No Business Can Afford to Ignore Mobile Phone Users

July 2, 2018July 2, 2018 / nancyrubin

Mobile phone users are no longer a market segment you can afford to ignore.

As of 2018, 52.2% of all web traffic was attributed to smartphone users. Compared to the 0.7% of all traffic in 2009, that is a dramatic increase that has been on an upward trend year to year.

Some of this success can be attributed to the fact that smartphones have become more accessible and a lot more useful. The rise in functionality has led us to a stage where our smartphone’s ability to make or receive call is a minor function and no longer the main purpose of the phone.

For businesses, this opens a whole range of marketing possibilities.

Mobile marketing is a cost-effective way of getting your message across. You can choose to use a simple SMS campaign to promote your business or rely instead on a well-designed app to lead your clients to the actual point of buying.

How to Run An Effective Mobile Marketing Campaign

Know Your Market

It is marketing 101, you need to know who you are trying to reach with your marketing message.

What type of campaign would be the most effective?

If you have a target market full of tech-savvy users, a great app, for example, could be the way to go.

On the other hand, if your targeted audience still uses simple mobile phones to make calls, choosing a higher tech option would be the ideal way to scare them off.

What Does Your Market Want?

The best way to find out the answer to this question is to ask them. What are they looking for when it comes to communication from your company? What do they want to read, and what would they ignore?

The key to getting this kind of marketing right is to understand the needs of your consumers and to find out what they actually want. The better targeted your campaigns are, the more effective they are as well.

But enough theory. Let the numbers speak for themselves.

Link to the infographic https://appgeeks.org/blog/mobile-marketing-infographic/

4 Ways Management Can Use SMS to Optimize Workflow

July 19, 2017 / nancyrubin

SMS texting is a valuable tool to manage your HR team and optimize communication throughout your company. When you implement an SMS texting platform, you will see how text messaging boosts HR functions and makes communication easier. When you have a busy company, you’ll be able to send out meeting reminders to staff, let everyone know in an instant if you need to close, and even communicate to employees who are working off site with ease.

Send Out Meeting Reminders

In a busy company, it can be easy for your employees to get overwhelmed with the number of meetings being held. When you want to be sure that employees attend all necessary meetings, a quick text message reminds your employees that a meeting is about to occur. In addition, if you have an employee that has to attend specific trainings, you can keep them up to date using an SMS platform. You’ll be able to send out a reminder to specific employees about a training coming up and make sure that everyone has the trainings that they need.

Use SMS Texting for Emergencies

Text messaging boosts HR functions and allows you to reach all of your employees in an instant. Text messages are opened at a rate of more than 98%, which makes it clear that this is the best way to reach your staff in an emergency. If you have a security risk, a quick message sent out to your employees can let everyone know that they need to shelter in place. When you want to close for the day because of weather, you’ll be able to reach your employees fast before they leave for work in the morning.

Survey Employees to Make Your Business Stronger

You can send out a text message that includes a link to a survey to learn more about how satisfied your employees are. You can send out a text message after implementing a new strategy, asking your employees for feedback. When you want to know what your employees are thinking, a quick SMS survey can give you the answers you are looking for. When you aren’t sure if a new technique is working, just ask your employees and they will let you know.

Send Out Job Notifications Through Text Messaging

You can share job notifications with potential employees who have shown interest in your company through text messaging, or you can send out a message internally first. A text message can share a link to a new position you have open, and anyone that wants to consider the job can apply right through the link. It’s a great way to share internal job postings, as everyone will get the same access to the text message. When you use a job board website, anyone that signs up to receive text messages from your company will receive messages about new jobs.

Make Decisions Through Polling

When you have decisions to make for your company, send out a poll to your employees for input. For example, a quick survey to find out what your employees prefer for lunch at a training can make your employees feel taken care of. It’s easy to send out a quick text message, and it’s even easier for your employees to answer. While you can send out an email to poll your staff, text messages are read more quickly and more often.

Text messaging is an easy way to reach your employees and improve communication. Send out a quick survey, or let employees know about an upcoming training. Keep your employees informed through text messaging.

To learn more about how integrating an SMS software can improve HR communications, click here!

