5. What’s in it for me?

Higher response rates thanks to shorter, punchier, more targeted, more personalised, more timely messaging.
Lower marketing costs: data can be delivered at extremely low cost and bulk buying can cut outlay still further.
Mass Market Access via a reliable SMS gateway with global reach provides any time, any place access to millions or even billions of targets for the cost of a local message.

6. OK, so what flavours are there?

Sales Promotion Campaigns - Used to keep customers and prospects up to date with promotions – forthcoming sales and discounts, store openings, time-limited offers, new products. Mobile numbers are often uploaded into a messaging solution via a basic spreadsheet or similar – with a first name field inserted for instant personalisation.

Drive To Web Campaigns - Used to push targets towards websites, microsites, or electronic direct mail pieces, for example with teaser ads containing specific highlights and special online offers.

VIP Campaigns - Used to alert VIP customers to exclusive offers and new stock arrivals.

Guerilla Database Growth - Useful for growing campaigns, brand awareness, and prospect databases virally with special offers for customers that forward SMSs to friends or colleagues.

Discount Token Campaigns - Popularly used to drive targets in-store or online with electronic discount tokens redeemable with a code sent to their handset.

Time-Specific Campaigns - Messages can be timed to correspond with specific dates or occasions – birthdays, Easter, valentines, Christmas – or even meal times to drive prospects to particular locations.

Customer Profile Updates - A handy way to fill in missing database fields, targets can be prompted to reply with particular details in order to say, be entered into a prize draw, or receive a discount.

Text & Win - Valuable in maintaining and developing prospect and existing client relationships, consumer permission can be sought to retain numbers for use in subsequent campaigns.

7. Sold. But where do we go from here?

1. Objective - Decide what you’re aiming to achieve. An uplift in sales? Higher revenue? Increased market penetration? Greater market share? Improved customer loyalty? The broad objectives of the campaign must be defined clearly before the more granular elements can be delineated.

2. Budget - Mobile marketing is one of today’s most affordable, cost effective promotional vehicles and campaigns can fly on just about any budget, but as with any other medium, a mobile campaign without a budget is like a car without an engine.

3. Target - Who do you want to respond? Existing customers? Hot prospects? A rival’s customers? Former clients? A particular demographic? All will have a bearing in selecting your solution and methodology.

4. Strategy -What’s the plan once a recipient has responded? What happens next? What’s the call to action? How will fulfilment work?

5. Solution - The key questions when it comes to choosing a messaging product relate to budget and desired response. Free products like Clickatell Messenger-PRO or Communicator are often fine for one-way communication. But if you’re looking to send a message and receive replies, some form of two-way mechanism will be needed, while Text & Win promotions usually demand a premium rated or perhaps a shortcode number.

6. Content - Any campaign will only be as good as the content behind it.  Strong copywriting is essential – especially for campaigns where message sizes are limited (160 characters including spaces is a common constraint).

7. Results - Metrics are everything. How many targets actually received your content? How many deliveries failed? How many people responded? Get granular, feed results back, and start the process again.