5 Profit-Producing Ideas That Will Explode Your Mobile Marketing

Campaign

1. Contests for your Customers. Who doesn't like contests? And text contests fill the bill nicely. Also known as text to win, these type promotions require participation by your audience in a contest or sweepstakes for a prize by sending a text message via their cell phone using Short Message Service (SMS) short code. Because of its simplicity and ease of use, text messaging enjoys the highest entry rate across all marketing channels.

Consumers are more likely to participate because of the easy, fast and instant contest confirmations. Contests also build customer anticipation and excitement while building your list of subscribers.

Contests also bring customers into your establishment, make it more likely they will purchase your product or services, and help you build your brand. To ensure maximum contest success make sure you have a desired prize, promote in consumer traffic spots, and make it easy for visitors to enter the contest. Feature your contest on in-store signs encouraging customers to text the contest keyword to a short code for a chance to win.

Contests additionally provide the opportunity for business owners to continue sending mobile alerts, coupons and special offers long after the contest is over. That's a win-win for both consumers and businesses alike.

2. Join the Club. Mobile Clubs, or Text Clubs, are quickly becoming a popular way to grab market share and increase customer relationships. Clubs provide a mechanism to communicate your offers, news, coupons and specials with customers. Getting sign-ups is as easy as encouraging users to opt-in to receiving ongoing text message alerts from your business.

Some retail stores have taken the lead in this area by establishing VIP membership clubs that offer customers early-bird information on new products, savings events, and special promotional offers. Members are able to control and customize which brands they'd like to receive notifications about.

It's an excellent method that allows business to keep customers appraised of in-store events and promotions.

3. Take Me Out To The Ballgame. Couple TV with text-to-screen and text interaction and you provide a fun and innovative way to communicate with you customers. Innovators in this arena are using Text to Screen, SMS Voting and Text Trivia to engage fans or participants at a variety of venues.

Text to Screen allows sporting attendees to text messages of support to a TV screen for everyone to see. SMS voting allows for instantaneous viewing of live voting results in real time. And trivia games allow attendees to interact with sponsors throughout the event. Take a tip from the NBA's Phoenix Suns and the National Hockey League's New York Islanders.

These methods work best in any venue where you have a captive consumer audience including restaurants, nightclubs, and retail stores. The opportunities to interact with your participants and achieve astounding results are truly limited only by your imagination.

4. Update Customers and Save Them Money. Use text message alerts (SMS alerts) to keep customers informed and your brand name in front of them. SMS alerts allow you to tell customers about your new product, sales events, and latest company or industry news. For example, a ski resort can keep its visitors informed about slope and weather conditions.

And it can also be used to offer discounts to encourage usage during slow days. Businesses can use SMS as a cost effective communication tool to build customer loyalty and savings.

5. Text voting and Customer feedback using Real-time Information. Text voting is a great method used by many companies to engage consumers. It also gives a chance for customers to provide useful feedback to business that, in turn, can help improve customer satisfaction and the business bottom-line.

The Bloomingdale department store uses and in-store text voting system which invites customer interaction. The system collects and captures customer details and responses to a mobile database so the information can be used later to market to participants in the future.