How To Start An Sms Advertising Campaign To Promote Your Business

May 26, 2011 By

Sms advertising, also called text message marketing is one of the easiest and cheapest things a small business owner can do to promote their business.


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The cost to get started is well… in some cases zero dollars. There are companies such as Moto Message that will let you start an sms advertising campaign for free.  You can use their service for a month, sign no contract, and try the service out.  If you follow proper protocols, (like using their 30 day get started guide), you more than likely will be amazed at how a simple business promotion utilizing the power of text message marketing can increase the amount of (paying) customers coming through your doors.

When looking around for a good company to host your text messaging campaigns and other sms business promotions, you will find that nearly every one of them has real easy to use texting dashboards. The interfaces are usually very simple, and some of these companies have people that will set up and run the business promotions for you.   Most business owners have one of their computer savvy employees do it, or use a service like Mad Progress Marketing to handle their text message advertising promotions.

There are other companies you can use like Boost Contact that have some initial up front fees, but they will do most everything for you if you want.  Boost also has some other great services included in their text marketing package.  One of the best bonuses that you get with them is a ‘mobile website’.

Whatever company you sign up with be sure that they provide you with the marketing tools and materials that you can use to let your customers know how to sign up to receive your mobile coupons.  Don’t let the ‘mobile coupons’ thing scare you.  At this point in time (mid-2011) most of the mobile coupons that people receive from their local businesses are just a standard text with the information.  As more and more people acquire ‘smart phones’ that will change somewhat, but you can be sure that the top companies that are providing text message marketing services for local businesses will have the ability to change and adapt with the times.

The marketing materials that you want to have access to from your company are things as simple as a poster or posters that you can hang on the door of your business and/or the camera ready ad copy that you can download, print out yourself, or send to your local printer.  This would be things like tent cards or small flyers for your staff to hand out to customers.  See the SMS Promotions article on this site for some ideas of what to look for.

With just a little bit of effort on your part, and proper instruction to your employees, you can quickly have a list of 100 200 or more of your customers that have signed up to receive your mobile coupons or sms advertising text messages.

You can then send out a weekly text blast to everyone on your list letting them know of your special. Some of the most popular promotions that customers respond to include 2 for 1 offers, and/or something for free such as a free dessert with a meal purchase.

Sometimes I see business owners get dismayed when they don’t get much of a response to their text message advertising promotions, but this is only because either their list is not big enough yet, or they are not offering enough value to the customers to get them to come into the store, whether it is a restaurant, pub, grocery store, or any other kind of business.

So just remember that when running an sms promotion or text message marketing campaign where you send out coupons via text messaging to your customers on your list, be sure that you are offering them enough value that they will want to use your text coupons the next time they visit your business.

Filed Under: Text Message Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Mobile Marketing and SMS Business Opportunities

May 21, 2011 By


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There are essentially two parts to the equation for anyone looking for SMS business opportunities.  As the text message marketing marketplace matures there are sure to be more.

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief outline of just some of the ways a current brick and mortar business owner can take advantage of this relatively new technology to add profits to the bottom line.  Further down the page I provide some resources for those looking to get into the business of selling mobile and text message marketing services to their own local business owners and marketplace.

Many business owners who are having good results with their text/sms promotions will tell their other business owner friends on how to go about it.  Many of the smart ones sign up as an affiliate of a text message marketing service and make a monthly commission from the referral. Someone is going to get a cut of that monthly fee, why shouldn’t it be you?

The results of, and testimonials from business owners who are getting results from their own text message marketing campaigns are almost hard to believe at times. But from my own personal experience of dealing with business owners of many sizes who have a proper mobile marketing campaign in place as part of their overall advertising efforts, the numbers hold true.

A text marketing/text coupon campaign and promotion done in the right way does in fact provide the best return on advertising dollars spent. Many business owners who have attempted to improve business by marketing to their customers on their mobile phones and have not had the results that they thought they would get simply give up on the idea of it all.  They should not give up.  They are just going about it all wrong.

