By now it should be evident that the general Mobile Marketing like Social Media Marketing has been an evolving phenomenon and is here to stay.

More so SMS Marketing, as I am sure, has been exhausted by so many, including myself. The benefits are numerous: the immediacy, high deliverability, interactive communication, and the list goes on.

The greatest challenge I have realized with SMS Marketing like Social Media Marketing is that businesses and company execs are quick to dismiss it as an effective and efficient means of improving their business, simply because they do not know or understand how to implement the strategies to make it work, or do not understand it altogether.

In an effort to further sway the motion towards the wonders of SMS Marketing for the non-believer, I have compiled a list of ways that businesses can integrate it with their existing marketing strategies:

1. Social Media Integration

This is one that is slowly growing in popularity. There are a few ways Mobile Marketing can integrated, one of the most obvious is notifying your potential and existing customers/fans of a particular promotion that your Facebook page or Twitter is having. This will in turn drive traffic back to your Facebook page or Twitter, thereby increase your “Like”, followers and increased brand awareness online.

However, in order to maximize the effectiveness of this effort you have to give them a reason to want to go back to your page to participate. Here is where having a pretty good incentive would come in handy, but it has to be something your target fan or customer segment (yes they are different) will be interested in. Here’s another good tip, don’t just give them a reason to come back to the page, but make it so they have to “Like” or follow your page or Twitter in order to be eligible, using the Reveal Tab functionality for Facebook pages. Remember you not only want to attract existing fans and customers, but you want the new ones as well that could eventually become Brand Evangelists or customers.

Another way SMS Marketing can be integrated is notifying customers of special offers and coupons available that they can visit your Facebook page to redeem. The more avenues your business can identify to get the word out about your offers, products and services, the more customers will be flocking your front doors to buy.

2. Lead Generation

One of the most valuable benefits of SMS Marketing is its ability to be integrated with any other marketing medium. Place your long code or short code (5-digit or 7-digit) number in a radio, television, newsprint or Facebook Ad that Qualified Leads can use to text in to show their interest in purchasing a product or service you provide. It may not seem like much of a difference, but think if your potential customer was in their cars driving, heard an Ad and wanted more information but couldn’t catch that office number to call or website to visit; or if they were driving pass that billboard and couldn’t catch all the information as they were rushing to work; what about reading that newspaper but they were too busy to pick up the phone and call…you get my point. It’s not so much the method, but more so the added convenience and ease the method provides in the eyes of your customers, which is most important.

Also, this method of Lead Generation is a great way to increase and/or build your list for future SMS Marketing and SMS Promotions. In an effort to increase the effectiveness of the opt-in offer an incentive and give customers a reason to pay attention to your ads, and want to respond favourably to it.

3. Up-sell & Cross-sell

How are you notifying customers of new product upgrades or offers you have? Is it by telephone (a bit too tedious to call all those customers); email (the deliverability and open rate of an email may not be reliable enough); how about text messaging? It’s fast and immediate, deliverability is guaranteed all the time, and your customers always have their cell phones with them.

As simple as it may seem sending text messages to your customers is the best and most effective way of communicating new products and services, or upgrades to existing ones.

You can even market a product that is a value-added product or service that compliments your existing product or service.

All these sound like more money in the bank to me, wouldn’t you agree?

4. Automated Information Dissemination

Here’s where SMS Marketing probably has the most influence where customer convenience and ease is concerned. Instead of visiting a website, making a telephone call (only to be put on hold might I add), or send an email awaiting a response, they could simply send a text message. They are already texting regularly so it would only make sense to take advantage and ensure your business name is one of the many text messages going out. Customers may want banking or other personal information from your business, or information on a particular product offering. A potential or existing customer can get information on a product or service you provide conveniently and easily by texting a related keyword and getting back an automated message with the information they need.

One of the first things any buyer does before paying for a product/service you or your competitor sell is to educate themselves on the overall business and information on the product/service offering; this is especially true for B2B businesses. Making it more convenient for your potential buyer to research that information just puts you one step ahead of your competition, and earns greater favour with the buyer.

5. Lead Nurturing

Now we get to the final point, and also the marketing strategy that will most likely and directly affect your sales. If you don’t already know Lead Nurturing is a good way to help your potential buyer move from a simple awareness and interest from your marketing efforts to now a desire and taking the final action to buy, by guiding them through several key steps of the Sales Process to get them to act in your favour (spending money with you).

Nurture until they are ready to buy. Nurture leads by educating them and further informing them of the benefits of your product or service to them, which makes them more inclined to buy from you. A really good idea is to have your prospective customers sign up to receive tips and advice relating to your product/service and your business’ area of expertise. Then as time progresses periodically send information that subtle makes a connection to what you offer but doesn’t come off as a pushy sale to them. It could be the tips and advice, or link to an article that can give them a better understand of your offering, or telling them to visit your YouTube page to watch a recently uploaded video. It doesn’t matter what the content is, the important thing is (1). You are constantly kept as the first choice in their minds for a solution that your business provides, and (2). That the content makes a connection to what you sell and the solution they are searching for.

That’s it, some really good ideas that you can implement right now in order to increase your marketing’s effectiveness. One of the secrets of marketing is the more ways you can find to reach out to your target market the more they will respond favourably to what you are trying to say, in other words your marketing message. Therefore, don’t limit yourself to what you already know. If it works just find other ways you can integrate existing marketing tactics with new ones such as SMS in marketing.

Winston A. Henderson is the Marketing & Sales Executive at Coretalk Caribbean. He is responsible for developing and executing the companies strategic marketing goals and objectives through online and offline methods, as well developing and executing the companies strategic sales process to ensure increase revenue and profits, increase brand awareness, drive new business, and build and enhance customer relationships across the Caribbean.

Coretalk Caribbean is the distributor of Coretalk’s flagship product, which is a Customer Relationship Management software that uses two-way text messaging and Mobile Marketing for company’s to improving marketing, customer service, and communication, while reducing operational costs.
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