Texting is part of our everyday life – just take a quick look at your fellow commuters on the way to work in the morning and you’ll see just how much of our time is taken up with communicating with friends and family. But if you’re not too quick on the buttons or don’t like what ‘predictive text’ does to your messages, there is an alternative.

Online texting is an easy way to send out messages in bulk to more than one person at a time. It’s cost-effective, saving you both time and money, as it’s cheaper and easier to send texts from a computer than from mobile.

But where online texting really comes into its own is for business advertising and promotional campaigns. A comprehensive online texting service will include special features, making it a unique and affordable way to reach right into the pockets of your customers.

Unlike usual text messaging with mobiles, in which case you can’t send bulk SMS messages above a certain limit, you are able to send as many messages from your computer as you want, to multiple recipients at the same time. All of these features are very simple to use and also represent a great ROI, compared to texting with phone.

Send text messages in bulk and avoid delays

With an online SMS service you can send single messages to individuals, or bulk SMS to a select group of recipients. By delivering online text message from computer, you’re assured of their timely delivery.

This really is never guaranteed with SMS messages sent by mobile phones, where messages can get delayed or even lost. However, when you send a text message from an online source such as a computer, the SMS is distributed instantly and will get shipped straight to the recipient.

This is particularly helpful if you use email or text for marketing campaigns where you have to communicate frequently with your customers, or are undertaking various transactions such as providing coupons or time-sensitive offers.

Further more, according to Mobile Marketing Association 40% of consumers are interested in receiving mobile coupons and mobile coupon redemption is 10x that of traditional coupons.

Run your mobile campaign from your browser

It is much easier to type on a PC or laptop, compared to using a phone. You are also able to access symbols that are not available on a phone, allowing you to keep your message short and succinct without losing the meaning.

It also allows you to adapt your campaign to suit mobile users, and target multiple customers using the bulk SMS feature. Campaigns also often last for longer than one message, so why not set up a schedule of recurring messages that are designed to work with time-sensitive information and offers?

Any responses to your messages from your customers are automatically forwarded to your SMS online inbox, separating them from your usual emails and allowing you to monitor what level of response you are getting.

If you have not contributed to mobile advertising yet, then you might give it a try now as mobile advertising is expected to grow from £43.9 billion in 2012 to £83.2. billion in 2017.

Send international messages and save money

One of the greatest benefits of online texting is the low cost of sending international text messages.

You can use an Email to SMS service and all the emails sent from your inbox will be forwarded to any mobile in the world.
Or alternatively you can also use Web to SMS service to send messages online.

You only pay for what you send, there are no monthly packages and your credits will never expire, making it one of the most cost-effective ways of managing an international campaign.

Reporting

So how effective is your campaign? Well, online texting services also offer you reporting functions, which you don’t get with mobile SMS.

Reporting gives you an overview of:

• The usage
• Campaign results
• Delivery quality
• Response rates
• Other useful statistics to manage your campaign more effectively

If something isn’t working then you can change it quickly, minimising your loss and maximising the possibility of getting a positive result. It’s 24/7 too, so you can always access the reporting interface online to check if all the messages have been delivered and measure the success of your campaigns.

Online text messaging is affordable, flexible and designed to deliver great results. That’s why more companies are using it to make a direct connection with their customers in a way that’s not possible using other methods. It represents a great ROI and puts you at the cutting edge of campaign management and promotion.

Mobile marketing offers a wealth of possibilities and with a bit of creativity and forward planning you can create a fantastic mobile-based ad campaign that creates a real buzz.

We have given some tips how you can create better SMS marketing campaigns but now we would like to share some of the best mobile marketing ads of all times. You might learn something from these brands and use it for your own business.

Here are our five favourite ad campaigns from the marvellous world of mobile marketing:

1. Adidas Lights Up New York City

The goal of this campaign was to encourage mobile users to visit New York City’s Penn Station to view an Adidas ‘Light You Up’ promotional light show – an event featuring Argentinean footballer Lionel Messi, who was promoting the launch of the new Adidas Adizero F50 football boots.

In an ingenious piece of marketing, Adidas targeted all mobile users within a 3-mile radius of Penn Station in the hours leading up to the event with an ad that read ‘Adidas and Messi – After Dark Tonight’.

Clicking on the banner lead consumers to a landing page where a promotional video described the event’s location and time. The event was a huge success thanks to the mobile campaign drawing in thousands of interested onlookers.