The beauty of building a mobile phone number list of your customers and marketing to them through text coupons or simple text messages is that the monthly cost of doing it all is so low. Take some time to correct your mistakes.  If you send out a text to your list of customers who have asked to receive your promotions and you don’t get a good response, take a good look at what and how you were promoting.

If you send out a text that says “10% off your next purchase if you show this text message at checkout”, many if not most of your customers are going to ignore it. In many cases the only people who are going to use a 10% off coupon at your business are the ones who were planning on being there anyway.

In order to get a good response from your text message marketing campaign you have to really provide something that your customers see as a real value.  Don’t be afraid to give stuff away. Everyone loves something for free.  Make the next text coupon you send out something along the lines of a “2 for 1 special”, or even a “free dessert, no purchase necessary”.   That will get you a better response to your promotion efforts.

Where many business owners go wrong with developing their list is that they start by doing a “text-to-win” promotion. While this type of promotion will in fact build a mobile phone number list of your customers pretty quick, the problem is that after the promotion is over and you start sending them text messages promoting your business they are often offended and they not only will unsubscribe from your list, they often will stop visiting your business all together.

The reason a “text-to-win” promotion does not work very well as a long term way of building up a list of happy customers is that you are not telling them that you plan on sending them additional messages in the future.  People are funny that way.

What you need to do to build a happy and responsive list of customers to send your text message marketing messages to is tell them up front that that is what they are signing up for.  See the restaurant text messaging article on this site for more information on how to do that, it works for any sort of business, not just restaurants.

While it is not necessary for someone to have a “smart phone” to receive your text message promotions, (any phone capable of receiving text messages will work), you can be sure that as more and more people upgrade and acquire smartphones the ability for any business owner to send promotions in multiple ways to these kinds of devices will grow.  If you are a brick and mortar type business owner it is important for you to keep up with the times.

Mobile marketing and other opportunities to promote your business through sms/text messaging marketing services are sure to grow.

The time to start building a list of your customers mobile phone numbers to market to is now. There are many different companies you can use to do this.  One of my favorites is Moto Message. They have a variety of plans to choose from and your text message credits roll over from month to month.

Another company that many of my customers like is Yep Text. They also have a variety of options to choose from.  Both of these companies provide you with all of the resources you need to get your sms promotion off to a good start.

How To Start My Own Text Message Marketing Business?

Thinking about starting your own text message marketing company? One of the best companies that we have found as far as a “white label” program goes is Promo 2 Cell.

These people really have it together and offer many options for those looking to get into the business of selling SMS marketing, Business text marketing, and Mobile Phone Marketing products to local businesses.

Click the banner below to be take directly to their site where you can check them out and see if they are someone you’d like to work with too.


Promo2cell

For those who are looking to become a mobile marketing promoter or affiliate check out the Yep Text Affiliate Program. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via the “contact us” link at the top of the page.

Kurt Simula

Filed Under: Text Message Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

A Simple Restaurant Marketing Plan

April 7, 2011 By

mobile marketing examples

Building a list of customers who have "opted in" to your list via their mobile phone is easy.

Written By: Kurt Simula – Mad Progress Marketing

One of the most simple restaurant marketing plans a business owner can use these days is to build up a list of their customer’s cell phone numbers and send text coupons to them.  This is called permission based text advertising and it is real easy to do.

In the past it was not only difficult, but expensive as well.  As the technology has caught up with the desire of people to receive coupons and special offers from their favorite businesses via their mobile phones, many businesses are taking advantage and using sms promotion or text messages to send their customers advertising via text messaging on a weekly basis with incredible results.

How Simple Is This?

Rather than go into all of the details in this article, check out the post titled Restaurant Text Marketing Promotions on this site. The basics of this advertising option for small business is that once you have your customer on your list you can promote to them over and over again, and they will love you for it.


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How Much Does Text Message Advertising Cost?

Prices have come down in recent months and if you use a company like Moto Message with their easy to use interface/dashboard to get started they are currently offering your first month free with no contract to sign.

After that, if you want to continue there are a variety of plans to choose from, and you can get your per text cost (outgoing text cost, incoming texts are free) down to as low as 4 cents each.  That’s pretty amazing considering how much it costs to send just one postcard to one person these days.

