Best SMS Marketing Strategy: 3 Steps.

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The fastest way to get your message, alert or poll out to the greatest number of individuals, and be assured the highest possible participation ("opening" or "response" rate) is to utilize SMS - simple text messaging from your company to each of your company's followers, subscribers or fans. It's amazingly powerful as it takes advantage of the every-present mobile device as your outlet, and the natural impulse (behavioral psychology) of the recipients to respond. We are dealing with a world of texters, and when one is sent a brief text (a "texticle" -- which is a Lingovation I enjoy) the sense of immediacy and urgency are completely impulsive. Pavlov, himself, would be salivating over this marketing approach.

1. GET YOUR OWN SMS SHORT CODE, OR GET A SHARED ONE

Every day, Americans alone send over 5 billion text messages. To help your company capitalize on this trend (whether it's a startup or an established organization looking for better, more spontaneous and pervasive marketing), Neustar’s solutions power the Common Short Codes Administration, the place to start when planning a text marketing campaign. By the way "CSC" stands for "Common Short Code."

There are three easy steps to obtain your own CSC. First, from the CSCA website search for the short code you want. If you don’t need a specific code, the system will assign one randomly. Next, apply for your code by submitting the necessary registration data. Once approved and paid for, your CSC is assigned to you for an assigned period. No one else can lease your code for the duration of your contract.

Once you’ve leased your SMS Short Code, it’s time to implement it. Visit the CSCA website for complete details.

Note: You may be surprise that the cost associated with leasing your very own dedicated short code can range from $500.00 to $1,000 per month. You may wish to offset the cost of having a code by forming an alliance with several other companies and spreading the cost of the lease over the members of the alliance.

If you do not wish to engage in putting this type of partnership together, there are a number of text messaging services providers which have already leased one or more short codes (usually numerical, although some can be translated from numbers into words) and can make their numbers available to you for a greatly reduced fee (either because of a large number of parties using the code, or because of some advertising which will be co-promoted in some way with your SMS messages).

If you'd like to save some money just to get started, the following quick report may be helpful for you:

Best Texting Solutions: Subscribe, Purchase, Polling Or Responding

An Exploration Of Possibilities

Memorial Day, 2013

The CFI Group Of Companies

Douglas E. Castle

So What Is “Subscribe, Purchase, Polling Or Responding Via Text”?

While many of your prospective customers will not always be carrying or in close proximity to their PCs, Notebooks or other “computer baggage,” they are highly likely to be carrying their smartphones or other similarly empowered mobile devices (i.e., tablets and the like) with them. If you are advertising, publicizing or promoting any type of product, service or membership opportunity, even if you are using the currently fashionable QR Codes, you will need to offer these prospects the opportunity to subscribe or purchase via text, which is still the most popular mode of communication amongst the ever-growing demographic (in terms of size and in terms of age range) of 18-year-olds to “50 somethings”. Texting is quick, comfortable and very simple. It also has the additional advantage of being accessible on smart phones that are technologically simple or somewhat outdated.

I am very much in favor of the simple approach of having the mobile device owner merely put a memorable series of numbers into his or her device, and then simply faxing either a word or a combination of letters. This approach also permits mini-questionnaires, polling, voting, contests and other types of very beneficial engagement and interaction. Going further, the results of these activities can be broadcast to the entire subscriber group, or sub-group, further generating the engagement, brand recognition, and the perception of user friendliness and involvement. It’s is a wonderful way to build up client or customer lists.

Best “Subscribe Or Purchase Via Text” Services at 05.27.2013

http://text-message-marketing-review.toptenreviews.com/ - This service is wonderful. It rates the “Top Ten” text message services provides across a variety of capabilities. If you’re in a rush now, just click on the above link, and come back at a more convenient time.

