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SMS marketing the simple way


Johannesburg, 17 Jul 2009

Advertisers are starting to realise that mobile marketing produces a high-volume hit rate, impressive uptake and a steep increase in brand impressions and sales.

As a result, more and more advertisers are beginning to test the waters with SMS marketing campaigns and getting some great results.

However, as mobile marketing is still in its early stages, customers may still be hesitant to try that short code you are showing them; users may also be slow to adopt these offers due to barriers such as perception of SMS cost, fear of getting spammed, unclear on the value of the incentive, perceived complexity of interacting with the SMS they get back and uncertainty about their phone's ability to support the incentive being offered.

Therefore, if and when a user does try an SMS campaign for the first time, he needs to have a smooth and successful experience or he is likely to lose his patience and never try again. And needless to say, the SMS campaign needs to actually work. It still happens, far too often, that they don't, even those of major brands.

Here are a few tips that will ensure that you don't disappoint your target customers if and when they decide to engage your brand with SMS interaction.

Why should they do it?

Main issue: What are users getting? If the item is not worthwhile users won't want it. It's as simple as that.

Also, don't use industry terms such as “get mobile content”. Be specific. The users need to know exactly what it is and why it's relevant and timely to them today. Don't just take them to a rich WAP site and hope they take action.

Keep it simple

SMS is inherently simple, so why make it complicated and run the risk of losing potential users? If the short code is kept simple and the keyword is kept simple then there is no reason for the expected result not to materialise.

Users expect to make a few clicks to get what they want, but will get turned off by too many steps or a complex WAP site. Find a healthy balance.

Great experiences are pain-free

Design an interaction that is fast, clear, easy and memorable. If you expect the user to go through too many hoops or have any patience, you'll lose him. For example, if you are delivering mobile video, make sure the video start-up time is fast and the image doesn't have any freezing or buffering. You have this chance to wow your users. Use it wisely.

Be careful of WAP

WAP can be tricky and isn't always a great experience, so don't just point your respondents to a rich WAP site and expect the sales to come rushing in. The biggest mistake most companies make is trying to simulate a desktop Web experience on a handheld WAP site. Limit your images, limit clickable links and limit the functionality.

From the WAP site, give your users some quick and easy actions that they can take, such as viewing videos or reading key content.

Choose SMS marketing that supports all phones and all networks.

Mobile campaigns will reach a much broader audience than you could imagine, so prepare to encounter every carrier scenario and thousands of device profiles.

Test all links

There are lots of steps and dependencies in an SMS marketing campaign. As a result, there are plenty of opportunities for failure. Make sure your campaign can handle high volume and various types of phones, networks, concurrent requests and error cases.

Always offer a consolation prize

In South Africa, most of your respondents will be on lower-end phones with slow data connections. Be smart enough to offer a consolation prize for users that can't fully experience what you offer.

To date, the most successful campaigns, think of Idols and other reality television shows, have focused on simple SMS responses. Make sure you “fail gracefully” by having a message that explains the situation and invites users to access your campaign in some other way. Something like: “We're sorry, but your phone does not support video. Please visit our Web site to see the video you requested,” might be appreciated.

Test, test, test

The last thing you want is to expose a campaign to hundreds of thousands of people and have it fail. Sadly, this happens all too frequently. Don't launch until you are sure nothing can go wrong.

Something will go wrong; react quickly

Once a campaign launches, something always goes wrong. That's a given and besides, you can't anticipate every scenario, but have your team ready to respond and fix any bugs as soon as possible.

Time is money and the more failed experiences that you create, the more negative impressions of your brand you are creating.

Learn, improve for next time

SMS campaigns are still relatively new. Even if your first attempt is not that successful, make sure that you learn from it for next time.

You will be shocked by the volume of responses you get first off and if you do a thorough analysis you can expect an even higher return on investment (ROI) the next time around.

Mobile marketing has huge potential to reach every target customer's device, so measure your campaign to confirm that it is worth your rand. It will be.

For mobile solutions contact: corne@integrat.co.za.

Information for this article was sourced from http://www.mobilemarketer.com.

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