Are you in one of the many businesses which supplies the educational or children’s market? If so, the back to school period can be a critical time for you, for parents are making the most of the last couple of weeks of the school holidays to purchase new shoes, stationery, clothes, sports kits and many other items which are required to kit out their children for a new school term.

So when it comes to making the most of this busy sales period, time is of the essence – as is making a bigger impression than the competition. That’s where using SMS business marketing can be your best ally, for with a well-timed and well placed marketing message, direct to your customers’ mobile phones, you can reach them wherever they are – and bring your business to the forefront of their mind as they embark upon shopping trips.

One of the most vital – and powerful – elements of SMS marketing is the fact that you can precisely time the moment your audiences receives, and reads, your messages. If you take time to understand your audience’s shopping habits and make the most of the most influential time to reach them, your marketing activities will have all the more impact.

Keep it simple – one offer on SMS at a time
The secret to good SMS marketing is, simply, keep it simple. With such a short message to play with, your offer or information has to be clean, precise and to the point – so trying to work in more than one product or offer will reduce the power of your message.

Increase footfall with SMS vouchers
As we’re all aware, we’re all rarely parted from our mobile phones – particularly so when we’re out and about. So use your SMS marketing message to incentivise your audience to use your services by offering a money off voucher via text message. Sounds complicated? It’s more simple than you might think – ‘save 10% on all childrens shoes at Blakes of London by showing this message at the checkout on 28.8.10 only’, for example.

Timing is everything
As we mentioned above, time your SMS marketing messages right and you’ll reap the rewards. But what’s a good time to engage your customers via text message? Busy parents with home, work and children to juggle may not recall your message if sent too far ahead – so try early Friday evening for Saturday shopping, for example. Your customers’ mobile phones are very private and personal possessions, so ensure you don’t send through messages at times which may be inconvenient, such as very late at night.

Remember that Back to School comes but once a year – so get your marketing ramped up now to take advantage of this busy retailing time. Worried that you might have missed a trick? Don’t stress – for it’s quick and easy to set up your SMS marketing via TextMagic – you can be up and running in minutes, thanks to the Pay As You Go format and simple, easy to use software, which can be connected to your email, used direct from the web or via free downloadable software – whichever works best for you.

Is your business suffering at the moment due to staff shortages caused by the holiday season? Of course, everyone wants to take advantage of the good weather to take their breaks – and there’s also the impact of school holidays to consider.

Business SMS isn’t just about reaching out to your customers – it helps your internal communications as well. It’s time to take note of these invaluable tips, helping you use business SMS and bulk SMS services to make the most of your streamlined ‘holiday period’ workforce whilst keeping those sales ticking over!

1. SMS – a great reminder service for staff as well as customers

If you employ shiftworkers, it’s good practice to remind your staff when they’re scheduled for a different shift to their normal pattern due to holiday cover. SMS is the ideal way to reach your staff on a time-sensitive basis without intruding into their leisure time.

2. Use SMS to get staff cover, quickly

Staff not turned up, or rang in sick? Business SMS can be used as an effective and speedy way to contact everyone on your staff to find out if they can cover the shift. By using a bulk SMS system such as TextMagic, you can send the same message to any number of staff with just a few clicks of a mouse – from any internet connected PC or Mac. It’s also a fair way to send a message to everyone at the same time – meaning that there aren’t any favouritism issues when it comes to who gets extra shifts.

3. Keep field staff up to date with SMS – and it’s quick and easy to do

If you have staff out in the field, it’s even more difficult to keep them abreast of what’s going on in the office or of last-minute changes to appointments when your core staff are down to skeleton numbers. That’s where business SMS comes into its own – by offering a highly time-sensitive communication channel which takes much less time to effect than continually trying to get hold of people on the phone. Your office staff will work smarter and quicker – and your field staff will be bang up to date.

4. Back up vital email communication with SMS

If you have staff away, it’s likely that their emails are being forwarded to other members of staff to deal with and re-circulate. That means that everyone’s email boxes get overloaded, and it’s often the case that important communications get overlooked. Why not use business SMS to alert a member of staff of an important email communication which needs urgent attention, so that it doesn’t get swallowed by the inbox?

