Text Message Marketing offers Affordable Advertising with immediate response for Small Business

How does the work and how do I use Text Marketing to grow my business?

Text message marketing is relatively new in the United States, but has been widely used in Europe and Asia over the past 5 or 6 years as an advertising medium at low cost with immediate results. Our first exposure, probably started by TV shows like American Idol, which allows us to vote for our favorite singers of the week with the text of the code of a singer to a short number called shortcode.

Today even small businesses take advantage of this system uses a shared shortcode and web based systems to manage their advertising campaigns at a very affordable cost. The way it works is making a call to action throughout your marketing as your vehicles, business cards, real estate yard signs, restaurant table tents, etc. These messages prompt users of mobile phones to send a text message to a shortcode number to receive something in return like a coupon or a free gift. The marketing text auto-replies with a personalized response. You now have a new contact to send proactive outbound marketing messages.

There are two types of options in the country:

Inbound:

This campaign was initiated by a mobile phone user to receive instant information about your products and services. This campaign also saves the persons mobile number in your contact list for future correspondence. With a shared shortcode this type of campaign is executed by using keywords.

For example a restaurant could offer a free desert as a call to action so that the keyword could be dessert. The user would have the text of the sweet word to shortcode like 12345.

Outbound:

You can send text marketing messages to a mobile phone user or list of users once they have opted-in to receive marketing text messages from you.

For example the restaurant referred to above can now send regular text coupons to everyone who has joined the campaign for dessert .......