The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers DirectlyThe New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers DirectlyDavid Meerman Scotts marketing bible has become a modern day business classic.

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Posts Tagged ‘sms’

The Culmination Of Broadcasting Distinguished In SMS Advertising And Short Codes

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Communication is a basic need for all living creatures, it is a means necessary for life in many cases. Warnings, requests for help, and event the ability to find young to keep them alive are all predicated on the need to stay interconnected. Mankind has taken the art form to its highest levels developing marvelous tools and strategies to communicate almost everywhere. Now we focus on getting information through despite the voluminous information, and SMS advertising and short codes is leading the charge.

How man has learned to communicate and stay connected has been a remarkable journey of knowledge and invention. The creativity spurred on by need and adventure. This was demonstrated admirably in the process of growing, spreading and developing the United States of America. This relatively young nation has captured this story of westward expansion and the means for remaining in contact with one another despite troubling geographic and atmospheric obstacles.

The notion of communicating via messages transmitted using smoke has been around for a very long time. Soldiers along the great wall in ancient China used this method to communicate over great distances rapidly by relaying the coded messages. Cryptography had its start with a system of encoding smoke signals produced by two torches held simultaneously in a system developed by a Greek in 150 BC. But as with all other human endeavors, the drive to improve and perfect the system was vivid.

With the expansion of these immigrants westward across the vast continent, greater methods for staying in touch with one another were an obvious goal. To that end, the young government made sweeping regulations commandeering every means of transportation as a actual part of the national communication system. The size of the nation generated some excitingly creative means of transmitting documents, as seen in the famous pony express endeavor.

Everything changed in 1876 when two inventors separately and simultaneously invented what we now call the telephone. Mr. Alexander Graham Bell won the race for a patent, beating out Mr. Elisha Gray, who also had a working telephone. From its inception, everyone who saw it knew they had a colossal product which would be extremely popular; they were correct.

For decades the demand for the device outpaced production as the telephone slowly but steadily crossed the American continent, and the globe. At first, as with all technology, the instrument had its limitations which were easily tolerated if for no other reason than there were no alternatives. Community lines were one such inconvenience, but each of these problems were slowly addressed and removed.

Another device, the computer, would usher in the era of digital data, and the telephone would experience a rebirth, the new version even faster and more popular than the original. Although the ability to use a mobile device for telecommunication was available and usable as early as 1946, it took the ability computer and digital technology provided for the device to become the sleek sophisticated device we all carry with us every day.

We now see a world connect as never before, and while one might think the ability to call, text fax or video stream from one another in the comfort of our homes would quell the desire; this does not seem to be the case. While we are all interconnected, the means to simplify this now over abundance of information keeps the demand for newer and better methods humming along at, well, the speed of electricity. Trying to get your message to stand out and take as little of the consumers precious time as ever has led to SMS advertising and short codes a sophisticated new means to achieve the age old need for better communication.

Locate those great deals for advertising online by going online. There are many chances to SMS advertising that you will locate to decide from. Head online and learn more today.

Unanswered Calls Cost Money

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

If a client calls a free call number to register their interest and no one is there to answer it, the business is losing a potential sale. Every unanswered call affects a business’s profits.

According to a recent survey by a mobile marketing company, only 30 percent of businesses answered their freecall numbers between 6-8am and 6-8pm, despite having purchased advertising space during these times. Poor planning results in lost sales.

A client’s time is precious, and everyone is busy in this mobile world. Many customers will not have the time to call again, or their interest may have waned before they try again. A call to a free call number is a warm lead, but if no one is there to talk to that customer, the lead quickly cools.

A client needs a quick and simple way to register their interest in an offer. Most importantly, they need a response to that interest, and businesses need to be strategic in how they can offer a response every time interest is registered.

A simple way to ensure that a client receives a response to their interest is to utilise the cost effective text marketing tool. Text marketing provides a response to potential clients 24/7 and can provide a lead that can be followed up by a staff member when they are free.

Clients can be sent anything in response to their text, from a simple “We will call you soon” to a more in depth text providing specific details about the advertised product, or instructions detailing what steps they should take next. By capturing the prospect’s number, an advertiser is generating leads and getting value for money out of their advertising budget.

Don’t miss out on sales because no one is there to answer the phones. Make your next marketing campaign feature a text marketing call to action.

Visit www.txt2get.com.au to see how you can turn leads into sales using text marketing.

Meredith Uses Mobile Marketing For Its Marketing

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

The growing importance of mobile marketing as a vital tool in advertising was highlighted by the purchase of a mobile marketing start-up by a major American media company.

The move by the company was to capture a piece of the growing market and to allow them to bring the critical part of the marketing strategy in house.