5. It’s a timesaver – SMS for customer follow-ups

When it comes to customer care, the personal touch is something all good businesses strive to achieve. However, think laterally – for that ‘personal touch’ doesn’t necessarily mean using the phone. Sales follow-ups via business SMS are much more personal than email – due to the relationship people have with their mobile phones – and not as intrusive as phone calls. Finally, it’s a great time saver for your office staff when workloads are high – so your customers get the service they expect, whilst your staff get their well deserved time off!

SMS marketing is highly cost-effective, has an unparalleled open rate – and it works. If you’re not using a business SMS service such as TextMagic as a way to communicate with your clients, why not? Chances are that if you’re not, it’s because you haven’t yet established a database of your customers’ mobile numbers.

Every company with a focus on customer care as well as cost-effective marketing strategies should be collating detailed contact information on their customers – and then using it responsibly to ensure that customers feel valued, not harassed.

1. Service Industries – take advantage of your head start

Service industries often have the benefit of building more personal relationships with their customers, particularly when this is conducted on a face-to-face basis. As you’re already building a trusted connection with your clients, asking for their mobile phone number to add to your customer records is a natural step. Be clear to outline the benefits for the client as well as being transparent about how you’re going to use the information – for instance, ‘I’d like to use your mobile number to send appointment reminders, as well as occasional special offers and business information.’

2. Give SMS Recipients extra benefits

If you want to build your SMS customer database fast, then give people a reason to sign up for your marketing campaigns. Some of the big telecoms companies have done this to huge success – think of the ‘Orange Wednesdays’ for example, where users can text ‘FILM’ every week to receive exclusive 2 for 1 film tickets. It’s not just the big guys who can take advantage of incentives such as these – it applies equally well for smaller firms and even one man bands.

Make SMS the primary route for customers to receive linkthroughs to sale items before anyone else, receive exclusive discounts or even to obtain a ‘first look’ at company and product news – and you’ll create a communication channel that your customers will be queuing up to use.

3. Make it easy for customers to sign up

If you want customers –and also potential customers – to sign up to your SMS marketing campaigns, then make sure they know all about it. Many an initiative has failed purely because the company hasn’t communicated the availability and benefits properly to its customer base. So, ensure your website prominently advertises the SMS signup benefits and procedure; train your staff to upsell the benefits to customers; and if you have physical premises or marketing literature, use every touching point with your customers to let them know how to sign up. At every stage, remember point 2 above – give extra benefits – and you’ll make much better headway.

4. Never miss an opportunity to get potential customers onto your database

Individuals and businesses which you don’t have an existing trading relationship with can be the hardest to collate information on. Mobile numbers aren’t available to purchase as business data and you’re bound by regulations which dictate that prospects cannot be contacted for marketing purposes by SMS unless they’ve specifically agreed to receive these.

Therefore, whenever a potential customer contacts your firm – whether by email, via the website, by telephone or in person – devise data collection procedures as part of your communication structure which captures mobile telephone numbers amongst other key information. Remember, you must state that this number may be used for marketing purposes and you must make the provision of mobile numbers optional. Once more, if you tie the signup into benefits, you’ll have a much better collection rate.

5. Move beyond your existing reach with SMS referrals

There’s nothing like word of mouth to spread the word about your business – it’s the best type of marketing that you can achieve. Not only that – people love to share information about offers and benefits with their friends and family. So why not combine the two and generate an SMS referral scheme? By creating a special offer such as a specific discount code and encouraging your database to text message this onto their own contacts, you can spread the net further – and create new customers at the same time. Even better, by lead qualification processes when new customers use the discount code, you can identify where the lead came from and build in a loyalty’ thankyou’ for the referrer – incentivising them to keep on referring!

With easy to use, online SMS marketing services such as TextMagic, a whole new world of customer engagement has opened up to businesses of any size or location. With a little savvy and by making small changes in the way you collate customer information, you can soon have an extensive SMS marketing database to work with – and by engaging these customers responsibly, your targeted database will only continue to grow.