Text message/mobile marketing is the buzz in the advertising industry, it has been around for a longtime but big companies are looking into and using the model now. We are seeing more and more commercials that have a short codes and keywords on them, and more commercials that are driving you to their mobile sites to learn, explore and ultimately buy their product.
But what has changed and what has made more companies look into the text message model to add to their advertisements? The answer is simple; text message marketing is a great way to attract customers using the Direct Response Model. It is a call to action that hits the consumer on the hip with the information they requested, once opted-in to the campaign you have the ability to grow this person into a customer. Like the 800#’s of traditional direct response advertising the Short Code and Keyword has a new way of attracting customers and massaging them into loyal consumers for the future.
With the ability to offer instant feedback on a cell phone, text message marketing can grow a simple text into an informative interaction between a consumer and company. We have seen this method used by traditional DRTV clients like 1-800-matress to major pharmaceutical companies. They are using the text message marketing/mobile marketing technique to grow their campaigns and build a better customer base.
Look at the following TV commercial by Glaxo SmithKline, it is a powerful commercial, but it also engages the consumer by offering a way to receive more information about the disease and the product to help with the disease on their cell phone. This can put the consumer at ease and keep their concerns personal. There are many ways to use text message/mobile marketing from small business to large business, this is just one example.
This is the question everyone asks when presented with a new idea or opportunity. What's In It For Me? Isn't that what we all want to know? When I talk to potential customers I am always trying to answer this question and when you start a Text Message Marketing Campaign you need to consider this question when crafting your message to your customers. Lists of 3 things are easily remembered and processed.
What's in it for an advertiser.
1. A way to instantly communicate specials, events, and news with your customers. Email, Print, Radio and TV are great ways to advertise to weekly or monthly promotions to customers, but text messaging can be used to run short time frame ads, come in today for this special.
2. An affordable advertising platform that specifically targets customers who want to spend money with you. For $49 a month you can send 500 targeted ads with a response rate of 10%. That's 50 customers in the door spending money, compare that ROI to print, radio and TV!
3. A great way to measure your traditional advertising spend by turning all of your ads into direct response ads.
What's in it for the customer.
1. Receive convenient specials on your phone. You will never forget them at home and you can redeem them right away.
2. Get the best specials, latest news and convenient reminders.
3. Share our specials with your friends and family, be a person that person that is always in the know.
Fast convenient and affordable for everyone involved. 33% of Americans now prefer text messaging over email as a form of communication. Connect with your customers in a new and exciting way. Contact Mobile River to get started.
What an amazing time for Team USA, with Shaun White winning gold in such amazing fashion and Lindsey Vonn overcoming her shin injury to charge the mountain to win gold. I am always amazed at what people can do when they train and work hard to reach their goals.
Of course this is a Mobile Marketing blog so how do the Olympics fit into it. YAHOO!, that's how. I am giving Yahoo a GOLD Medal for their efforts on making a mobile site for the Olympics. I love it! And use it every day to follow the Olympics while going about my daily routine. Being such an advocate of the site; I would still make the site universal to work across all across all phones; now only working on smart phones, you loose a lot of potential viewers and customers.
The advertisers are Samsung and AT&T and Visa and the site was set up to promote the Samsung Mythic phone and AT&T's Mobile TV application. So it makes sense that it is an app for smart phones, but I think everyone should be able to view the site, creating a wider range of viewers and potential customers. .
Other then my little criticism, Yahoo, Visa and Samsung put together a great Mobile site for the Olympics, probably the best one yet for the games.
The site is http://m.yahoo.com/olympics
All Pictures provided by Mobile Marketing Daily
At first when I bring mobile marketing up, people look at me and immediately push back, "I don't want ads on my phone!". I agree; if ads started to buzz my pocket 24/7, I would be practicing the skyhook with my cell phone into the Hudson River. But once I start to explain the process of mobile marketing and the way that a customer can benefit from an opt-in mobile marketing ad, I see an "A Ha" moment happen. You know that moment when some realizes the power of what you are talking about and how they can benefit from it. That moment when they get it; I love that moment!
But what makes that "AH-Ha" happen? I have narrowed it down to the moment when people realize mobile marketing is accessible. For a long period of time people really didn't understand mobile, how to market efficiently with it, or even how to use it in their media mix. Then the smart phone appeared and slowly both users and marketers started to see the power of mobile marketing.
Although the smart phones are what brought mobile marketing to everyone's attention it isn't the driving force behind the effort. It is and has been for a long time SMS or text message marketing. I know you marketing people know what I am talking about, but for the first time readers it is the platform of marketing that uses a keyword like "MrCafe" and asks you text that keyword to a certain "short code" like 41513; (Go ahead try it). This is an example of what you can do with text message marketing, and the one that we see most marketers using. But what they are not taking advantage of is the other capabilities that text message marketing has to offer.
Here are a few different ways to market using text messages:
- WAP-Web Applications - when you send a keyword to a short code you receive a click through to a mobile web page, which then allows you to surf the web on your phone. This is great for any client or customer.
