Location Based Marketing trends to keep an eye on

by | Jul 18, 2014 |

Consumers are showing more and more interest in smartphones, tablets and mobile marketing as a whole. This is good news for businesses making use of LBS (location based service) marketing. What trends are starting to emerge in the industry? People love, love, love video There’s no denying the fact that human beings are lazy by nature. That is why the aim of mobile development is just that – to make life easier for us. Consumers have become increasingly reluctant to read long pieces of text and are shifting their favour towards graphics and video. Did you know that the mobile users are taking over Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest and Instagram? If you can combine your Location Based Marketing on social media channel with high quality images and video material, you will have an instant recipe or success! Location is part of everything we do – and beyond The traditional “word of mouth” marketing (one of the most powerful forms of marketing there is) has not disappeared. It only shifted from telling your friend about a wonderful restaurant (face to face) to regularly checking in or rewriting reviews/ comments on social media. Once again, being curious about what your friends do in their daily lives, is also one of those “human things” we do. People want to know what their loved ones are up to and they value the opinions of those close to them. If your friend is announcing his visit to a particular restaurant every week, it is no secret that he enjoys the experience. No words needed! Next time you want to try a new place, you will...

Use USSD NI for interactive market research

by | Jul 16, 2014 |

A quick and easy way to do market research, is by using mobile polls and surveys. How do you initiate this? Through USSD NI! Marketers always need to think of fun and interesting ways to do customer research. The needs of your customers do change over time – as do their age, geographical location etc. Sometimes a new product/ service might attract an entirely different consumer than what you thought it would. Or maybe you just want to get your customers’ honest opinion on how they experience your brand. Whatever the case, there are loads of reasons why you would want to conduct research. Okay, so what does this have to do with USSD Ni? You can use Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) Push messages to push out real time, engaging questions to your customers in the form of mobile polls and surveys. How does it work? You can either send your customers a link to visit a website containing your poll or survey. Or, you can send the actual survey to their phone. Why can this be effective? It is a great way to connect with your customers at the drop of a hat, as people have their phones on their person at all times. It can take people hours, maybe even a few days, to actually open and read their email – especially if they receive a great number of messages on a daily basis. For that reason, consumers usually respond better on mobile messages than email. It can work on old phones as well as newer phones (e.g. smartphones.) Users don’t need to download any additional...

SMS proves itself the top dog when it comes to direct marketing

by | Jul 14, 2014 |

In Africa, there are about 650 million cellphone users. The majority of them are prepaid users with an inexpensive phone, which means that SMS is still the best and most effective way to reach them. Marketers sometimes forget that their target audience isn’t necessarily following the latest trends – especially those in poorer communities. Just because you have a smartphone, it doesn’t mean your customers have one as well. But the one thing you can be 100% certain of, is that no matter how low-tech a customer’s phone is, it will be capable of sending and receiving texts. According to research done by Cellfind, the “majority of connections are still basic 2G voice and SMS services, and simple 2.5G data services, rather than 3G or LTE connections.” So before you say SMS messages are too simple for marketing purposes – think again. Eight out of ten people on our continent owns a cellphone. They might change their address, but they rarely change their phone number. And as we all know, nobody leaves home without their mobile. People’s love for their phones is exactly what makes mobile marketing as a whole (and especially SMS) such an effective way to reach your customers. We have talked about all the advantages of SMS marketing many times: it is personal, quick, cheap and interactive. But did you know: you could get a better response rate from consumers as well? According to the research, direct mail can give you a poor response rate of 2.6% with published media not faring much better by 8.5%. But. Texting (depending on your campaign, strategy etc.) could give...

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...