Tuesday, May 1, 2012
By Julie Goldstein
In our modern busy world, it’s becoming harder and harder to not only reach your audience, but stick with them. Almost everyone has a cellphone or a smartphone nowadays, so a successful marketing campaign should include SMS text messaging. SMS marketing keywords are a great way of catching your audience’s attention, but how one uses this technology is critical. Let’s look at 5 interesting ways Callfire can help the efficacy of your mobile marketing by using keywords to attract your audience, stay connected to them and keep them notified: 1) Text Coupons. Gone are the days of going to the store with a giant stack of paper coupons. Now you can simply tell your customers to text message a keyword to receive a coupon code directly on their phone. Also, if you let your customers know that by doing so they are opting in to receive promotional texts, you now have a captive audience you can send future texts to. 2) Real Estate Listings. Potential renters and home buyers see a large number of properties. Why not make sure that the information (and possibly links to online listing) remains with them when they leave your listing? Having them text a keyword insures that your properties information is right there in the palm of their hand when they sit to contemplate the properties they’ve seen. 3) Concert / Event Promotions. Want to add another level of interactivity to your concert or event? Ask your audience to text message a keyword to be entered into a merchandise drawing. You can then randomly chose your winners from those who texted in. Also, just like with text coupons, you can make this an opt-in message to be able to send future promotional texts. 4) Opt-in / Opt-out. Text marketing is highly controlled by the FTC. Make sure you have permission to text your audience by creating a keyword that serves as a way for them to opt in or out of your promotional texts. 5) Television and Private Organization voting. Admit it, you’ve watched “American Idol” or “Dancing With The Stars” at some point. Reality Television was one of the earliest adopters of keyword texting. Why not follow their lead and use text marketing to set up a vote or suggestion system for your own private organization?