in spending that happens around the most romantic day of the year.

Recent research carried out by the National Retail Foundation forecasts that Valentine’s spending will grow by 13% over last year, and the bulk of that spending will come via tablets and smartphones, with seasonal special offers and mobile coupons playing a significant part.

Cupid’s arrow could give your sales a love boost this year with a little help from these 5 clever mobile marketing strategies.

 

1) Meet the Last-Minute Man

Anybody out shopping on Christmas Eve can tell you that last-minute spending is something that goes hand in hand with the holidays. Try as we might to plan ahead, life has a habit of getting in the way, and sometimes we just don’t have time to gift shop until the eleventh hour.

 

In 2013, Adobe found that spending on gifts increased steadily through January and early February, then spiked significantly during the last five days before February 14th. Just like Christmas, there’s a notable number or of consumers who leave Valentine’s shopping until the last minute. They’re the ideal target market for last-minute mobile coupons and mobile marketing tactics.

 

2) Make a Microsite

You can really make a splash with your Valentine’s Day message by creating a separate themed microsite or landing page. Don’t worry about using it as a direct sales channel. This is where you need to hand control over to your most creative team members. From themed giveaways and photo competitions to Valentine’s Day quizzes reward visitors with the chance to win prizes, like a romantic vacation getaway.

 

The value of having a dedicated holiday microsite is huge. It’s also a great way to show you’re really serious about the Valentine’s offers you’re making, while making the most of design elements to impress new customers.

 

3) Couples’ Discounts

Valentine’s Day is about couples getting together, so it lends itself perfectly to two-for-one or ‘bring a partner’ offers. Incorporating two-for-one offers into Valentine’s-themed mobile coupons is an easy mobile marketing strategy with the power to drive traffic to any business.

4) Let Passion Fuel your Marketing

Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to inject some passion and originality into your marketing. Brainstorm some fresh ideas to kick of the year, and encourage audience engagement. A Valentine’s app, social media campaign, or Valentine’s gift tips a la Tiffany’s Concierge of Love service can make an impact and drive sales, clicks and shares.

 

5) Put Social Media at the Heart of your Campaign

 

Your social media channels - Facebook and Instagram especially - are visual, and February 14th offers up a whole world of romantic imagery you can use to overhaul your social media presence. A simple change of background, a themed reworking of your logo, or some humorous and shareworthy posts can help you connect with the holiday spirit and attract attention.

 

Power your Valentine's Day marketing campaign with a mass texting program at TellMyCell!

The Untapped Marketing Potential of Groundhog Day

 

In this age of cute, where furry critters get more YouTube views than Taylor Swift, you’d be crazy to let the potential of Groundhog Day marketing pass you by. It may not be as big a retail holiday as Christmas or Valentine’s Day, but Punxsutawney Phil can help you reach out to wider audience with some creative promotions.

From promo offers to engaging with your audience on social media here are a few mobile marketing ideas to help you make the most of this fun annual event.

 

Six more weeks of winter? Ask your fans

Find out what your audience thinks. Will Phil see his own shadow? Is summer on the way or are we in for six more weeks of winter? Get your customers in on the action and, across your social media channels, encourage them to make their own predictions. Offer up a reward for a winner chosen from among the correct guesses to give respondents a reason to get involved with the fun.

 

Groundhog Day discounts and giveaways

One of the simplest, low-stress Groundhog Day marketing moves is to simply promote a site-wide discount for 1-day only (Groundhog Day, of course). Just require a coupon in order to be eligible. You’re free to get as creative as you want with your one-off offers, but you could try free shipping, discounts on purchases above a certain value, or giveaways of plush groundhogs with purchases.

 

The gif that keeps on giving

Groundhog Day gives you a great opportunity to harness the power of cute. Create a funny animated gif to liven up emails, facebook posts, MMS messages and Tweets. Whatever Groundhog Day-themed offers you want to promote, using animated photos or illustrations of these cute little animals is a surefire way to catch your audience’s attention and encourage more clicks and shares.

