Salons and spas

Marketing and promotion

• Consumers opt-in to a mobile marketing list and the salon or individual beautician can then send special offers, coupons, or event notifications.
• Segment the list down to those who want to be notified about specific events, like peel or Botox parties, and send text message invitations that recipients can then forward to their friends.
• Run contests where a beautician or salon gives away a free haircut and color if consumers text in. Providing incentives to opt-in works wonders.
• Track when a customer last visited and program the system to automatically send them a reminder text message three to four weeks later to return.

Utility — consumers

• Send a text message instead of leaving a robo-dialer appointment reminder voicemail. Consumers constantly share their frustration with long voicemail messages, which they dread the prospect of listening to. Integrate the appointment system with a text messaging platform that sends out text reminders automatically. Statistics show that 95% of text messages are opened within 5-14 minutes [1] and can reduce no-shows by up to 70% [2].
• Don’t make customers waste time waiting around in the lobby. Have them check in at the counter and provide their cell number to the receptionist. When the beautician frees up, they can send a text message to the customer to come back in.
• Start an “ask us anything” campaign. Consumers can text in their questions and get answers directly on their cell phones from professional beauticians. Build rapport with customers, capture their information and then ask them to come in for a service (or just use it to build brand value). At the very least, you can find out which services potential customers are most interested in when you develop marketing initiatives.
• Run feedback campaigns with subscribers, asking them what they most enjoyed or disliked about their experience. Consumers can text back free-form responses, which can then be organized and cleaned up for reporting and evaluation purposes.

Utility — internal

• Beauticians are rarely sitting in front of their computers waiting for emails or available. Calling each one individually is a management nightmare. Use SMS to communicate time-sensitive information to the entire staff in seconds. Staff can be segmented down by specialty, location and more so a manager only needs to select the recipients, type up the message and hit “send.”
• Use SMS to run polls across the organization. Does the majority of your staff like chocolate or vanilla ice cream with their cake? How about finding out which hair style or nail color is in season?
• Similar to polling, use SMS as an RSVP application to see who can make it to, say, a training session.
• Finding a replacement for an absent beautician is often a challenge. Send a text message to those with the day off and offer a small bonus to the first that can take the appointment. Someone will grab it quickly.
• When beauticians encounter a support or maintenance issue, have the staff text in the problem. Requests can be organized, routed and responded to quickly when in an inbox, manually or with more automation. Staff will love it because they don’t have to call in, wait on hold or turn on a computer.

Beauty schools

Marketing and promotion

You can use SMS to improve recruitment campaigns.

• Most schools do out-of-home advertising; flyering, outdoor, TV and radio advertising. These methods rely on “ad recall rates,” which means they’re betting that potential students will later remember the ads they’ve come across. Use SMS to extend that advertising without incurring any marginal printing costs by including an opt-in call to action along with an incentive for the prospect to text in. When they do, you capture their phone number for later followup or as part of a drip campaign.
• When a recruiter goes into a high school or university to pass out flyers or to make a presentation, ask the student audience to text in their email addresses. Have the system send each student an email automatically containing a special prize or other offer. The recruiter now has access to all of the phone numbers and email addresses for further followup.

Utility

• Use SMS to quickly find a substitute teacher. Maintain a small database of all available substitutes and send out a text message to all those that might be interested. First one to reply can fill the slot.
• Communicate school delays, closings, lockdowns, or other time-sensitive information to all students, parents and staff at once.

We’ve deployed some version of all of these applications in the past. If you’re curious about how they work, feel free to get in touch!

Sources
[1] Jared Reitzin, MobileStorm, 2009
[2] Recess Mobile internal research

Some notable points:

• “The confluence of these three factors (computing, connectivity and the cloud) means your phone is your alter ego, an extension of everything we do. Here, right now, we understand the new rule is ‘mobile first’ in everything. Our job is to make mobile be the answer to everything.” Eric Schmidt, Google CEO
• “91% of the planet keep the mobile phone within arm’s reach 24/7. It is literally the last thing we look at before we go to sleep and again the first thing we see when we wake up.”  - Morgan Stanley, 2007
• 91% mobile penetration in the U.S. (CTIA, 2010)
  • Over 100% penetration for U.S. population over 5 years old (CTIA, 2010)
• 4.6 billion active global mobile subscriptions (Tomi Ahonen, 2010)
  • Compare that to 1.2B PC users and 1.3B landline users
• 3.6 billion global users of SMS (Tomi Ahonen, 2010)
  • Compare that to 1.4B email users and 1.7B MMS users
• 4.5 trillion messages sent globally (CTIA, 2009)
• 95% of SMS messages read within 4-15 minutes (Jared Reitzin, MobileStorm, 2009)
• “SMS usage is expected to grow by 22% in 2010, to – 5.5 Trillion total SMS text messages sent globally. The big driver in the SMS traffic now is North America…” (Tomi Ahonen, 2010)
• Quite a bit of SMS usage by 25-54 age range (see slide #87)

Anyway, enjoy the slides and feel free to post any questions.

From the MMA Best Practices, the source of all the pull quotes in this post:

It is fundamental to the concept of control that a subscriber maintains the ability to stop participating and receiving messages from a shortcode program when desired.

As soon as a user subscribes to your program, you must explicitly tell them how to opt-out, and they must be able to do so at any time. It’s an important measure against abuse, as any ethical marketer would agree.

That said, consider the well-intentioned, but rigidly applied opt-out workflow within a complex chat application. How do we discount the false positives?

The notable stipulation is that “Shortcode programs should support mixed case opt-out commands and ignore subsequent non-keyword text.” Consider the challenges of adhering to these restrictions while building innovative applications.

The CTIA seems to believe that SMS is strictly for coupons, as evinced by their dated use of ‘campaign’ as a catchall term to represent any SMS-driven program. For those of us building real, robust SMS applications (and who consequently take opt-outs more seriously than marketers because it reflects not mere attrition, but a failure of service), it’s an anachronism, if not an insult. A topic for another day.

Keywords you’re required to respond to with an opt-out:

You’re allowed to initiate opt-outs based on other keywords of your choice, but must respond to at least the five keywords above. And, apparently for consistency, you must send an opt-out confirmation message in response to any of these keywords, even if the user isn’t subscribed to any program at all. For instance, a user may text in STOP as their first message to your system and you must send back a proper opt-out response, pretending that everything is normal. The same applies to users texting into a programs that sends only one-time messages. If they text in STOP after that (even though there’s no subscription to end), you must pretend to opt them out. It’s all very Victorian.

Needless to say, but they say it anyway, “The STOP command should never result in an error being sent back to the subscriber.”

A STOP request should result in a message (MT) sent to the subscriber:

…This should not be a premium message. This message should reference the specific program the subscriber has opted-out from. No further messages should be sent to the subscriber from this program, including marketing messages for any related or unrelated programs.

Opt-out confirmation message

Multiple choice menus

For subscribers who’ve opted into multiple programs, a simple STOP request isn’t sufficiently descriptive. Rather than opting them out of all programs at once, you need to present a multiple choice menu.

You are required to present STOP ALL as the final choice in the menu, and respond to STOP ALL at any time by opting users out of all subscribed programs (even if it’s only one, or, as we learned above, none).

The menu need not include:

• “Msg&Data Rates May Apply” – by the way, this copy changes every once in a while, rarely becoming more elegant; classic committee-generated results. At least it’s now standardized across the carriers. It used to be worse.
• Pricing
• Sponsor contact information

Much like the Help menu, this could look like:

Subscribed to multiple programs. Rply w one of the following to stop:
A) First program
B) Second program
C) Another program
or STOP ALL
More, recessmobile.com

A reply with one of the options would return the appropriate opt-out confirmation message. I would suggest accepting anything from “A” followed by any text as well as the words “First program.” If users are going to the trouble of calling up a menu and replying to it, it’s clear that they want out, so make it easy for them. Subscribers who don’t want to be there will cost you more in the long-term and it’s in yours and your users’ best interest to do more than merely follow the letter of the law here.

This isn’t a common worfklow, though. Most systems aren’t sophisticated enough to pick up on these types of open-ended responses, so you’re typically stuck with something that more closely resembles the example in the MMA handbook:

Farm League Baseball: which service to stop?
4 Sports txt STOP SPORT or
4 Horoscope txt STOP HORO

And subscribers would reply with “STOP HORO” to end the Horoscope program. This is just lazy user experience design and engineering, not worthy of being a canonical example. Not to mention that they ignore their own requirement of including STOP ALL as the final option. Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.