2. Starbucks makes grabbing a coffee even easier

Giant coffee chain Starbucks recently used mobiles to make a coffee on the go even quicker for its US customers. By downloading the Starbucks Card mobile app, customers were able to charge it up with credit and then pay for their drink by simply having their mobile screen scanned at the checkout.

It proved to be a resounding success, with customers excited to have access to a new, faster way to pay and, after launching the app on iPhone, iPod touch and BlackBerry, Starbucks quickly extended the scheme to Android users

3. Heineken Hits the Back of the Net with Dual Screen Game

In 2011, UEFA Champion’s League sponsor Heineken introduced an innovative ‘dual screen’ app that let fans interact via their mobiles as games were taking place.

Using the StarPlayer app, viewers were able to react to what was happening in the game by pressing buttons to predict the outcome of set pieces such as corner kicks, penalties and free kicks. Options included a goal, a miss, a save or a clear and if you guessed right, you won points. Bonus questions about the teams were also posted throughout the game and the faster you answered, the more points you scored.

The Heineken marketing team were onto a winner with this one. It tapped into the surging popularity of dual-screening, where you use mobile devices to play along with live sporting events and shows, but also the competitive nature of the app meant that people were sharing across social media and forming leagues to see who got the best score, guaranteeing huge exposure for the beer brand.

4. Text it like Beckham

This marketing masterpiece from Motorola was aimed at people taking flights from Hong Kong airport and used two of the most well known names in Asia – footballer David Beckham and musician Jay Chow – to enhance the experience of saying goodbye to friends and family.

This worked in two ways – mobile users could either take a picture on their mobile and send it along with a text message, or have a special message recorded by David Beckham and Jay Chow, which were then played to people at the airport via large digital advertising screens.

The campaign was a huge success and had a dual effect – it massively increased the popularity and sales of Motorola and meant that advertising space at Hong Kong airport was suddenly selling at a premium.

5. BMW

This astonishingly effective example from 2008 saw BMW launch an innovative mobile marketing campaign designed to sell snow tyres to its German customers.
The company used data it had on file – car model and wheel type – to determine which sort of winter tyre would work best on each customer’s car. Attention was focused only on those BMW customers who had owned their car for less than a year and had purchased it in the summer or autumn, as older cars older would already have winter tyres purchased during the previous year.

On the first day of snowy weather in Germany, all the targeted customers received a text message showing an image of their car type with the recommended snow tyres. It also included a call to action – a link to a site that enabled the customer to experiment with placing different BMW tyres on their virtual car before making a purchase.

This campaign combined great timing with clever targeting of a section of BMW’s customer base that was most likely to buy snow tyres. The results were impressive to say the least – with a conversion rate from messages sent to actual tyres purchased of 30%, whilst the campaign earned a staggering $45m in new business.

These are just five examples from the wide world of mobile marketing, but they all used the medium to deliver a strong sales message that engaged with consumers effectively and led to excellent results.

Have we missed some out? If so, please leave a comment and let me know about your favourite mobile marketing moments!

The term “text loans” came into use after companies began to offer loans via text message. However, you can also use text messages to reduce your default rates and communicate with your customers more efficiently.

While working with short-term loan providers before joining TextMagic I could say default rates have always been the biggest concern for businesses offering consumer credit.
But by keeping the lines of communication open with clients, risk management and careful planning, the default rate can be dramatically reduced.

Here are some tips how you can reduce your default rates using text messaging:

1. Verify your customer’s contact details

The level of fraud in the UK is growing and short-term loan providers are one of the easiest targets for fraudsters. To avoid fraudulent activity in your business, make sure you verify each customer who signs up on your website is a genuine customer in search of a loan.

When customer signs up on your website, make sure that you have all the correct contact details that are unique and belong to the specific customer who is applying for a loan. This includes all contact details, including a home telephone number and mobile number.

When the customer has signed up, you can offer the option to activate an account by sending a text message to your customer’s mobile. The text message should include a unique code that the customer needs to enter on your website to confirm that the mobile number provided belongs to the applicant and is an active number.

By verifying your customers mobile number you make the first step towards reducing your default rate and preventing fraudsters from signing up on your website.

2. Send customer reminders before the due repayment date

It is very important to remind your customers notification of the repayment date of the loan before the actual due date elapses. It shows that you are a responsible lender and you do not want your customers incur penalty charges for late payments. It will also reduce the possibility of the customer inadvertently defaulting through being ignorant of the due date, or simply forgetting.