 

Winter and Spring-themed specials

Think big and you can base product or service promos on Phil’s prediction. If it’s six weeks of winter, it gives you the chance to offer a special discount on winter items - from sweaters to snow tyres depending on your business. If Phil welcomes in the spring, you can too with special offers on new season items or services - from gardening to spring season cuisine.

Groundhog Day only rolls around once a year, but it’s a great opportunity to get really creative with your mobile marketing ideas. Have a brainstorming session and don’t be afraid to think outside the box on this one - it’s a weird and wacky event, and your marketing can be too.

SMS Marketing for Beauty Salons

 

Beauty is a competitive business, and attracting and retaining clients is key to every salon’s success. Text message marketing is a great way to turn heads and attract clients without having to turn your marketing budget upside down.

Simple, low cost and versatile, SMS marketing is also one of the most effective marketing tools out there. With 90% of American adults owning an SMS-enabled mobile, and text messages read more readily than emails and social media posts, 

Here are some of the ways that SMS marketing for beauty salons can add some va-va-voom to your business.

 

More bang for your buck

Running a beauty salon means long hours and working weekends, so when you put your time and effort into marketing you want it to pay off. 

With an email, you can see from the subject heading whether it’s one to open or one to trash. That’s why email has a weak open rate of 28-33%. Text messages on the other hand? They boast an open rate of 99%. They’re direct, they’re short, and they’re more likely to be read, so make the most of it.

 

No more no-shows

One of the most effective ways that SMS marketing for beauty salons can increase efficiency and cut your costs is via appointment reminders. Missed appointments means missed revenue for you. A simple text reminder to clients ahead of their appointment time reduces the number of no-shows. It also provides a convenient and quick way for your clients to let you know if they can no longer keep the appointment or want to reschedule. 

 

Boost your competitive edge

SMS marketing creates a more level playing field between large, name brand salons and smaller salons. While you might not have the marketing budget for expensive graphics and billboard ads, texts allow you to reach just as many potential clients and create personalized marketing that’s just as good, if not better, than the big boys.

 

High impact engagement

Texts beat email hands down when it comes to open rate, but they also boast an impressively high engagement rate.

 

• SMS has eight times the engagement rate of email

 

That means people are more likely to take action after reading a text than they are after reading an email. For your business, that means you can actually target fewer people with your marketing while still having the same number of leads converting to sales. While widening the reach of your SMS campaigns means a bigger boost to client numbers.

Use MMS Marketing to Promote Your Community Theater

 

Mobile marketing is the perfect partner for community theater groups looking to promote shows and recruit staff and volunteers. Low cost, simple to set up, and incredibly effective, you can add even more impact to your mobile outreach by adding MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) to your mobile marketing strategy.

MMS marketing campaigns take all the existing benefits of SMS marketing and add striking visual to the mix. MMS allows you to send eye-grabbing graphics, splashes of color, photos and videos too.

While text message marketing is great for short and quick communication, like rehearsal reminders, MMS allows you to take the customer experience to another level – great for creating eye-catching invites to shows and events.

Here are a few MMS marketing tricks that can help you promote your theater group.

 

Keep audiences updated

Got a show or fundraising event coming up? Show off sneaky peaks of scenery and rehearsals and event reminders to keep your audience in the loop. As well as the addition of video and images, MMS also gives you the advantage of expanded character limits. While standard text messages are limited to 140 characters, MMS allows you to include extended content and text, so you can share all the essential info to promote your theater’s latest news.

 

Discounts via MMS

Major especially restaurants, already use MMS discounts to attract more customers. Sending a text that offers a discount to recipients alongside an image of a tasty meal or dessert works to entice in more diners, and you can do the same with your special offer and discount texts. Provide a call to action as well as a specific date when the offer is valid to encourage potential patrons to take the initiative and book those tickets.