You could also sign up with a company like Yep Text and get similar service and rates, but currently they don’t currently allow your unused “text credits” to roll over from month to month like Moto Message does.

Yep Text seems to be a better choice for those who don’t plan on sending out a whole lot of texts on a regular basis.  They do have a real easy to use interface like Moto Message does, but not as much training materials and advice, so it’s best if you check them both out and compare to see which one feels right to you.

Filed Under: Text Message Marketing

Restaurant Text Marketing | SMS Promotions

April 7, 2011 By

Written By: Kurt Simula

It hasn’t been until just recently that a restaurant text message marketing campaign could be set up with ease.

Text message advertising, or sms promotions* were out of reach for the small business owner for the first few years that the technology was available.

These days with companies like Promo 2 Cell, Moto Message, Yep Text, and others, with their simple to use interfaces or “dashboards”, a restaurant owner can literally set themselves up within a few minutes. This means that advertising to your customers via text messaging is now easy.  You just have to get them on your list.  Amazingly, that is pretty easy too.

How Does This All Work?

Nobody wants to get text messages out of the blue from some place that they have never heard of. That would be spam, and thankfully there are laws against it when it comes to mobile phones.  Everyone deals with enough of it in their email account.  The FCC regulates the airwaves though, and if you want to have a list of potential customers to send an sms promotion to (legally), you’ll have to get their permission.

I have personally taken this to the streets, signed up business owners, and I’ve seen the positive results it can have on a local business, whether it’s a restaurant, bar, nightclub, or just about any variety of small business.  I am constantly amazed at all of the different ways there are to use this to increase sales, and add profits to the bottom line.

 

restaurant text messaging and sms promotions

Here is just one text message marketing campaign idea you can use to build your customer list for a sms broadcast coupon on a weekly basis. (You can in fact text "progress" to the 41242 number above to see exactly how it works)

 

Here’s the gist of it.  See that picture over to the left?

Picture that as a “table tent” on your tables, or a flyer your waiters and waitresses can hand out to your customers.

At the same time they  explain that if they text your “keyword”,   (the keyword on this card you see is “progress” , obviously) to that five digit number they will get a text right back with a “two for one special” or a “free drink”, or what have you.

They can then redeem the “coupon” on their next visit if they show the text they received from you.  An electronic coupon!! How cool.  Your customers will think so too and text right away.

As your list of customers grows you can send (and they will start to expect) a text out with your “electronic coupon” telling them of your special that week.

Recent studies show that if a local business sends a text out to their “list”  that they are getting between a 10 and 20% response rate.  Incredible!  On a weekly basis!

It doesn’t take long for most any restaurant to  build up a list of 200 – 300 customers that they can send a weekly text coupon out to.  With this form of restaurant mobile marketing, after just a few months many restaurants easily have 1000 or more customers on their list.  I’ll let you run the numbers on that, just with a list of 200.  It will be the best ROI (return on investment) of any of your advertising, bar none.

You can follow up on these facts and learn more about restaurant text marketing and sms promotion at Promo 2 Cell, one of the up and coming companies that is providing sms advertising, and group texting for small businesses.

Promo 2 Cell currently provides a great ‘getting started’ discount, gives you lots of other free stuff, including training, plus does not make you sign any long term contract.


Promo2cell

* Text message advertising, sms promotions, and sms advertising are used interchangeably in this article.  They are the same thing.

Filed Under: Text Message Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

How To Use Text Message Marketing To Increase Your Sales

April 4, 2011 By

Writer: Kurt Simula

It Really Is Possible To Increase Your Sales through proper use of text message marketing campaigns. But how can a business owner use text message marketing to build their customer base and increase their return on investment at the same time?

This article is meant to give a somewhat brief introduction on how to bring your business into the modern age and take advantage of all of the new technology available that will help your business not only grow, but also thrive.

SMS marketing, sms promotion, mobile marketing, or Text Message Marketing are all different ways to say the same thing, and that is “instant contact with your customers”.   People now use their mobile or cell phones for text messaging more than voice and internet use and access combined.  Recent reports put the number of text messages sent in 2010 (just in the USA) at somewhere between 7 and 10 trillion depending on which source is reporting the numbers.