Author Biography:

Ken Rhie is the CEO of Trumpia, which earned a reputation as the most complete SMS solution including user-friendly user interface and API for mobile engagement, Smart Targeting, advanced automation, enterprise, and cross-channel features for both mass texting and landline texting use cases. Mr. Rhie holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. He has over 30 years of experience in the software, internet, and mobile communications industries.

5 Simple Ways #SMS Can Help Grow Your Business Today!

June 15, 2017June 15, 2017 / nancyrubin / 1 Comment

Finding ways to engage and communicate with your audience is an easy way to naturally grow your audience and your business. A technology method such as SMS text messaging can be especially effective. 98% of all text messages are opened, while just about 20% of emails are opened. Even better, 90% of all the text messages sent are actually opened within three minutes. If you want to send your audience a quick, simple message and make sure it gets read, you can’t beat SMS.

Here are five ways SMS can help you grow your business today:

Run a Contest

Perhaps the best way to build up your customer list is by offering something free. You can kill two birds with one stone by running contests via text message. Have your customers sign-up for a sweepstakes or answer a trivia question by sending a keyword to your dedicated short code. They’ll have a chance to win something and you’ll be able to send messages and be confident they’ll get opened.

Send Quick Reminders

With life being so busy today, it’s a huge deal to coordinate your schedule with clients and set up appointments. If they miss a meeting; however, it can be a huge hassle to get everything rescheduled. Thats time that could have been spent with other clients or important upcoming projects.

Sending SMS messages is a great way to remind your clients about appointments so they keep them. You can send a reminder a day, an hour, or even fifteen minutes before your meeting. Best of all, everything can be automated to save you even more time.

Offer Great Customer Service

Providing exceptional customer service builds your relationship with existing customers and gives them a reason to keep coming back. SMS is perfect because more than half of all U.S. consumers say they prefer text message support over other platforms. Having a two-way communication with your customers will not only give them instant answers, but also allow them to have a real conversation until the issue is resolved. Text message support is convenient, quick, and simple for both you and your customer. It also gives your customer a permanent record they can access quickly no matter where they are.

Create a Loyalty Program

A loyalty program is a great way to drive retention and reward your best customers. SMS allows you to easily facilitate your loyalty program. You can send your most loyal customers exclusive deals, such as discounts or early access to new products. If you don’t want to send too many coupons, you can simply use SMS to send your loyal customers information about future events or company announcements.

Drive In-Person Engagement

If you have a physical storefront or are meeting with prospects at an industry event or fair, you can use SMS text messages to engage with people nearby. Allow customers to join a drawing or answer surveys by simply texting you. If you want to send notifications or deals to people at your event, you can set up location-based filters to automatically send a message to anybody in a specific radius.

Growing a business can be tricky, but good communication helps. With the right SMS partner, you can run contests, send reminders, and drive engagement.

For more information on how integrating an SMS software can help you grow your business, click here!

Author Biography:

Is It Time to Boost Your SMS Marketing Campaigns?

November 28, 2015November 28, 2015 / nancyrubin

Taking advantage of SMS marketing is a great outreach approach for your business. However, not all SMS campaigns are built the same.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to give your tired, stale SMS marketing campaigns a much-needed boost.

Here are just a few examples of how to do exactly that:

Put Your Call to Action Front and Center

As with any marketing campaign, the success of SMS marketing relies heavily on the proper placement of the call to action. If it’s buried too deep within your SMS message, then your recipients and subscribers may never take advantage of your offers and promotions.

That’s why it’s important to put your CTA front and center.

Whether it’s a link to a mobile coupon or a redirect to further information on your website, your mobile CTA should be easy to find within in your marketing message.

It is okay to preface your call to action with some directions such as “Want more information? Click here … ” or “Visit our website to get the ball rolling”.

Because you don’t have much marketing real estate to play with in SMS messages, it’s also wise to imbed your CTA in the actual content within the message – doing so will also help put it in the spotlight.

Revamp Your Messages

If your SMS messages aren’t working, then your marketing campaigns never will. In order to give your SMS campaigns the boost they need, you may need to revamp your messaging strategy altogether.

The article, “Does Your SMS Marketing Campaign Need a Boost? Try One of These Creative Messages” mentions the advantages of overhauling your SMS campaigns.

For example, shortening your messages to well under 160 characters and eliminating those annoying abbreviations are all steps in the right revamp direction.