Additional notes

For those doing IVR (those automated phone trees) opt-ins:

Any IVR system that offers the possibility to opt-in to a mobile service must also offer the possibility to opt-out. This should be available through the IVR, customer service, a web site, or SMS.

And be aware that users will try to opt-out by non-standard means (so much for the universality of STOP). Users text in crazy, crazy things.

Content providers should periodically scan their MO logs for subscribers that are clearly trying to unsubscribe to a service, but are not following the programmed rules. And then take the action to end their subscription based on those MO logs.

Log everything:

The content provider (or the aggregator) should record and store all opt-out transactions.

…

Independent of method of entry (SMS, MMS, Web, WAP, IVR) opt-in and opt-out records – including single, double and triple opt-in records – should be retained from the time the subscriber opts-in until a minimum of six months after the subscriber has opted-out of the program (minimum opt-in archiving period is one calendar year). These records should be made available to the aggregator or carrier upon request.

All references are straight from the MMA guidelines and clarified where necessary.

Your program must respond to requests for help. From the MMA guide:

To help subscribers understand their participation, each program should respond with the program details listed below when the subscriber sends the keyword HELP to the program shortcode if they are only subscribed to one service.

Any time a user texts in “HELP” or “HLP” – HLP is optional, but recommended – to your shortcode, you need to return a message containing the following information (italics from the MMA document):

1. Identify of program sponsor (defined as the program name, company name, or brand associated with the campaign)
2. Customer support info (either a toll-free number or web address). For PSMS campaigns, carriers like to see both. Including an email address is just polite.
3. Service description of program.
4. Service price—For example, $0.99 per mobile originated message; $3.99 per month. This applies largely to Premium campaigns. In this case, we’re using a Standard-rate campaign as an example, which means that while we don’t charge anything, the user’s carrier might, and we have to make that explicit.  Neither the wording or the bizarre capitalization is ours – all courtesy of our friends at the MMA.
5. Opt-out information
6. Privacy statement, if applicable.

The message above, reprinted for easy copying:

Recess – company news alerts. More at recessmobile.com or email help@recessmobile.com.

Txt STOP to end. Msg&Data Rates may apply.

T&Cs: recessmobile.com

Another case to be aware of is when a user is subscribed to multiple programs. In those cases, you need to return a list of choices for them to reply to for more information. The menu doesn’t need most of the information described above. You can leave out:

• “Msg&Data Rates May Apply”
• STOP
• Pricing
• Sponsor contact information

An example menu:

Subscribed to multiple programs. Rply w one of the following for info:

A) First program

B) Second program

C) Another program

More, recessmobile.com

Now, you have to determine how you want to handle replies, which can get tricky. Do you want to accept anything that starts with A, B, or C? Do you accept “First program” as a legitimate response? What if you have other keywords active within the same session which overlap with these answers? Do you iterate your multiple choice list?

Additional information, from the MMA:

• Help messages do not need to contain renewal date information.
• Should there be multiple programs running on the shortcode, the subscriber can be directed to a Web site, WAP site, SMS quiz session, or toll-free number that provides a better customer care experience, as long as basic information about the program is in the help reply message. A help menu is preferred over sending the consumer to these places for help. The help menu content descriptions are outlined above.
• Where there is no shortcode initiating access to the service, help must be provided as a link from WAP payment presentation pages. This page containing help should, at a minimum, identify services that are currently opted into, opt-out (cancellation) information, pricing and payment terms. It is recommended that a PC-accessible web site is provided into which a user entering their cell phone number can retrieve detailed information on all live services provided by that program sponsor.

Outside of what you’re required to do, here are some introductory tips for running a successful campaign.

Aliant (NBTel, MTT, NewTel, and Island Tel)
Send email to number@chat.wirefree.ca

Alltel
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@message.alltel.com.

