Use Bulk SMS to play ball

by | Jul 7, 2014 |

The Soccer World Cup is currently all the rage, but other competitive sports are taking place all year round. Use Bulk SMS to launch a playful campaign that will get you noticed. Choose a sport that is busy with live matches – for example the Soccer or Rugby World Cup. You want constant interaction with your customers throughout your Bulk SMS campaign. The simplest way to do it, is to base your competition on something that you can ask your subscribers before every game. For example: ask them to predict the score of the match, which player they think will score the most points for their team etc. If you aren’t sure if your customers are interested in a particular sport – ask them. Wholesale SMS is cheap – you don’t have to be stingy with your communication. So, send out a poll or give them the opportunity to vote for their preferred sport. Then, a few weeks before the season starts, alert your customers to the competition you are planning to run. Give them a brief breakdown of how it will work and what they could win. Post this to your social media channels. You can also create a small advert for your traditional mediums so you can reach yet-to-be customers as well. You can use SMS shortcodes in your competition to make your life a little easier. For instance, if there is a winner for every single match instead of an overall one, you can assign a different code to every match. While the matches are going on, you can further entertain your customers by sending them...

How can an Airtime Voucher campaign benefit me?

by | Jul 2, 2014 |

Airtime Voucher campaigns are one of the latest tools that companies are using to reward their customers. But how can this benefit you as a business owner? It isn’t always easy to decide how to reward your customers. First of all you have to keep your budget in mind – an incentive can’t cost you more than your return on investment (ROI). For example, you won’t give away a R100 coupon for every customer who makes a purchase of R10 at your store. You would be broke in no time! The second dilemma you have to face, is choosing a reward that will work for YOUR unique target market. If your customers are mostly male for instance, they probably won’t be swayed by beauty products as a prize. Airtime Vouchers are a well-liked reward, because it crosses the barriers of age, gender, race etc. You really can’t go wrong with it – that is one of the reasons why this is so successful. After all, most people own a mobile phone and the majority of them will confirm that one can never have too much airtime on your hands! It is a brilliant way to increase brand awareness, create loyalty and increase your sales. You can give this reward to inspire customers to buy certain products or enter competitions for the purpose of creating mobile opt-in lists (for SMS marketing). You can use it for different types of competitions and you can determine the value of the voucher to fit the purpose. If you sign up with Integrat, we will handle all headaches involved with the technical side of...

A recipe for instant success with Wholesale SMS

by | Jun 30, 2014 |

You don’t always need an elaborate plan for your Wholesale SMS marketing. Sometimes, the straightforward, simplest path produces the best results. Try this “no frills” method – it won’t cost you much either! Using SMS messages to communicate with your customers is really no different from talking to them over the phone or email. It is all about two-way conversation – not just a once off, easy-to-forget text in their inbox. With that in mind, here is a recipe for an effective Wholesale SMS campaign. Strike up a conversation You need to start the conversation from your side. Ask your customers to complete a mobile poll or survey. What do they think about your company and how you can better your services? Send them a mobile voucher of some other small token of appreciation for their participation. Respond again Two birds with one stone! Now you have valuable info AND your customers know that you value their opinion. Very important: send them a text again to thank them for their participation. If some of your customers didn’t want to participate, find out why. Now use that info People want to know that their opinions are valued. It is one thing to thank them, but it is another thing to actually show how you will be using the data. Write about it on your Facebook, Twitter and website en then text the link to your customers. (Ask them to like your social media pages while you are at it.) What have you achieved by this? You used Wholesale SMS messages to open up a communication channel that have proven itself...

How to build a basic SMS Marketing Strategy Part 2

by | Jun 27, 2014 |

In Part 1 we discussed the importance of acquiring and refining your SMS Marketing subscription list. Next, you have to tackle customer engagement and retention as part of your basic strategy. Engaging with your customers The hardest part – getting your customers’ contact details – is done. But you can’t breathe a sigh of relieve just yet. Now you actually have to deliver on your promises. Naturally, content is King, and the way you present this content is Queen. If consumers don’t like what you have to say or how you say it, they will lose interest fairly quickly. Keeping your SMS Marketing messages relevant and entertaining can be tricky. You only have a limit of about 160 characters after all, thus you have to make every word count. Tip: have a content strategy. Know beforehand what you want to say, how you want to say it and when. Retaining your contact list One of the biggest considerations in your SMS Marketing strategy, is frequency. Too many messages – your customers will unsubscribe. Too few messages – they forget about you. The best course of action you can take is to offer your customers a set option (preferably with their subscription) of message frequency. E.g. they can choose to receive a message twice a week, once a month etc. During an active campaign, you can sent more than one message a week. But if your campaign is over, you want to tone it down until you have something important to say again. Don’t send irrelevant stuff. Along with frequency, goes timing. Don’t send your messages out at inappropriate hours...

How to build a basic SMS Marketing Strategy Part 1

by | Jun 25, 2014 |

How does a basic SMS Marketing Strategy look? You have to focus on your four main areas: acquiring customers’ contact details, refinement, engagement and retention. Acquiring contact info You need a customer’s permission first in order to send them marketing material via mobile. This is a big undertaking. You need to have a unique and creative plan to do this. A few strategies that have proven useful to obtain mobile numbers, are: hosting competitions, giving away freebies or promising the subscriber exclusivity or something else of value. You have to give very careful thought the content of your messages and there should be no confusion as to the what, how and why of your offering. Once you have decided how you are going to lure your customers, the next step is to determine how to tell them about it. How are they going to receive your “invitation”? This is where your digital and more traditional forms of marketing comes to play. You can alert your customers to subscribe to your contact list by posting it on Facebook and Twitter, sending an email, or placing an advert on a billboard, pamphlets, business cards, corporate stationary etc. Tips: Keep the budget constraints in mind when choosing the channels for your SMS marketing strategy. Give yourself enough time to gather the info – if you rush it, you might get less numbers than you wished for. Refining your list Depending on your SMS Marketing goals, you most likely have more than one type of offering for your subscribers. The golden rule is to always give your customers options, because people’s needs differ....