 

Encourage feedback with MMS

MMS marketing campaigns can enhance audience engagement over and above regular SMS contact. Make the most of the visual and interactive capabilities of MMS communication and use it to gain valuable feedback at the same time as raising awareness of your theater. You can have some fun with poll and votes via MMS, asking people what name they prefer for an upcoming show, or for ideas for unusual venues. Or use the technique in-house to get quick feedback from cast, crew and volunteers about things light lighting set ups, costumes and more.

 

MMS competitions

One of the great things about MMS marketing campaigns is that they’re a two-way street. They make it easy for you to reach out to a large audience, and make it just as easy for that audience to reach you. Make the most of this aspect of MMS and encourage your subscribers to send you photos, images and videos of their own. Whether it’s inviting audition videos, photos of their own favorite theater shows or ideas for set design, it’s a great way to get people involved and feel part of your community theater and its activities.

Six of the Best Pet Care Apps

 

Pet care hasn’t been limited to looking in books for quite some time, thanks to the internet. Now, technology has gone a step further with the creation of many helpful pet care apps that can provide answers to burning medical questions, find pet sitters for you, and much more. Let’s take a look at six of the very best pet care apps in case you want assistance raising Fido or Fluffy. 

 

Pet First Aid By the American Red Cross

This $0.99 app from the Red Cross is unsurprisingly ideal when emergencies occur. It helps you find the nearest vet hospital, determine if your puppy’s behavior is normal or cause for concern, and deal with allergic reactions, bleeding, and more. 

 

Pooper

If you’re tired of scooping up your dog’s waste, or sick of inconsiderate neighbors who seem incapable of picking up after their canines, this app is what you want. Pooper is an app that locates people to come and pick up waste, whether it’s on the sidewalk, lawn, or elsewhere. It’s similar to Uber in that you open the app and pinpoint where your animal has done its business. It’s also similar in that you obviously pay for the service. There’s no waiting for the ‘scooper’ to show up; you can simply vacate the premise and go on with your day. The app has reportedly received tons of signups for both customers and employees already. 

 

Pet Coach

This free app makes it easy to talk to a vet, pet trainer, or other pet professional when you require advice. For example, if your dog is looking heavier than usual, use the app to send a photo of the animal to a pet nutritionist and find out what kind of diet plan you need to implement. 

 

MapMyDogWalk

Want to know just how much exercise your pooch is getting? MapMyDogWalk is the doggy version of MapMyRun. Keep track of how much your dog is working out—though you might be reluctant to find out that long jog/walk you just embarked on was only half a mile. The app is free.

 

Walkio

Walkio might be the ultimate pet-sitting app. It’s similar to Uber in that all pet sitters must undergo background checks. The app takes care of administrative dog walking work, such as scheduling and appointments, payments, and the exchanging of keys through lock boxes. And the chat feature makes it easy for pet owners and sitters to communicate about appointment times, including when the dog will be brought home.

 

iKibble

iKibble Free is the app that helps you figure out what the heck your dog just ate. Canines don’t exactly use discretion when it comes to eating things they find on the floor or anywhere else. So, if you want to look up what Rover just consumed, and how healthy it is or isn’t, this app is for you. 

SMS Marketing for Lawyers

Law firms, as well as other businesses, should be using SMS marketing to their advantage. Also known as text message marketing, SMS marketing is a marketing service that uses an opt-in service for potential clients that might be interested in using your law services to receive text messages right on their smart phones.

SMS text messages enable you to send anything you want your clients to know about. They should always include a call to action to prompt clients to contact your form. 

Why Should Your Law Firm Use SMS Marketing?

• There are more than six billion mobile subscribers worldwide
• Consumers are looking at their mobile devices at any time of the day
• More than half of U.S. mobile spending is local
• More than 4.1 billion texts messages are sent every day in the United States alone
• 86 percent of consumers will read a text within five seconds of receiving it
• 30 percent of consumers will interact with a brand via text

How SMS Can Benefit Your Law Firm

Text message marketing has the ability to greatly benefit both well-established and smaller firms. Many lawyers choose to utilize this service to generate leads, meaning a new way to garner potential clients. If you have something valuable to offer them, such as a free consultation or percentage off of their bills, many clients will subscribe to your list. 