Your customer might not remember the exact repayment date of the loan, especially if it was an installment loan with multiple payments, or a loan spread out over a longer period of time.
Sending a reminder email is one option, but it is worth bearing in mind that only 22% of emails are actually opened and read, compared to the 98% of text messages that are seen.

There is also the risk that your emails might go directly to your customer’s spam folder, which reduces the possibility of them opening the email even more. So, send your customer a polite reminder by text message, just to let them know that the repayment date of the loan is approaching. It might be a little bit more expensive than a free email, but a defaulted loan will definitely cost you much more.

3. Send a text message after your customer has missed the first repayment date

If you have not received the payment from your customer on the due date, contact your customer immediately. Send them a text message to make sure they are aware of the outstanding debt, but make sure that you follow the Debt Collection Guidelines by OFT when pursuing your debts.

In practice sending a text message to customer’s mobile works a lot better than email and the response rate is at least 70% higher compared to email. Make sure you put your contact number and company name into the message, so that customers can call you when they need to discuss the  payment.

Remember that with a text message, space is limited to just 160 characters. So ensure that your message is succinct and contains only the most important information. You can also use your company name as the Sender ID instead of the number to make sure your customer knows that the message is from you.

Go Logistics is a major retailer in large furniture brand names such as Bentley Designs, Baumhaus and Coach House. They take an active interest in the environment and provide their customers with reclaimed, environmentally friendly and ethically produced products.

Deliveries are very important in their business to keep customers informed about the possible changes in delivery times. They decided to lose the manual work and make their processes more automatic.
We at TextMagic are very happy to do all we can to help them.

Forget the manual work and allocate your resources more efficiently

Before Go Logistics started to use TextMagic they had a full-time employee responsible for calling and emailing customers manually to book in deliveries.
Go Logistics Transport Manager Ed Studham says that this was incredibly time consuming and they decided to look for alternative options to allocate their resources and automate the booking system.

“The main purpose why we needed an SMS Service was to make our processes more efficient when notifying customers about the deliveries. What was a full time job for someone, now takes 30 minutes per day”.

Improve your communication with customers

“In our business it is extremely important to inform the customer about the exact delivery details, so that in case customer has a problem or he would like to rearrange the delivery time, he can contact us any time”

Go Logistics informs their customers about the delivery dates and times of the furniture by sending them an SMS to their mobiles including order details. The message will be sent out to each customer who has made a purchase and is waiting for new furniture to arrive.

“We are able to communicate with customers quickly, notifying them of any delays or date changes. Mainly we use it to confirm delivery times. As approximately 95% of our customers have mobile phones, a text message is something we know they will see, whereas emails are frequently missed.”

The competitive advantage – TextMagic SMS Gateway is very easy to integrate

Go Logistics is using Bulk SMS Gateway API tool solution to send text messages for its customers.

“In my previous role with another company, we also used text message services which was very successful, so we decided to implement the process in Go Logistics as well.
Before we made our final choice, we made a lot of research among reliable providers and TextMagic was always on the top considering different criteria.

We chose TextMagic Bulk text message service because it was very easy to integrate the SMS Gateway into our mapping software. This meant that we can automate the process to make it even quicker for us.

Our favorite aspect when using TextMagic is the simplicity of integration process and opportunity to top up our credits any time needed by just visiting the website.”

TextMagic has great news for Go Logistics – we make the top up even more easier. Very soon it is possible to top up the credits automatically as we add an auto top-up feature with an automatic invoice by email which should make the process much more fluent.

Read or delete? Respond or ignore?

We’re all used to making snap decisions about our text messages, but if you’re the sender rather than the recipient, how do you make sure that your customers respond positively to your mobile marketing campaigns?
And how can you make sure that you convert your business text messages into sales?

Here are seven great tips to make sure your text campaign hits all the right buttons…

1. Customise your message to fit your audience

Targeted advertising is useless unless you know what kind of target you want to hit. So to make sure your message is reaching the right people, do a little bit of groundwork first and decide what demographic you’re aiming your campaign towards.

That information can be data-mined from previous customer subscription forms (age, occupation, location, demographic group, etc). Once you have some clear parameters you can then tailor your message to have maximum appeal to your target audience.

2. What’s in it for the customer?

It may seem like stating the obvious, but your message is going to ‘intrude’ on their day so make sure it’s worth their while to open, read and respond to it.