Additionally, starting with an attention grabbing word or sentences like “Sale” or “20% Off Everything” are just some of the ways you can encourage recipients and subscribers to keep reading.

Poll Your Way to Perfection

If your SMS campaigns don’t seem to be getting the traction they deserve, you may need to gather some opinions and thoughts from the source: your recipients.

By sending out SMS polls about your business’s marketing activities, you can get a first-hand look at what your business is doing right, and more importantly, what it’s doing wrong with its marketing efforts.

Your business can also use SMS polling to get an idea of the kinds of products and services your customers like the most.

Not every recipient will participate, but the ones who do will help improve your business simply by responding to the poll.

Get the Timing Right

Sometimes all it takes is a little timeline planning to boost your SMS marketing campaigns. If you use an automated service, make sure your SMS messages are sent at the most opportune time, such as late mornings, afternoons, and early evenings.

Likewise, if you’re promoting a national SMS campaign, don’t ignore the time zone changes. Sending an SMS marketing message an hour late or earlier makes a huge difference in its success.

When you’re ready to take your SMS marketing campaigns to the next level, consider some of the helpful pointers mentioned above.

About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including SMS campaigning and marketing.

Increase Your Store’s Mobile Subscriber List Today

November 10, 2015 / nancyrubin

SMS messaging is an effective but often overlooked method of marketing in the retail industry today. Customers have to opt in and give you permission, which often causes businesses to overlook this option in advertising.

However, as more people become mobile, this will become one of the most efficient and successful parts of a marketing strategy. You just have to learn how to help your list grow.

Promote It Everywhere

For starters, use all of your other marketing efforts to promote your SMS messaging. Mention it in flyers, in print, radio and TV ads, even on sales receipts or invoices.

Let your customers know they can sign up to receive important email messages from you. This is an effective way to combine online and offline marketing.

It doesn’t take up much room in your other campaigns, and it yields solid results.

Make a Strong Call to Action

Give customers a reason to sign up on your subscriber list. You may want to give away a freebie if they consent to be added. You can offer a discount, special deal or even early access to a new product.

People are more willing to receive text messages from you if they know they’ll be getting something in return.

Keep your message simple. “If you do this, you get this.” If you make the call to action too complicated, you’ll lose people.

This is especially true when you put the message on marketing tools people only see for a few minutes, such as billboards.

Don’t Forget about In-Store

Your highest conversion rates will come from people who are already interested in your products. They already know your value, and will be more likely to increase the time and money they spend with your company.

As the article, “How to Build Your Retail Store’s Mobile Subscriber List” says, put the information about signing up in the busiest areas of the store. This includes the cash register and front display areas.

Utilize Social Media

While a lot of people may like or follow your social media pages, you will gain more customers if you can convince them to sign up for your text messages. Invite them to share with their friends, and give them incentives for doing so.

Let everyone know what they can receive by being on your list. Make it concrete, such as “at least once a month, you’ll receive a 50% off coupon for a special product.” If this appeals to them, they’ll sign up.

They also know what to expect, and they won’t mind getting messages from you if they know there’s benefits for them.

Your SMS messaging campaign is only as good as the number of people on your subscriber list.

To get results from your text messages that translate into improving your bottom line, you must continue to add new people to your list.

Promote your text message marketing in every way possible and offer people a valid reason to sign up and you will see the results you are looking for.

About the Author: Joyce Morse is an author who writes on a variety of topics, including marketing and running a business.

Is Your #SMS #Marketing List Getting Traction?

October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 / nancyrubin

The only way your SMS marketing is going to gain any traction is if your customers know your campaigns exist. Fortunately, there are a number of easy ways to get some attention for your SMS subscriber lists and campaigns.

With successful mobile marketing in mind, here are a handful of handheld ways to advertise your mobile subscriber list:

Storefront Windows

In-store advertising is always effective; however it doesn’t do much for the general passerby. That’s why advertising your SMS marketing in your storefront windows can help gain traction with both your current customers as well as potential customers.

By displaying your SMS short-codes and subscriber info front and center in your storefront, you’ll encourage the out-and-about crowds to join your SMS campaigns.

As an added benefit, all it takes to join an SMS subscriber list is a quick short-code text.

This makes it convenient for customers and the general public alike to quickly join your SMS campaigns in the moment, when they first see your advertisement. Convenience like this helps boost subscription rates.

