How to Create Campaigns for an Effective SMS Solution

So you’ve signed up for an SMS solution and are looking for ways to make your investment worth while. Where do you start?

Small businesses and large corporations have two things in common: acquiring new customers and helping that that have already purchased to do so again. Your SMS solution is a key component of both processes and can make it easier to achieve your goals.

Acquiring New Customers

An SMS solution isn’t supposed to replace existing marketing campaigns or communication channels with customers. It is a tool that can be used as a method of communication on its own, or one that can emphasise other forms of communication, such as blog posts, emails, website launches or changes, etc.

So how can it be used to acquire new customers?

One scenario we’re all familiar with is print / online / notice board ads that prompt us to send a text message to a short code to receive more information about a product/service or to receive a x% discount. This is just one form of customer acquisition using an SMS solution, but provides you with the benefit that those people that do send a text message will have an interest in your product… it’s a qualified audience.

And, you’ll have to admit, more of your customers have mobile phones that internet or even television, which makes it the ideal method of communication to your entire target market.

Guiding Existing Customers Along the Sales Cycle

Whether you’re a small business or a large corporate, an important part of business is to retain customers and ensure that your products or services provide enough value for your customers to purchase again, and again…

How do other companies do this successfully using an SMS solution?

Sales

Nowadays customers expect ease of purchase from those businesses they do business with. After all, if they can walk into a shop, pick something they want and pay for it, why can’t they do it when it comes to your business?

Offer your customers the opportunity to buy or order via text message to ensure that your SMS solution works for you.

Marketing

Your SMS solution provides the ideal marketing vehicle through short and concise communication. If you are organising an event or plan to commemorate a special day by offering a discount on selected products or services, let your customers know. An SMS text message coupon is easily created; V.I.P lists and SMS clubs provide the ideal platform to stay in touch with loyal customers and could inspire existing, infrequent customers to increase their loyalty. Remember, the key here is the incentive – why should they react to your communication?

Customer Service

Customer service is an important part of any business, whether it’s the girl behind the counter helping a customer to exchange a faulty or wrong product or a call centre where you’ve got 100 people eagerly trying to deplete the call queue.

An SMS solution provides the opportunity for businesses to enhance customer service through quick low-touch communication. It provides a self-service environment where the customer can help themselves whenever they have the time or need, and doesn’t require calls to be made or queues that consume large amounts of time.

Understand Your SMS Product

Text messaging is a new arrival on the mainstream communications front. Unlike the internet and email, many businesses approach an SMS solution as they would, say, a new bank – they’ll wait and see what happens before they jump on board.

Key to understanding your SMS solution is to understand the technology behind it; how the text message gets sent from your computer to arrive at the handsets of your customers. It starts at your computer, with a simple interface that allows you to compose your message. This interface might be one that you created or one that someone else created.

Once you have composed your message and hit the ‘Send’ button, the program connects to what is known as an SMS gateway (in many regards just like an email server) via an application programming interface, or API (the language used to communicate with the SMS gateway). From there your message travels through a number of different systems, each with its own specific name, and finally to a tower that delivers the message to your customer’s phone.

One important fact to remember is that, there exist a number of different API’s. The reason for this is to cater for a number of different software environments to ensure that businesses that rely on a specific language are able to implement SMS solutions too.

More information is available – just follow the link to our SMS solutions page now.

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