5 digital strategies of mobile marketing

Businesses need to start adapting their marketing efforts to keep up with the advances in technology. Mobile device adoption rates are increasing at an incredible rate, surpassing 80% in 2016 alone. Even more importantly, average smartphone conversion rates are up 64% compared to the average desktop conversion rates for e-commerce alone. In today's digital and interconnected world, the importance of tailoring marketing efforts so they are mobile-friendly cannot be overstated.

The following are five considerations on the importance of mobile marketing that marketers need to evaluate as part of their digital strategy:

1. Time Spent On Mobile Devices Is Increasing

In 2016, Americans spent an average of 10 hours per day on mobile devices. Nearly a third of this time was spent on smartphones or tablets, according to eMarketer. This means that the average American spends over 500 hours per year navigating websites or talking on their mobile device, providing ample opportunity to capture their attention and get them discussing your business on a device they use so frequently as part of their daily lives. Advertising trends are also responding to this development: It is estimated that by 2019, nearly 72% of marketing dollars will be spent developing apps and advertisements for mobile platforms.

2. Mobile Commerce And Mobile Marketing Go Hand-In-Hand

Consumers are using their mobile devices to purchase items from Amazon, eBay and other e-commerce platforms. Businesses as large as Walmart and as small as mom and pop shops are recognizing this, and developing user-friendly portals and websites to facilitate sales. In fact, it is projected that by the end of 2017, 60% of e-commerce visits will start on a mobile device. Businesses that develop integrated mobile campaigns that guide consumers from product introduction to sale will see a considerable boost in revenue.

3. Shoppers Purchase In Stores

Mobile technology gives consumers the opportunity to shop and compare while they walk down the store aisle. Businesses that have active mobile marketing campaigns can take advantage of this: Search engine optimization and an easily navigable website can give your business an edge when the consumer is ready to purchase. Moreover, search engines are altering their algorithms to give higher preference to mobile-friendly sites. This creates the need for businesses to improve their web presence and tie new forms of automated marketing into their operations.

4. Short Message Service (SMS) Open Rates Are Higher Than Email

SMS has an open rate of 98%, and up to 90% of people who open the message will read it within three seconds. This is far higher than email marketing or other digital channels. Tailoring your SMS messages so they appeal to prospective customers will give them a reason to further research your products or services, and they will likely start on the device in which they just received the message.

5. Mobile Marketing Reaches A Broader Market

Smartphones and tablets are becoming increasingly popular tools for communication across all demographics. They are smaller, lighter, cheaper and more portable than computers and laptops. Manufacturers are also responding to consumer demand and developing faster, more powerful and less expensive mobile devices. These developments mean that marketers have a golden opportunity to put their marketing messages into the hands of their consumers, and mobile allows marketers and advertisers to reach a much wider audience by doing so.

Digital marketing is continually evolving, and mobile marketing plays a key role in that strategy. The shift toward mobile devices is a trend that will continue to progress, and businesses need to ensure they have a cohesive mobile marketing plan to connect with those digital consumers.

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which mobile messaging apps rules the middle east nations

In this post we look at the most dominant and popular messaging apps across MIDDLE EAST  and GULF COUNTRIES 

Iran :Telegram  leads as the number one spot in Iran.Meanwhile  Viber was the dominant messaging app used for text messaging and cellular calling in Iran. However wave of negative opinions rose against Viber regarding the countrie’s data security. Soon more server conflicts appeared which caused Viber users to switch their daily text messaging app to WhatsApp, Line and later Telegram. It was at this time were Telegram users grew to a point which is now the main messaging app Iranians use. WhatsApp is mostly used by those who communicate with contacts in foreign countries which is a small percentage comparing to Telegram users in Iran. With Telegram’s social media functionalities, it has also become the most popular social media platform for IRAN

Turkey:WhatsApp ;WhatsApp  remains the most popular mobile app messaging platform app across Turkey . Facebook Messenger app is also very popular among the younger generation. Turkey’s rising internet and telecom infrastructure has driven many users to these apps in the past 6 years. Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile network also developed its own messaging app for its network subscribers called BiP. After WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, BiP could be considered as the third most popular messaging app in Turkey. 

Egypt: WhatsApp .Whatsapp remains the most popular messaging app of choice in a nation of   80 million  Like Turkey, Facebook messenger as second popular in Egypt. WhatsApp’s users in Egypt are usually the ones that do not have a Facebook account, hence using WhatsApp as the app of choice.

Iraq: Telegram .Along with Iran Telegram is also the dominant messaging app used in Iraq as it has become popular with the youth lately. The app has gotten more popular in the past 12 months. Facebook messenger is also popular with the younger generation along with  WhatsApp and Viber Viber is the number one  the app of choice for cellular calls. 

Saudi Arabia :WhatsApp : In Saudi Arabia  Whatsapp has always been numero uno messaging app platform . Back in the 2013 during the  Arab spring  revolution messaging apps like Viber got banned because they couldn’t blend in with the Saudi laws. Skype over cellular network and WhatsApp calls are also banned in the country.The country's  high internet penetration rate,makes it a lucrative market for other social media giants like snapchat which is  the second most popular messaging/social media app in the country. Line is also another app that is widely used and has  become popular for internet calling lately. 

 Gulf Council Countries :Whatsapp is the number one mobile app across  GCC countries which includes UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan) :Facebook messenger and Snapchat are also the other popular communication apps across these nation.However  some of these countries like UAE also have strict regulations towards some of these apps. WhatsApp call and Skype via Cellular internet are also banned in the UAE which caused some of the residence to download IMO for cellular calls. 