Ameritech (ACSWireless)
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@paging.acswireless.com

Arch Wireless
Enter your phone number. Sent via http://www.arch.com/message/ (assumes blank PIN)

AT&T
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@txt.att.net

AU by KDDI
Enter your phone number. Goes to username@ezweb.ne.jp

BeeLine GSM
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@sms.beemail.ru

Bell Mobility Canada
Enter your phone number, including the 1 prefix. Goes to number@txt.bellmobility.ca

Bellsouth
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@bellsouth.cl

BellSouth Mobility
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@blsdcs.net

Blue Sky Frog
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@blueskyfrog.com

Boost
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@myboostmobile.com

Cellular South
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@csouth1.com

CellularOne (Dobson)
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@mobile.celloneusa.com

CellularOne West
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@mycellone.com

Centennial Wireless
Enter your phone number. Sent via http://www.centennialwireless.com

Cincinnati Bell
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@gocbw.com

Claro
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@clarotorpedo.com.br

Comviq
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@sms.comviq.se

Dutchtone/Orange-NL
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@sms.orange.nl

Edge Wireless
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@sms.edgewireless.com

EinsteinPCS / Airadigm Communications
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@einsteinsms.com

EPlus
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@smsmail.eplus.de.

Estonia Mobile Telefon
Enter your phone number. Sent via webform.

Fido Canada
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@fido.ca.

Golden Telecom
Enter your phone number or nickname. Messages are sent to number@sms.goldentele.com

Idea Cellular
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@ideacellular.net

Kyivstar
Sent by addressing the message to number@sms.kyivstar.net

LMT
Enter your username. Goes to username@sms.lmt.lv

Manitoba Telecom Systems
10-digit phone number. Goes to @text.mtsmobility.com

Meteor
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@sms.mymeteor.ie

Metro PCS
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@mymetropcs.com

Metrocall Pager
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@page.metrocall.com

MobileOne
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@m1.com.sg

Mobilfone
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@page.mobilfone.com

Mobility Bermuda
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@ml.bm

MTS Primtel
Enter your phone number. Sent via web gateway.

Netcom
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@sms.netcom.no

Nextel
10-digit phone number. Goes to 10digits@messaging.nextel.com. Note: do not use dashes in your phone number.

NPI Wireless
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@npiwireless.com.

NTC
Enter your phone number. Sent via web gateway.

O2 (formerly BTCellnet)
Enter O2 username – must be enabled first at http://www.o2.co.uk. Goes to username@o2.co.uk.

O2 M-mail (formerly BTCellnet)
Enter phone number, omitting initial zero – must be enabled first by sending an SMS saying “ON” to phone number “212″. Goes to +44[number]@mmail.co.uk.

Optus
Enter your phone number. Goes to @optusmobile.com.au

Orange (UK)
Enter your phone number. Goes to @orange.net. You will need to create a user account at orange.net first.

Oskar
Enter your phone number. Goes to @mujoskar.cz

Pagenet
10-digit phone number (or gateway and pager number separated by a period). Goes to number@pagenet.net.

PCS Rogers
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@pcs.rogers.com. Requires prior registration with PCS Rogers.

Personal Communication (Sonet)
Enter your phone number. Goes to sms@pcom.ru with your number in the subject line.

Plus GSM Poland
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@text.plusgsm.pl.

Powertel
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@ptel.net

Primtel
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@sms.primtel.ru

PSC Wireless
Enter your phone number. Goes to number@sms.pscel.com

Qualcomm
Enter your username. Goes to username@pager.qualcomm.com

Qwest
10-digit phone number. Goes to @qwestmp.com

Safaricom
Goes to @safaricomsms.com

Satelindo GSM
Goes to @satelindogsm.com

SCS-900
Goes to @scs-900.ru

Simple Freedom
Goes to @text.simplefreedom.net

Skytel – Alphanumeric
Enter your 7-digit pin number as your number and your message will be mailed to pin@skytel.com

Smart Telecom
Enter your phone number. Goes to @mysmart.mymobile.ph

Smarts GSM
Enter your phone number. Sent via http://www.samara-gsm.ru/scripts/smsgate.exe

Southern Linc
Enter your 10-digit phone number. Goes to @page.southernlinc.com

Sprint PCS
Enter your 10-digit phone number. Goes to @messaging.sprintpcs.com

Sprint PCS – Short Mail
Enter your phone number. Goes to @sprintpcs.com

SunCom
Enter your number. Email will be sent to number@tms.suncom.com.