Meredith, which produces a range of subscription magazines and websites, previously owned a minority share in the mobile marketing company, before buying it to expand their integrated marketing division, which offers both internal and external clients marketing solutions.

However, integrating mobile marketing into a business’s advertising campaign is a lot easier than buying another company. Mobile marketing campaigns are easy to set up and manage, and they provide great results without having to take part in corporate takeovers.

Many mobile marketing companies have the facility for businesses to set up their new campaign online, providing a simple solution to integrating this valuable tool into their marketing plan. Most businesses find the hardest part of their campaign is trying to choose the key word that they want as part of the SMS response.

Making the keyword and SMS text number a prominent part of television, radio and print campaigns allows a business to provide an easy and effective way to interact with customers. Integrating it into a marketing campaign ensures a business is making the most of their air time and optimizing their advertising spend.

Make sure your business is ahead of competitors by including this rapidly growing and valuable tool in your future campaigns.

Visit www.txt2get.com.au to take a look at mobile marketing made simple and how this growing tool can work for you..

Mobile Marketing Gives Option To Offer More Contact Points

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

Many advertisers feel that offering only one or two ways to respond to an ad is the best way to catch a customer’s attention. They think that too many options might create confusion.

Consumers will be exposed to the ad multiple times, and advertisers need to allow for this repetition. Many consumers might not realise they want to participate in the offer in the ad until they have heard it multiple times.

Once a consumer decides they want to participate in the offer, they will listen for the contact options. So the advertiser needs a short, sharp way to catch a consumer’s attention. This is the perfect opportunity to utilise text marketing.

A consumer wanting to take up an offer in an ad will be actively listening for ways to accept the offer or find out more information. Their attention is high, so you have the opportunity to add an extra call-to-action. Including a text marketing interaction option provides consumers with a quick and easy way to interact with a business and register their interest in the product on offer.

Some consumers will have time to stop and got to a computer to look up a website, others might be able to call a freecall number, but it is likely that most will not be able to stop. Giving the consumers a simple third option increases the likelihood of responses, especially when that third option is the swift and efficient text marketing alternative.

Text marketing allows advertisers the chance to promote their product further, or advise that a sales person will be in touch. Responses can include further contact details straight to a consumer’s phone to follow up later.

Each new campaign can have a different text message response, it’s an easy and flexible way to increase the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.

Visit www.txt2get.com.au to take a look at text marketing and how this simple form of communication can work for you.

Who’s Listening To You? Mobile Marketing Campaigns.

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

A new fish in New Zealand decided to enter the telecommunications duopoly with the tool of mobile marketing and ended up with 31 000 business leads and a cut in their advertising budget.

To forward information regarding their services, Black and White used mobile marketing and advised consumers to text ‘Black’ to a short code.

The results turned out to be not only thousands of business leads to follow up on but also measurability of their advertising effectiveness.

The Black + White case is similar to a growing number of firms taking advantage of the real-time, real-audience information provided by SMS mobile marketing.

Businesses now have the option of measuring responses to their print and TV advertisement and have a better understanding of who saw or heard their advertisement instead of relying on rough circulation figures for print and TARPS for TV.

Businesses are able to analyse the information to make well-informed decisions about where their advertising budget is best spent, but more importantly- where it isn’t.

If your target audience isn’t watching TV at that time, why are you spending top dollar to advertise your product on prime-time television?

Businesses no longer have to rely on internet or call centres to measure response rates to their advertisements. With mobile marketing they can see who has responded and can follow up with a phone call or email.

For businesses like Black + White in New Zealand, a mobile marketing campaign means real savings on wasted advertisements that were traditionally considered imperative to customer interaction.

Small to medium sized businesses are usually on a low budget and small timeline for their marketing incentives. Therefore, having a low cost and easy to setup mobile marketing option is proving to be quite popular with this sized industry.

If you would like to find out more about mobile marketing, follow the link to find out what a Mobile SMS Marketing can do for you and your business.

What’s Your Call To Action For Your Radio Advertisement?

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Transitioning a consumer from merely an interested party into a potential customer, is one of the most important steps in advertising. This period is known to marketers as a call to action and can take on numerous forms. Traditionally 0800 numbers and websites have been the most popular methods utilized across all advertising forms. In the world of radio advertising though, the website is currently the most popularly utilized call to action. But is it the most effective?

In the world of radio advertising, the most common call to action traditionally used was the website. But it begs the question, where are consumers listening to the radio? Generally, it’s not somewhere with a computer in immediate range. Right then and there, potential customers are lost because of their inability to engage with the advertiser.