Make the content engaging and the offer attractive and you’ll catch their attention.
Blatant self-promotion won’t work – there has to be something worthwhile for the customer to respond to.

3. Don’t forget the contact details

A marketing campaign is absolutely useless if the customer doesn’t know who is sending them this ‘once in a lifetime’ offer – so whatever you do, make absolutely sure that your contact details are on the message!
That includes phone numbers, website addresses, your brand and, of course, your company name.

4. What do you want them to do?

To paraphrase a saying – you can lead a customer to your campaign but you can’t make him or her bite – without an effective call to action.
Getting your customer to respond to your message is essential, and without a strong CTA a campaign is worthless.

So why not dangle a little carrot and make it worthwhile for your customers to respond by offering an incentive such as a special deal or a freebie? Make it absolutely clear what you want them to do, and give them a reason to do it!

5. Make sure your message gets out there

Creating a text marketing campaign is a great way to promote your business, but can your customers actually receive your message in the first place?

Before you hit send, make sure your message can be accepted by different types of mobile devices, otherwise you could be wasting both time and money, and miss out on reaching a percentage of your customers too.

6. Keep it professional

Like any marketing campaign, an SMS text message has to be punchy, professional and to the point. And because of the restrictive nature of mobile devices, that message has to be even more succinct.

So think it through carefully. Sometimes shorter messages can actually be more difficult to write effectively, so if in doubt talk to a professional copywriter or advertising expert to make sure your message stays ‘on-message’ and is easy to read.

7. Track and trace

Once your message is out there, the work has only just begun! To make sure it’s effective, you need to track your responses. By measuring your results you can adapt and improve future campaigns to make them more effective.

How to boost your Salon Business?  New treatments, exclusive deals and offers, loyalty bonuses – these are all great marketing opportunities.

But how do you advertise them?
And how do you stay in touch with your clients in a way that encourages them to take advantage of those special offers?
And how can you make sure that your customer will not miss the appointment?

Whereas emails and even ‘snail mail’ flyers are all too easily overlooked, a text message straight to your clients’ phones is far more likely to be checked and responded to.

I would like to point out five ways how you can make the most of text messaging to promote your Salon:

1. Appointments – on time, every time

How much of your valuable time is wasted due to your clients missing their appointments?

While in some instances a cancellation may be unavoidable, the classic and oft-heard, “Today? I thought it wasn’t until next week!” excuse still means that you’ve lost revenue and possibly even turned away extra ‘walk-in’ custom that could have at least salvaged some sort of return from the situation.

However, with SMS text messaging you can be sure that your clients know exactly when their appointment is in plenty of time, so if they do need to cancel and rebook then you have the chance to fill that open slot with another client.

The result? Maximum revenue, minimum losses. It also promotes your Salon as one that connects personally with its clients – a great way to boost your reputation.

2. Create your own templates

It’s highly likely that you will be sending out similar appointment reminders to different clients. So why waste time in creating fresh text every time?

SMS messaging allows you to create templates that you can save and then customise quickly and easily, saving you time and effort. Once you have a catalogue of templates it’s then just a simple case of selecting an appropriate one and changing the time, date and name before sending it to your client.

The result is a personalised text message that doesn’t require too much effort to produce.

3. Plan ahead and fill your books

For busy Salons, organising the diary days, weeks or even months in advance can be a difficult and time consuming task.

However, linking your appointments messaging service up to a calendar function means that your timeslots can be updated instantly, so you can see at a glance if there are any gaps in your schedule. This can be particularly useful if you have visiting stylists and want to ensure that their time is utilised efficiently.

4. Multiple reminders? No problem!

One of the big advantages of SMS messaging for Salons is that the supporting software allows you to import spreadsheets and set up multiple reminder send-outs to several clients at once.
Incorporated into your daily routine, this can ensure that your clients are sent updated information on any changes to appointments in one go, rather than having to contact each client individually.

5. Open up your marketing opportunities

SMS messaging isn’t just great for reminding your clients about appointments – it can be a great tool in a marketing campaign too.
Studies have shown that people are much more likely to respond to a text message as opposed to an email (as long as they’ve signed up to receive those messages in the first place!).
Using text messaging as an advertising tool is a cost-effective and efficient way of promoting your Salon. So get creative and make sure you use SMS messaging as part of your advertising campaign to keep your Salon busy all year round.