SureWest Communications
Enter your phone number. Message will be sent to number@mobile.surewest.com

SwissCom Mobile
Enter your phone number. Message will be sent to number@bluewin.ch

T-Mobile Germany
Enter your number. Email will be sent to number@T-D1-SMS.de

T-Mobile Netherlands
Send “EMAIL ON” to 555 from your phone, then enter your number starting with 316. Email will be sent to number@gin.nl

T-Mobile UK
Messages are sent to number@t-mobile.uk.net

T-Mobile USA
Messages are sent to number@tmomail.net

T-Mobile USA (Sidekick)
Messages are sent to username@tmail.com

Tele2 Latvia
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@sms.tele2.lv.

Telefonica Movistar
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@movistar.net

Telenor
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@mobilpost.no.

Telia Denmark
8-digit phone number. Goes to number@gsm1800.telia.dk.

Telus Mobility
10-digit phone number. Goes to 10digits@msg.telus.com.

The Phone House
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@sms.phonehouse.de.

TIM
10-digit phone number. Goes to number@timnet.com.

UMC
Sent by addressing the message to number@sms.umc.com.ua

Unicel
Sent by addressing the message to number@utext.com

US Cellular
Enter a 10 digit USCC Phone Number. Messages are sent to number@email.uscc.net

Verizon Wireless
Enter your 10-digit phone number. Messages are sent via email to number@vtext.com.

Verizon Wireless (formerly Airtouch)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@airtouchpaging.com. This is ONLY for former AirTouch customers. Verizon Wireless customers should use Verizon Wireless instead.

Verizon Wireless (myairmail.com)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent via to number@myairmail.com.

Vessotel
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to roumer@pager.irkutsk.ru.

Virgin Mobile Canada
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@vmobile.ca.

Virgin Mobile USA
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@vmobl.com.

Vodafone Italy
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@sms.vodafone.it

Vodafone Japan
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@n.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Hokkaido)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@d.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Hokuriko/Central North)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@r.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Kansai/West — including Osaka)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@k.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Kanto/Koushin/East — including Tokyo)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@t.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Kyuushu/Okinawa)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@q.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Shikoku)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@s.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Touhoku/Niigata/North)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@h.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Japan (Toukai/Central)
Enter your phone number. Messages are sent to number@c.vodafone.ne.jp

Vodafone Spain
Enter your username. Messages are sent to username@vodafone.es

Vodafone UK
Enter your username. Messages are sent to username@vodafone.net

Voicestream
Enter your 10-digit phone number.

Weblink Wireless
Enter your phone number. Goes to @airmessage.net

WellCom
Enter your phone number. Goes to @sms.welcome2well.com

WyndTell
Enter username/phone number. Goes to @wyndtell.com

Regulations and best practices for SMS messages are governed by the Mobile Marketing Association, which publishes a code of conduct and a best practices guide for use by those involved in mobile messaging activities. Ultimately, all SMS messages sent using Recess Mobile applications must include the following elements.

Double-Opt In

Your SMS messages must include a double opt-in process, where the subscriber confirms twice that they wish to receive SMS messages from you. For example, an MO JOIN message would prompt the following MT reply:

Reply YES to receive Example.com Sales. 1 or more msgs/day 4 desired alerts. Reply STOP 2 end. HELP 4 info. Msg&Data Rates May Apply.

From there, a MO YES message would prompt the following MT reply:

Your 1st alert will arrive soon. Reply STOP to end, Help 4 info. Msg&Data Rates May Apply.

Single Opt-Out

Your SMS messages must include a single opt-out process that immediately discontinues sales and marketing SMS messages to a subscriber. For example, a MO STOP message would prompt the following MT reply:

You have opted out of future Example.com alert msgs. For more information reply HELP or visit http://www.recessmobile.com

Help

Your SMS messages must include a HELP message with the following information:

• A clear declaration of company name or applicable program
• a web link with mobile program details and terms and conditions
• a toll-free customer service phone number

For example, an MO HELP request would prompt the following MT message:

For more info: http://www.example.com/mobilealerts, email: help@example.com or call 1.866.555.1111. Reply STOP to stop. Msg&data rates may apply.

**Mandatory Message and Data Rates Update

Beginning October 1, 2009, the phrase “Standard Message charges apply” is no longer acceptable. For all digital advertising formats and message flows, one of the following phrases must be used in its place:

• Message and Data Rates May Apply
• Msg&Data Rates May Apply
• Msg&data rates may apply
• Msg&data rates may aply

And now for something completely different: Text/Messages: Books by Artists. Incidentally, I’d love to see card catalogs replaced or enhanced with text messages.

