SMS Marketing, and the process of communicating and exchanging information and value with our customers, is changing the way that marketers manage relationships with consumers. Used effectively, it can help you to generate brand awareness, convert prospects to customers, maintain customer relationships and allow you to take your customer care to a new level.

Each text you send is immiediate, with 96% of text messages read within 90 seconds of landing on the handset.

Its personal, with you all the time and generally speaking its always on and it carries with it a built in payment system, extremely accurate user statistics and is available at the point of creative or copy development.

When you start to think about your companies mobile strategy, you may want to use this formula below;

UA + CCO + CC = SMS

The formula contains the three things you will need for a succesful strategy for your mobile campaign.

“understanding audience + confirming company objectives + corporate commitment = Succesful Mobile Strategy!”

If you know who your audience is then you know what they purchase, what services they like, which they dont, what drives them to interact or buy from you etc… you will also know what catergories they fit into which type of customers buy what type of products and why. Make a list of the different type of customers you have, keep it short (no more than 5 types) here is an example:

Segment your customer base, try and put each one of your customers into a particular user profiles, like the ones below;

The Careerist –                    24 – 40 years old  / Has bill paid for by the company?

Early Adopters –                 They want everything first, before their peers get it

Young & Hungry –                15 -29 years old / Want the latest gadgets and are always texting

Over 40s –                             Generally happy with a phone that allows basic texting and calls

In Touch Organizers –          Like to keep connected / 30 – 64 yrs old / Have busy professional and Social Lives and like to organize their family and friends

Only by doing this deep analysis of your customer demographic will you give yourself a better chance of fulfilling their needs and having success with your mobile marketing program(s).

Now lets look at confirming your companies objectives and getting sight of what they actually want to achieve from this marketing channel.  To do this you need to answer the following three questions;

1. Who is my audience?

2. What value do I deliver to my audience?

3. What objectives am I trying to achieve with my marketing and how will I know when I achieve them?

Finally you need to gain corporate commitment decide what your corporate objectives are, consider available resources (Internal / External) and consider the affects on the rest of your business only when you have done this can you gain corporate commitment for your mobile programme.

Once you have gone this far into establishing your mobile marketing programme, you can now start concentrating on the Five Key Elements to any Mobile Campaign, these are below:

1. Customer Knowledge
2. Appealing Value Proposition
3. Development of Creative / Assets
4. Promotion Strategy
5. Reporting & Evaluations

The next step is to create something your customers/ prospects will like, something that gets your message across in a simple, easy to understand way, without complicating the process from a technology perspective.

When starting, start simply.  Pick a simple program, one with the broadest reach and ease of use for all concerned; moreover, first focus on accomplishing just one of your objectives; don’t try to do everything at once.

Thanks

themobileexpert