Text Marketing

Texting is a preferred method of interpersonal communication

This makes texting a great promotional tool.

The Pew Research Center reports that some 83% of American adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them (73%) send and receive text messages.  In a survey of texters, In fact, the Pew Internet & American Life Project  found  31% said they preferred texts to talking on the phone. The resarch shows that the biggest texters are young adults 18-24. The full report is availablet at pewinternet.org.

Build your customer mobile number database

Go about building your mobile phone database in much the same way you build your customer database now - through customer satisfaction surveys, invitations on your website and at your business site to participate in special promotions such as customer sign-up options for birthday clubs, anniversary clubs, holiday specials, etc.

Create promotions, contests and specials just like you would for direct mail and/or email. Be sure that your website links are working!

You can send text messages to more than one recipient.  Check out GoogleVoice texting.http://www.google.com/support/voice/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115116

Text to Win

Marketing via text-to-win through broadcast media is a great, albeit expensive, way to run a contest and/or sweepstakes and build your database. Estimates run from $20,000 to $36,000 per year for a text number and sweepstakes management.  This does not include advertising the sweepstakes. Here's how:

 Obtain a text number.  The 5-or 6 digit number used in text promotions is known as a short code.  You may apply for a short code at the national short code registry: ussshortcodes.com.  Codes are assigned using random code numbers. If you are willing to pay more, you can ask for a vanity code - specific numbers that might be easier for users to remember. You can also ask to share a code with another company, depending on when and where you are going to run promotions.

There will be an application and set up fee and a monthly lease fee, a management fee and a per message fee.Because of the number of text providers, it can take several months to set up the necessary approvals with all of the carriers. The carriers must give approval or your text messages will be blocked from their phones.

You may wish to hire a management company to help you with your ontest message, set up contest rules, make sure the message and  rules comply with legal requirements, set up a message response and obtain and mange database information.  

 Advertising Short Code Sweepstakes

TV and radio are obvious choices for broadcasting your short code contest either through paid advertising on the appropriate programming and on the station website.  It makes sense to advertise the contest in a commercial that directs the viewer/listener to the station website and/or to your company website for rules and entry information.

A major benefit of text marketing is the ability to track the viability of the promotion as well as to obtain user contact information and permissions for future marketing promotions.

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