Take a look at this idea, Hansel and Gretel Marketing, as implemented at Barney’s. This would be an awesome use case for text messaging. From the linked article, here’s how it works:

1) A computer system at Barneys tracks the weekly spend of their regular clients by looking at data from the client’s Barneys credit card (this is another reason besides high interest rates why department stores push so hard for their credit cards: They can track individual customers).

2) When weekly spend for a customer drops below a certain threshold, an automated alert is triggered: They assign one of their employees the task of handwriting a letter to that customer, enticing them to come into the store for a free facial.

3) Customer comes into the store for a free facial (who can resist?), but it’s too late. The allure of the store is too hard to resist. Weekly spend on the department credit card is back up to normal.

And:

We have this question today, this question of where mobile devices will go in the future. So the question at hand is, ‘What is mobility, really?’ And in my view, mobility is not the device. It’s not the network. It is the mobile experience.

Mobility as a term has existed for quite some time, and for most of the time it has been synonymous with ‘cellular network’ and ‘device’. This is because cellular networks were the first time we were truly free of wires. I think this has changed though, mostly because of the massive, enormous scale of adoption. More than three billion people on earth use a cellular device to communicate. Every second, four babies are born. In that same second, thirty mobile devices are sold. And we’re just now starting to see the innovation beyond mere two-way communication in mobility.

- Padmasree Warrior, CTO Cisco

1. Don’t even think about doing it the illegal way.

Probably one of the most important characteristics to consider is the inability to spam via text. Due to U.S. mobile regulations, it’s very difficult (and expensive) to spam using SMS. If consumers are receiving spam, they can simply dial their service provider (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) and inform them that unauthorized messages from number xxxxxx are being sent to them. Guess who wins in this situation? Unlike email, SMS is hosted and controlled by a higher authority, an authority who can shut down spammers in no time. side note – stay away from SMTP email-to-text services, they don’t offer the proper opt-out functionality due to their one-way nature and are unreliable at larger scale campaigns.

2. You basically have three (legitimate) options.

Although this is somewhat true from an overview perspective, I think you actually have quite a bit more options. SMS and mobile services are becoming more and more common due to the ubiquitous nature of mobile phones, and it’s not difficult to find the service that best suits your needs. There are also hundreds of existing services that are incorporating SMS to make your lives easier. Most obvious example being Google Calendar offering SMS alerts, event creation, and more.

3. Text marketing can be supported by traditional marketing.

We couldn’t agree more. If you’re already running advertising campaigns through traditional media (print, TV, radio) there is no incremental cost to add an additional call to action (text KEYWORD to 465637), but the additional benefit is tremendous. Along with the mentioned methods in the article, there are actually some much more creative and beneficial things you can do with SMS marketing, like A/B split testing. Here’s how it would work — let’s say that it’s a print ad with the same creative and same message, except you’d like to test out different call to actions or offers. Well you could create the same ad, but switch out the headline or call to action in each and associate each with a different keyword: “text KEYWORD1 to 465637 to get 50% off your next purchase” and “text KEYWORD2 to 465637 and get a free scarf with your next purchase” and “text KEYWORD3 to 465637 for a chance to win a trip for 2 to the Bahamas”. In a similar manner, you can test different pieces of content on the page, including graphics, headlines, and other pieces of the ad, all while building your subscriber list!

4. It is better to give than to receive.

This is really true with any sort of marketing. As our attention spans get shorter and marketers try harder and harder to capture them, permission based marketing and honest communication becomes more important every day. Although email remains a powerful communication tool to this day, it has certainly lost its marketing luster of the years due to its unrestricted access, low cost, and nonexistent barriers. Just like any other communication channel, SMS must be used carefully and with respect.

5. Don’t waste your time with one-offs.

This is not only a great point from just a strategic perspective, but it’s also a regulatory conundrum. Due to the strict regulation surrounding SMS marketing, the database of phone numbers you collect are tied to the shortcode (phone number – ours: 465637) that they originally subscribed to. If you’re using a shared shortcode, you can’t take those phone numbers with you if you transfer to a different shortcode. So if you’re going to put all your eggs in one basket, make sure you’re not going to be regretting it later.

6. Show restraint (and don’t get too cute).

All valid points