- MMS, picture push backs - again when you send a keyword to a specific short code you will have pictures sent back to you, this is a great for realtor's, car dealers, dentists, retailers any service that a picture can show detailed product picture of
- Text-to-Vote: Made big by American Idol but not the only place where this is used. You can use text to vote for almost any product out there, use it to compare products, campaigns, ideas anything where you can grow and build ideas to and measure the out come of two separate ideas or items
- Text-for-Coupons: Like the above example "Mrcafe" text for coupons is widely used way to use text message marketing.
- Notification text: instead of actually marketing to a user you use the text massage platform a as a notification platform, relaying messages to a person or group. How great would it be to find out that your cable guy is coming, your child's school is closing early due to snow, or you have a doctor's appointment. All this on your phone.
Mobile marketing is growing and advancing. From text message marketing to WAP pushes; we are seeing smaller companies and businesses trying it out with success, (look around, you are going to find a mobile campaign). But I am convinced that we are not there yet. As smaller businesses adapt mobile to fit their needs, we are going to see exciting changes in the upcoming year allowing mobile to be a major driving force on any ad campaign in the ad world. We just need to strap in and hang on cause once the smaller guy gets a handle on mobile advertising and realizes how to harness its power we are all going to have that "AH-HA"moment.
The key to any successful event is attendance! Event marketing can be made more effective by implementing a text messaging call to action. Incorporating text messaging into the event marketing can provide valuable information to the event organizer and increase attendance. Here are five benefits of including a text message call to action in your advertising.
1. Increased Attendance
When you utilize text messaging in your ads, you will be able to send a event reminder. You can send as many reminders as you would like. Say 2 days before then event, 1 day before and the day of. No one that was interested and responded to your ad will forget when and where your event is taking place.
2. Advance Sales
Place a text message in your ads with a response that directs them to your website. Provide a landing page with information on the event and provide an advance purchase option. This brings in needed cash prior to the event and gives you an idea of how many people will be coming.
3. Lead Generation
You will capture all phone numbers of those that respond to your ad with a text message. This allows you to send text specials to them, or call them on the phone to close the sale and drive them to the event.
4. Advertising Effectiveness
Most events utilize multiple channels of advertising to promote them. What channels are performing best, where should you spend more money where should you spend less? By utilizing multiple text campaigns (keywords), you can measure the effectiveness of each ad and maximize your advertising dollars by spending more on the most effective ads.
5. During the Event
Keep in touch with your audience, provide specials on food and beverage or other items being sold. Have fun with the audience using text-to-vote and text-to-win campaigns. Engage everyone at the event to insure everyone has a good time and comes again next time.
Text message marketing is a powerful, inexpensive tool that can make your event more successful. From a pancake breakfast to a huge trade show text messaging is the way to go when you are planning your event marketing.
Get started today with Mobile River or give us a call for more ideas and information 877-243-4196.
Top five reminders all politicians should write on their hand:
5. I work for the people
4. The Government is broke
3. America needs jobs
2. What would Scott Brown do?
1. Corpsman is pronounced KORZMEN
Do you need to send reminders to customers, clients or patients? Check out our text message solutions at MyMobileRiver.
That was the title of the article I expected to write today, unfortunately there were no ads that utilized a mobile interaction during the game last night.
Sure there were some ads that were about mobile: The Boost Mobile Ad, the Cars.com ad showed their website on a phone, and the mobile TV service Flo is all about mobile. But none of them used a mobile interaction.
So for those large agencies working with huge budgets here are some ideas for next year.
1. Snickers - Create a mobile game download around your ad theme, a game titles "Crush Betty White!" sounds appropriate. Hey it was a great ad but why not take it to the next level and extend the buzz by providing a free download?
2. Dockers - What was it with guys in their tighty whities this year? Dockers is giving away free pants they advertised a website for this purpose in the ad and today, you need to provide your email address to enter to win. They likely would have gotten a greater response utilizing a Text-To-Win campaign and could have collected mobile numbers and email addresses. A missed opportunity for Dockers.
3. Denny's - Is providing a free grand slam breakfast this Tuesday. They announced it during the Super Bowl. Denny's could have provided a mobile coupon with a text message campaign. This would allow them to capture people's number for future offers and measure the success of their $2 Million ad.
Maybe these advertisers felt that mobile is still too risky for their largest ad of the year. Maybe they are afraid to measure the results of a $2 Million ad, but in this economy I say measure everything and do more of what works.
Incorporating mobile into your ad campaigns allows you to measure the success of your ad, differentiates you from the competition and engages you with your audience.
Maybe we will see some compelling ads during the Olympics! I keep you informed through this blog.
For more information on mobile advertising visit mymobileriver.com.
-Guide To Getting Started
This is the decade of mobile marketing, from coupons for a local restaurant to interactive web pushes from major sneaker brands; the average consumer has been solicited one way or another to opt-in to a mobile campaign. The growth of smart phones and consumers understanding of technology has helped this marketing trend grow, leading more and more businesses to look at mobile marketing as an added tool to gain customers and create interest in their product.