Pro Texting

http://www.protexting.com

Celly - They have a free version, and are very reasonably-priced, especially for educators.

http://www.protexting.com/

TXT180 - A bit pricey, but worth a look.

http://www.txt180.com/

Please do remember that all of the above (inclusive of the "Top Ten" are shared services, where neither you nor your company have any ownership rights associated with the numerical Short Code, but you have, in substance, a license to use your own CODEWORD (in letters) for your subscribers to send to the Short Code. While this does not generally offer the same security, exclusivity and branding potential as owning your own Short Code (which can be expensive for a young business!), I believe that it provides all of the necessary functions -- your marketing, promotion and advertising specialists just have to be a bit more creative to maximize the mileage of your codeword, and in getting the maximum number of subscribers.

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2. ATTRACT THE LARGEST POSSIBLE AUDIENCE, AND CONVERT THE GREATEST PERCENTAGE OF THEM INTO SUBSCRIBERS

Firstly, post the short code and your magical CODEWORD on all of your media, including websites, blogs, newsletters, email signatures, email campaigns -- one interesting addition might also be to show the QR Code of the message, like "Put 135711 into your mobile device, and then text the word DESPERATE in order to subscribe to all of our updates". In fact, the foregoing message translated to a QR Code would look (oh how cool!) like this:

If you scanned the above QR Code into your smartphone or mobile device, it would translate to the words in green above - except, for simplicity's sake, I created this code to present the words in plain black type.

Go ahead. Try it with your iPhone or Droid. This nifty symbol would also work on a business card, a product label, a store sign, a sweat shirt, a coffee mug, or any advertising specialty or medium -- even on a roadside sign, a truck... the promotional possibilities are unlimited.

And the added advantage is that once the individual has "decoded" the little square, he or she has the numerical code and the key word (which you've chosen) right on his or her device, making the reaction impulsive or reflexive. The code also has the advantage of being photographed and decoded later.

I believe that QR codes make excellent email signatures, or newsletter emblems. Use them with great frequency, as they naturally lead the reader to act on the decoded instruction, and greatly increase your probability of acquiring subscribers.

3. USE YOUR FIRST OUTBOUND SMS MESSAGE TO CONFIRM THE SUBSCRIPTION, SAY "THANK YOU", OFFER A FREE BENEFIT OR GIFT AND ANNOUNCE A "BOUNTY" OR REWARD IF THESE SUBSCRIBERS BRING IN NEW SUBSCRIBERS.

While this last section is largely self-explanatory and in keeping with good marketing and customer service practices, don't forget [ If you're a Baby Boomer or some other assumed low-tech stereotype ] to leverage the technical advantage that exists for multiplexing your message by having new subscribers, customers or buyers simply send the QR Code or the decrypted message via text (more SMS!) to his or her circle of friends or acquaintances, adding yet another concentric circle outside of your core market and giving you more territory.

If you want to reward those wonderfully charismatic acolytes for their evangelism, you must create a way to track them as a source. One way to do this is to assign each individual a PERSONAL CODE (which you assign to them), and when newcomers sign up for registration, or to be customers, or for whatever reason, send them an SMS (or direct them to a very, very simple mobile-friendly form, which takes them back into your double opt-in email service registration loop -- such as MailChimp, AWeber, Constant Contact or whomever you use as a mail handler -- which requests only their email address, and the PERSONAL CODE of the person referring them for a free gift, premium, or special discount.
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I've outlined three simple, sensible steps to a successful SMS marketing campaign. Once you've gotten everyone properly opted in for you newsletter (or whatever), you can alert them of specials, new product or service announcements, an occasional bit of humor, or anything which will keep your SMS messages, useful, interesting, and out of the realm of spam.

Dear Mad Marketing Tactics Blog Readers, Followers And Colleagues - Thank you for reading me, and for sharing me with your colleagues, connections and friends across the various social media platforms using the ever-increasing arsenal of social media sharing tools.

Douglas E. Castle

Sponsored By:
CFI - CrowdFunding Incubator LLC
ICS - International Connection Services
Global Edge Technologies Group LLC
CFI Business Growth
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