Making the most from an SMS

In order to to make SMS work it is important to make sure the message is clear and respects the delivery medium. A clear message of 160 characters means that the sender needs to make sure that all pertinent information is included.

Create clear messages. Making sure that the message is clear and concise is very important. A clear message will increase the impact of the message.

Include contact information. This ensures that the receiver will know who the message is from and will allow them to contact you if necessary.

Don't send SPAM. Because SMS goes to phones, which people view as a personal resource, junk messages or too many messages will degrade the value of this communication medium.

There are three general goals that most marketing tries to achieve. These are: increase business from existing customers, gain new customers in established and new markets and improve profits.

The message you deliver will be set by these goals. Determining which goal you want to achieve is key to creating a clear message that impacts the receiver. Before writing the message it is important to determine what action you want the receiver to take. This is also how you will judge the success of your efforts.

To do all this and achieve the marketing goals in an SMS of 160 characters does take planning. Sending test messages to people with whom you are associated but who are not knowledgeable about the campaign can help make success.

Make SMS Marketing Work

SMS is unique as a marketing channel because it offers Low Cost, High Reach and High Retention. Compared with marketing via Email, with it's low retention, or Mass Mailing, with it's high cost, SMS provides a better way to market.

Successful SMS Marketing has to be permission based. Since it is nearly impossible for a person to stop incoming messages it is very important to make sure that the receiver either wants the message or finds the message to be very beneficial. Sending unwanted messages to people could be very damaging to your brand. Working with the customer to ensure they want the message will be a key to success.

There are many ways to get a customer to 'volunteer' to receive messages. Of course the easy way is to offer incentives. Here are some suggested guidelines.

As a starting point offer the potential or existing customer some tangible incentive for giving there mobile contact information. Perhaps offer a discount within the first message.

Once they have signed up and have responded to your incentive, increase the incentive over time. Keep the incentives fresh by offering different types of incentives. This will also allow you to judge the impact of the incentive.

When possible make the SMS as personalized as possible. Using shopping histories, for example, for incentives on like items.

Create a value index and reward accordingly. When shoppers respond to 5 incentives - they receive an additional incentive as a reward.

Always keep in mind that to be successful with SMS marketing it is very important to respect the customer and they way they feel about SMS. With that in mind building a long term relationship will be that much easier.

Marketing with SMS

SMS (Short Message Service) is a text message service that enables messages of 160 characters to be sent to cellphones. SMS's are stored and forwarded so the message will be sent later if the phone is not immediately available.

BulkSMS has expanded the capability of SMS by implementing the ability to send multiple SMS's simply. Whether you want to reach one person or thousands of people, BulkSMS provides an easy, reliable and cost effective way to keep in contact.

Provided SMS marketing is permission based, with the receiver desiring the message, SMS offers one of the highest response rates in marketing. Using this resource wisely is one of the keys to success, as will be discussed later in this guide.

Reaching groups of people on the go used to be difficult if not impossible. Bulk sms messaging is the only communication medium capable of reaching groups of people instantaneously regardless of where they are.

SMS provides several advantages over other forms of communication. Research has shown that SMS has the capacity to acces instantaneously a large number of people with mobile connectivity. Mobile users also show a high probability of reading SMS messages.

Characteristics	Communication Channel
	SMS	Email	Telephone	Fax
Capacity - speed of reach to large numbers of users	High	High	Low	Low
Audience - number of users with access to device	Large	Small	Large	Small
Immediacy - delay before user reads/listens to message	None	Long	None	Long
Targeting - probaility that user will read/listen to message	High	Low	High	Low
Economy of language - succinctly communicate required information	High	Medium	Low	Medium
Cost - spend to reach multiple users	Medium	Low	High	High