This just goes to show that text messages have become people’s most favorite way to communicate, and if your business is not offering a way for your customers to sign up and receive text message coupons and special offers from you, then you are missing out on one of the latest, greatest, (and inexpensive) ways to market your business.

How Text Message Marketing Campaigns Work To Increase Your Sales

One of the amazing things about setting up a campaign to market to your customers by way of a text or SMS marketing is how quickly you can do it.

In the past this technology was only available to large corporations due mainly to the costs involved, but thanks to the ever increasing bandwidth available to people using mobile smart phones the costs have decreased dramatically.  (more about that in a minute)

With modern day text messaging platforms such as Moto Message you can have your campaigns set up in mere minutes. An amazing thing about Moto Message is that they not only provide everything you need (as in training) to get started with text message marketing to your customers, but they also give you your first month free to try it out.

They claim that 100% of the businesses that follow their 30 day start up guide remain with them and continue to grow their business in this manner. Another nice thing is that a business owner does not have to sign any long term contracts with them.  As a matter of fact they do not require a contract at all. 

Here Is All That You Need To Do

After signing up with Moto Message and using the promo code MadProgress (which will give you a total of 1500 text message credits – which will carry over into the next month(s) if you don’t use them all) you can download from their site some flyers and other materials such as posters to put around your store, bar, restaurant, etc. that inform your customers of your new way to let them know about your specials.

It is important to have your employees promoting your new service so that people will sign up through their phones. It is real easy. If you use Moto Message for example, your particular place of business will have a “keyword”, such as “cafe”, “BillsBar”, or whatever. Your keyword will generally relate in some way to your business. Your customers will text your keyword to a 5 digit number provided by Moto Message.

Once your customer does that they will nearly instantly receive a message back from you, (the message that you set up in your account with Moto Message). Most businesses have a short message such as “Thanks for signing up, bring this text back in on your next visit for a free drink (or whatever you want).

Here is an example that I use to show my own local business customers. Text this keyword: Simula (that’s my last name) to 83936. You will very quickly receive an example text back from me.

What has just happened is that this person is now on your “list” in your account at Moto Message.  (In this case, you are now on my list… don’t worry, I won’t spam you)   They have a real easy to use “dashboard” or interface that you can now use to text a different message every week (actually whenever you want) to your list. The funny thing about text messages is that 97% of people who get a text actually read the text. This is far more than any other form of advertising.

Across the board, every business that utilizes a text message marketing platform in the right way is currently seeing as much as a 20% response rate. So for example: if you have promoted your keyword to your customers on a consistent basis for a month and have 300 people on your list, (many businesses get far more than that in a month, but it all depends obviously) then you will see as many as 60 people respond to that text and visit your business because of it.

You can see how powerful this can be for restaurant mobile marketing. Or mobile marketing for any small business. But let’s take the restaurant business as an example. A restaurant with 300 people on their list can send out a mass text to all 300 people on what is typically one of their slower nights of the week telling them of a two-for-one special, or anything else they want to promote and turn that slow night into a real busy evening!

One of the other things about this kind of marketing is that many people who get these kind of texts tell someone else about what you have going on even if they don’t plan on visiting your restaurant that evening. Any business owner is quick to see the power of text message marketing in this light.

Click through to the Moto Message website via the banner below to get started with your own free text message marketing campaign. (for your first month) Be sure that “MadProgress” is in the referral code box to get the best deal. (currently 1500 total text credits, in addition to getting your first month of service free)

Try it out and see if it works. You’ll have to do at least a little bit of promoting your keyword to your customers, but if you follow the Moto Message 30 day action plan (provided on their site) you are sure to see results.

If you need any help getting started click on the “Contact Us” button in the top menu of this page and send me an email.  I’ll do everything I can to help you get started with a successful text message marketing plan.

Kurt Simula

p.s. You don’t even need a credit card to get started.  Check out all of the exciting things available at the Moto Message site below.

Text Message Marketing

Filed Under: Text Message Marketing