There are three factors in getting this done: creativity, valuable offers and understandable content:
- Creativity- Remember the rules of advertising, you want and need to grab your viewer, draw them into your message and intrigue them by what you are offering. The creative must be appealing to the eye and draw the consumer in, keep the ad clean with nice lines. Simple always works better (busy confuses the consumer). Always have a good upbeat color scheme, this can set your ad apart from others and draw consumer's in. (bright red or florescent green might be grab the eye but is a little too much). Keep the lines clear and remember you are selling your offer.
- Valuable Offers - Your offer to a consumer needs to be attractive, you need to create a reason for a consumer to want to opt-in to your business. I recently read about a sandwich shop whose mobile marketing campaign failed because the offer was not attractive. The offer was simple, 5% of any lunch when you opt-in to his campaign. The problem was that the sandwich shops usual cost for lunch was about six dollars. There where many issues with this advertisement but the idea of getting $.30 of a six dollar sandwich was just not appealing to many people.
- Understandable content - When people first enter the mobile arena they are not sure how to advertise their product. They know that they need to create a relevant keyword and a short code, but they are not sure how to do that in a way that will flow with their offer. We are here to tell you that you need to be bold but not obnoxious. You need to make your keyword visible so a consumer will know to text that keyword to your short code. Your content needs to state your purpose, without a clear understanding of the offer and how to receive your campaign will not succeed.
Creativity catches the consumers' eye, the offer should intrigue the consumer enough to opt-in, and you need to make sure it is very clear and easy to understand. Make your consumer feel comfortable opting in with you; this is a way to market and grow your business you don't want to be known as the Crazy Eddy of mobile marketing or of anything for that matter.
There are many different reasons to use a mobile marketing campaign to promote your business but the most important reason is measurability. As a business, no matter your size, you are constantly looking to spend your marketing dollars in the most efficient way while driving people to your product. Mobile marketing does this with great efficiency; it uses the opt-in method to give you a solid read on what is working for you campaign and what is not.
So what is a good campaign and how can I measure it? A question we are asked often at Mobile River. A good campaign is one that fully engages your target group. As an advertiser trying to reach new clients you have to be bold and engaging, you want to draw a new customer in with your ad and be able to keep them with your opt-in offer. Bloomingdales in New York City just finished doing a great text message promotion where they measured the effectiveness of their display windows by a text-to-vote campaign. This campaign engages its customers by including them in the creation of their display windows and allows them to be a part of the creative process. Bloomingdales on the other hand is able to see how effective the promotion is by counting the numbers of people who voted and what window they voted for. This gives Bloomingdales a lot of information to work with.
- Which window design works best to attract customers
- How to create their display windows in the future to attract more people to them and possibly in the store.
- The phone numbers of who voted to offer future promotions.
This is a great example of how a good campaign can engage a client creativly and measure the results.
The direct correlation between the engagement of the customer and measurement is what every advertiser needs. It allows you to measure the effectiveness of the campaign, the promotion idea and how your customers will respond to certain ads you have placed. Mobile marketing allows you to create all different types of campaigns to measure effectiveness besides the mentioned text-to-vote campaigns; there are text-to-win, text coupons, text notifications, text events, etc. All of the different campaigns are designed to advertise your product and measure your results while you engage your customer and build your client base. As the use of mobile marketing increases you will see more creative campaigns but all of them will be designed to measure the effectiveness of driving customers through the door. So when you develop your first marketing campaign keep this in mind and create it to measure your growth but creative enough to engage your clients.
Restaurant marketing is a complex issue. There are so many ways to promote these days: Text advertising, print media, social media, word of mouth and many others. Here are some benefits of text message advertising to help you choose.
1. Generates repeat business from existing customers
You will be advertising to customers that have asked to receive your messages. One goal of text advertising is to get existing customers to visit you more frequently. By offering them updates and text coupons you can remind customers of events and ask them to come enjoy a special offer.
2. Bring customers through the door on slow days
Like any business you have days that are slower then you like. Text message advertising allows you to send immediate offers to your customers when you need them to come in. No other advertising provides this kind of immediate response.
3. Attract new customers
Encourage your opted-in patrons to share your offers with friends. Text coupons can be forwarded from phone to phone; so go viral, make an offer worth sharing and get friends of your customers to come through the door with a special offer. have them opt-in to your text campaign and grow your list for future ads.
4. Measure the effectiveness of other ads
Are you spending money on print, radio or TV ads? You can put a keyword response into each ad to measure how many potential customers those ads are creating for you. If you see that certain ads have little response, cut them from your budget and save yourself some money.
5. Engage your customers
Utilizing Text-To-Win and Text-To-Vote campaigns can be a fun way to interact with customers. Learn what they like and drive business through the door.
Text message advertising is easy to implement and drives measurable results for your business. So get started today and change your business for the better.
Visit Mobile River to learn more.