10 Creative Ways to Use Text Messaging In Your Marketing: Part I

The mobile marketing category is an understandably red-hot marketing topic.

As of May 2013, the number of mobile visits to business sites and social media accounted for 27 percent of all Web traffic according to the 2013 Q3 Walker Sands Mobile Traffic Report.

This means that for every 100 people who visit your website, 75 of them may be doing so from a mobile device, such as a cell phone or tablet computer. The numbers are even higher in some social media networks like Facebook.

Text messaging, however, is perhaps the most prevalent form of mobile communication and many marketers have stayed away from exploring it due in large part to the perception of spam.

Anyone that has received a spam text message may view that evil act as the only use of SMS and that would be a shame. The use of text messaging has skyrocketed. People now use it for basic one–to-one communication far more frequently than the telephone and this behavior calls for expanded thinking around the topic in general.

SMS may never really be that effective as a pure lead generation tool, like email or direct mail, but it is a very effective and convenient delivery mechanism for customers and prospects seeking specific actions and information. View it in that light and perhaps some creative uses leap to mind.

Newsletter sign-up

Using short code technology, a feature that allows users to text a word to a specific number to receive information, you can allow people to sign-up to your email newsletter. I like this approach because you can put the code on a business card or slide when speaking and make it very easy for people to subscribe with their phone on the spot.

The beauty of this approach is that you can marry mobile technology with your already established email technology and offline tactics to create a marketing lead without the need to ever send another text to the lead. There are several easy to use services great for this application

Real time appointments

Services such as salons, dentists and even restaurants can use text to fill gaps in the appointment schedule and offer busy customers the ability to come in now if it works.

This would certainly work for home service providers such as plumbers and window cleaners too. Imagine getting a text saying,“we could be at your home in thirty minutes.”

You could also flip this around and send out a list of open times and let people pick one. There are multiple services that provide very easy set up for this type of use.

What other creative ways can you integrate text messaging into your marketing campaign? Stay tuned for part II later this month to find out.

Until next time….

John

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Commitment Engine and The Referral Engine and the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.