SMS marketing can not only be used to gain new clients, but can also keep clients who are already on your roster informed and engaged. You can go paperless and use this form of communication to deliver appointment notices, send bill due dates, and much more. Be sure that you get permission from existing clients before you send these messages. 

How to Use SMS Marketing Effectively to Increase ROI

Ensure that you have permission. Never randomly send out text messages to individuals who have not indicated interest in your services. Ensure that they have opted into your system.

Utilize mobile keywords. You can do this for each practice that you offer. For example, “Text Bankruptcy to 91000” for information on the bankruptcy services that you offer. With this strategy, you can segment your leads based off your clients’ interests and ensure that you send the right messages to the right audiences every time.

Keep them clear and concise. In order to get quality leads, you need to keep your text messages clear and concise. This ensures clients will look at them. Get to the point quickly and keep messages short enough to gain interest. More information can be obtained if they act on your call to action to find out what else you are offering.

Use the beauty of timing. Time is of the essence when using SMS marketing. Ensure you start sending the texts after you make contact through another channel and always follow up when you get a response.

Lawyers can utilize SMS messaging to their advantage, not only to gain new clients, but to keep in touch with existing ones as well. 

 

More and More Research Tells Us Millennials Can’t Do Without Text

Many recent studies into the preferences and habits of millennials found that they are more engaged with mobile technology than any other group. They also delivered some important insights about the ways in which millennials use smartphones.

Some 500 young people, surveyed by Retale, responded to a series of questions about mobile usage; the research found that 94% of millennials regularly use geo-location technology, and 84% say they act on push notifications. Nearly two thirds use their smartphones to look for coupons or discounts for immediate use, while a third use them to research product information for later purchase.

Whatever they use their mobile device for, the very presence of the device on or near their person is non-negotiable. Zogby reports that 87% of millennials are never without their phone, and 80% start their day by reaching for their device.

Another piece of research - from the OpenMarket - reveals that 76% of millennials would rather sacrifice phone calls than text messaging, citing convenience as the reason. But most interesting to mobile marketers is the fact that millennials would rather receive text messages for business transactions, including payment and appointment reminders, and special promotions. 

Furthermore, a Gallup poll surveyed 18 to 29 year olds and found monthly texting rates have more than doubled in the last two years.

And still the number of phone calls made by this demographic continues to decline. According to the Zogby research, 4/5 of young people spend at least two hours per day on their phone. Yet hardly any of them use it to make calls. For older generations, this may be hard to understand, but there are a few factors at play:

 

• Many young people view phone calls as intrusive and presumptuous, putting expectations on the recipient of the call to drop everything they’re doing and pay attention to the caller. Texting eliminates this problem because it doesn’t require a real-time response. 
• Privacy is not something millennials care too much about. They’ve been giving up personal details and consent regarding how their data is shared since they can remember, all in exchange for the convenience of increasingly sophisticated technology. The notion that you would mind companies knowing what you’re talking about is an alien one, and thus no bar to sending reams of your most personal information into the digital ether.
• Texting does away with a lot of the niceties of a phone call, while maximizing the useful information. If you need to simply find out where you’re meeting people for a night out, an address can be stated in a text message - a message that’s also a hyperlink to the map of the location which you can plan the best route to with GPS, all while checking out the menu as you walk. If a millennial texts such a request to their friend, a phone call returned would be annoying!

 

This understanding of what phones are for is so radically different to what baby boomers and - for their childhood at least - Gen Y-ers used them for, it can be difficult to get your head around. But seeing the smartphone from the perspective of young people will help you craft a more effective mobile marketing campaign. Hope we’ve helped!