Mobile phones on the other hand are generally on hand wherever the customer may be, presenting a viable option for easy interaction between the consumer and the advertiser via SMS Marketing.

So in this day and age a web address may not be the most effective way to appeal to customers and the case studies are backing it up!!

A New Zealand Tourism company would give a definite yes. By implementing a SMS marketing component to radio advertising, they experienced some excellent results the easy way. For the duration of their campaign, two separate calls to action were offered – the traditional website choice and a SMS marketing option. The addition of the SMS marketing option nearly doubled the total responses received by the company, drawing hefty praise from their marketing team.

Far from a unique case though, when a multinational financial company offered three separate calls to action in their radio campaign, which one do you think received the most responses? SMS marketing proved to be by far the most popular and effective choice, receiving twice as many responses than the internet and three times as many responses as a free-phone number.

SMS marketing is a proven and highly successful marketing option in today’s lifestyle.

Looking to find the best deal on SMS Marketing, then visit www.txt2get.co.nz to find the best advice on using SMS Software for your advertising.

Call Centres Face Challenge From Mobile Marketing

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Call centre work is being redeveloped by businesses who are increasingly using mobile marketing as a more effective way of communicating with their customers.

In busy world filled with work and very little down-time, consumers are often on the move. It is difficult for businsses to know how to communicate with their customers. That’s why mobile marketing is proving to be the most empowering and simple way of securing business leads- because of the wide-spread accessability of txts.

A recent study into advertising response rates found that over 50% more consumers prefer to SMS for further information than picking up the phone and calling the toll-free number provided.

One of the main problems with call centres is that potential consumers who attempt to make a call-to-action will be left in the dark, and the chance to follow-up on leads is lost. Not only are toll-free numbers hard to remember, surveys show 69% of calls aren’t answered between 6pm and 8am- prime advertising times.

A New Zealand business advertising Christmas hampers through TV and print media was surprised to see the results their SMS campaign generated. SMS was by far the most favoured response method for customers- it was 5 times more effective than phone responses and three times more effective than trying to remember a website.

Ever since call centres and the internet were widely available, businesses have been trying to measure who responds to their advertisements and when they are most likely to respond

The difference with mobile marketing is that people can respond immediately, and from virtually anywhere in the world at any time.

Txting works best because people prefer it. We’ve all had our fair share of bad experiences with call centres- the inconvenient operating hours, the long queues, the incessant questioning.

The results of an advertising survey into response methods found that 30% of callers will hang up if they have to hold for over a minute. In addition, 76% of respondents reported that 24 hour-a-day seven-day-a-week call centre operation was important to their purchase decision.

A rapidly increasing trend is seen in Europe where over a million advertisements are sent via SMS every month.

So, mobile marketing allows call centres to be more reactive. Consumers who text a short code to any business can be called back by a call centre operator. Not only does this mean mean that call centres only talk to people who want to be spoken to, it also means businesses will never miss a lead.

Want to find out more about mobile marketing, then visit TXT2GET to access a easy SMS Software for your marketing needs.

Where The Bloody Hell Are Ya? Text Marketing Is Everywhere

Monday, March 29th, 2010

A multi-million-dollar advertising campaign launched in 2006 by Tourism Australia featured a bikini-clad Australian woman asking television viewers from around the world… ‘where the bloody hell are ya?’

The main aim of the advertisement was to create some attraction for Australian wildlife, as well as its women.

The advertisement also featured a website address and a local toll-free number to dial for more information.

After watching the main features of the advertisement, viewers were advised to respond to the ad.

However, this would involve people on the move- on buses, trains, in cars, walking dogs- to remember the website address and visit the site later for more information.

Research suggests that this doesn’t happen. So knowing where the bloody hell your customers are when they see your billboard, or hear your radio ad, is actually quite important.

It turns out that knowing where the bloody hell your customers are when they see your billboard, or hear your radio ad, is actually quite important. In this way, Tourism Australia has missed out on an easy opportunity to receive viewer responses.

Recent reports have found text marketing can be up-to 3 times more effective in encouraging responses to advertising than tradional forms of communication.

This was certainly the case for New Zealand financial firm Spicers who received a total of 550 responses to their radio advertisement. Of the 550, 103 used a toll-free number, 140 preferred to use the [Spicers] website, but the majority of respondents (307) preferred to txt.

When advertising through any medium, it pays to offer a a response mechanism which can be used by anybody, anywhere. Text marketing is about the now.

Text marketing empowers businesses to never miss a business lead and contact and correspond with customers via a personal medium.

Looking to find the best deal on text marketing, then visit www.txt2get.co.nz to find the best advice on mobile SMS marketing for you.

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