Checkout Lanes and Online Shopping Carts

If your storefront isn’t in a prime location or your business doesn’t have a physical location, you can always advertise your SMS subscriptions in customer checkout areas.

A well-placed SMS advertisement in your store’s checkout lanes will grab the attention of your customers, especially while they’re waiting in line.

As the following article looks at, your online shopping cart is just 1 of 5 places to advertise your SMS marketing list right now. By doing so, you’ll grab the attention of repeat customers and one-time shoppers alike.

To increase subscription rates, you can also offer discount codes to shoppers who sign-up for your SMS list during online checkout.

Website Homepage

There’s a pretty good chance your business website already gets a lot of attention, so why not increase your marketing potential by advertising your SMS subscription list on your website homepage.

Doing so will put your SMS campaigning in the spotlight each time someone visits your site.

If your homepage isn’t your site’s actual landing page, then it’s perfectly fine to advertise your SMS subscriber list on multiple pages on your site. Just make sure you don’t saturate your site with ads – it’ll take away from more important content.

Social Media

When it comes to customer outreach, social media should never be overlooked.

It just so happens social media sites like Facebook and Twitter compliment SMS campaigning quite nicely.

By including SMS short-codes and subscription opportunities within your social posts, you can advertise your mobile campaigns to a massive social audience.

Other Marketing Channels

You can also include your SMS marketing lists in your other marketing channels.

Whether your business takes advantage of traditional online marketing, email marketing, or any of the promotional opportunities in between, SMS subscription campaigns are easy to include in just about any form of marketing.

From storefronts to online shopping carts to the vast social media environment, it’s plain to see that there are endless ways to promote your SMS marketing list.

About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including online marketing and mobile technology.

Texting Partnerships Can Open Doors to New Business

September 25, 2015 / nancyrubin

With just about every type of consumer adopting a mobile lifestyle, there’s never been a better time than now for your business to join forces with a text messaging service.

That’s right, partnering with a texting service can help bring your customer outreach efforts to new heights.

Here’s how:

Pricing Flexibility

Marketing and promoting your business can be an expensive endeavor. Not only does the marketing process itself cost money, but the time it takes to build and distribute campaigns takes a lot of time too, which of course translates to money.

By partnering with a text messaging service, your business can significantly reduce the time and costs involved with marketing.

For starters, most texting services offer flexible pricing plans based on the number of texts you want to distribute each month. Likewise, text message service providers can also manage your text subscriptions as well as when your campaigns are distributed.

Because text messages are brief and easily customizable, it’s fast and easy to create your campaigns, which also saves your business tons of time in the customer outreach department.

Mass Outreach

The goal of any business is to reach as many customers as possible with each marketing campaign.

Although it is possible for your business to reach mass status by going at it alone, partnering with a text messaging service can make the outreach process much easier.

As the following article looks at, if you’re wondering how partnering with a texting service can benefit your business, just think about the outreach potential that going mobile provides.

With the right texting service on your side, you’ll reach more customers than you ever thought possible directly on their mobile devices.

Unparalleled Open Rates

It doesn’t matter how well structured, engaging, or informative your marketing campaigns are if your recipients don’t open them. Fortunately, text message marketing has open rates that far exceed email and traditional online marketing.

Because marketing messages are immediate, personal, and they are sent directly to the palms of your customers’ hands, open rates naturally skyrocket. That’s why it’s so important for your business to team up with a texting service as soon as possible.

Text message service providers will make sure your marketing messages get to everyone on your subscriber list.

Likewise, text services will also keep track of your open rates and let you know which campaigns are effective and which need some more work.

Structured Delivery

Timing is absolutely everything in the marketing world.

Sending a campaign at the most opportune time increases the chances of making a sale. On the flip side of the marketing coin, sending a campaign too early or too late could result in your marketing message never even being read.

By teaming with a text message service, you’ll have the ability to schedule the delivery of your texts. All you have to do is select the date and time as well as which customers receive the message and the texting service will take care of the rest. It’s that easy.

If your business is looking to increase its marketing efforts, then it’s time to partner up with a text messaging service.

About the Author: Adam Groff is a freelance writer and creator of content. He writes on a variety of topics including mobile marketing and campaigning.