 Lebanon, and Jordan. Whatsapp leads across these 2 nations .However  across the  GCC countries, popularity of Snapchat is much lower. Facebook messenger is widely popular among the youth however the number of messenger app users does not exceed more than the two country’s whatsapp users. Viber is mostly used for internet calling rather than text messaging in these countries.

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importance of text instant messaging for product promotions

In present world, everyone uses a smartphone, and nearly everybody can content. Many individuals consider messaging to be their favoured strategy for correspondence, so it's critical for organizations to have the capacity to connect with the masses through this prevalent medium.

Instant message showcasing helps you associate with your crowd of purchasers effortlessly and successfully by controlling your contact records and conveying instant messages, which may incorporate mixed media messages, surveys, extraordinary arrangements and other data, to your endorsers. A few organizations perform superior in providing the Bulk SMS Services.

Sending the data related to features, discounts and coupons of your product, unique arrangements, current occasions and other data to your clients naturally through SMS informing is an advantageous approach to achieve your market and develop your gathering of people. With numerous instant message showcasing administrations, you can send interactive media messages or make inquiries with a survey or a study. You can set up programmed reactions to send the messages in bulk and even you can customize the greater part of the messages you send to your clients. You can likewise plan messages for the future or set up, which implies that you can make a calendar of promoting arrangements or other data to be conveyed gradually, at different circumstances days and occasions.

While diverse content promoting administrations have distinctive qualities and shortcomings, there are a few elements that you ought to anticipate from the greater part of the administrations. The organizations ought to have short codes for you to activate. Short codes are five digit numbers utilized for SMS informing, messaging and services ought to enable you to utilize. These administrations ought to likewise have the capacity to set up programmed reactions to approaching inbound and outbound messages.

• All advertising should include program name, production description and quality, link to terms and conditions, stop instructions, and the message and data rates may apply message. Or, you can have all this information available when the customer texts HELP.

• Have opt-in approval prior to sending messages

• You must allow your customer the option of opting out

• Opt-in and opt-out records should be maintained for at least six months

• You should not directly advocate the use of tobacco, alcohol or other drugs

• Age verification may be required for some text message marketing campaigns

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3 things to keep in mind before deciding on your enterprise messaging partner

Choosing your mobile messaging partner 

How to determine before you select your bulk sms partner ( source : 

Mobile Enterprise Solutions from Vectramind

Deciding your enterprise mobile messaging solution partner is not a easy task. Here we provide you some tips on how to find and partner with the messaging provider or bulk sms sender Which platform providers to trust? Do you start with tier1 and tier 2 messaging aggregators ? or select a vendor who provides excellent customer service at an unbeatable price ?

Firstly you need to do a  exhaustive market research to understand whom the most relevant providers to support your business are. Let’s meet some of the contenders

 Contender 1: a segment of established platform providers whom remain standing as monoliths from the golden era of telco. ·

Contender 2: attractive low cost platforms mushrooming in countries typical for low labor costs. · 

Contender 3: SMS Aggregators who originally developed in-house solutions and have more opportunity to commercialize it to secure future margins. 

 However all this is easier said than done A few of the things to keep in mind before you decide on the messaging vendor are 1) Security features 2) customization 3)privacy and level of encryption 4) reliability and 5) customer service 

One alarming thing is that companies don’t give text messages the same level of record keeping attention they give other forms of digital records. Many don’t have an archiving solution in place for the retention and oversight of text messages, which causes problems and significant risk when facing a regulatory examination, open records request, an investigation, e-discovery event or litigation. Compliance, legal, IT and risk and reputation professionals across a variety of litigious and regulated industries are now realizing that proactively archiving text messages is necessary to alleviate anxiousness about risks arising from their records retention and oversight practices not keeping up as employee use increases.In the digital era, companies need to meet the challenge of accurately identifying specific sources of additional risk with this form of communication as it gets leveraged by employees within their business. Text messaging without proper governance is a major gap that can no longer be ignored. Define your key selection criteria.Research from terlefonica shows that  50% of carriers choosing an SMS software platform do not predefine their criteria in detail. 

the above chart ilustrated by  Telefonica  shows some of the factors to consider for selecting your mobile messaging partner

5 ways to improve sales with mobile marketing

Over the past decade our lives have been altered forever as a direct result of technology. No longer do we rely on phone calls in order to communicate with one another when we can instant message, email or text message each other in mere seconds. Although advances in information technology mean that our cell phones are becoming increasingly more expensive as we become lured in by the features of the latest smart phones, communicating with one another has never been more efficient or cost effective.

As a direct result of the popularity of cell phones across the globe, it seems only right that businesses are utilizing this gadget in order to increase their sales and brand awareness. Although the combination of marketing and technology may cause many business owners to become anxious as to the costs, mobile marketing can be incredibly cost effective. However, in order for mobile marketing to be truly beneficial to your business, it is essential that it is executed correctly.

In some regards, mobile marketing is a certain extension of email marketing. Businesses can send personalized and effective messages to their clients in mere seconds in order to help promote a specific aspect of their business. One of the main advantages of mobile marketing over email marketing is that a text message goes straight to the recipients phone, rather than their email inbox and as many of us are unashamedly glued to our phones at all times, this makes a return of your message almost Instant.

Similar to any other aspect of marketing or promotion, you firstly need to understand your target market in order to utilize mobile marketing effectively. Although text message marketing is effective, it will only work if you message the right customers. Some organizations have made the mistake of using SMS's to advertise to the masses rather than targeting those will be most interested. Mobile marketing with text messages will allow you to target the consumer based on demographics and purchasing behaviors. For example, sending out messages to frequent customers will do much more for your sales that sending out a message to those who live within a different state to your place of business or may have purchased from you as a one-off.

One of the most advantageous aspects of mobile marketing is that more often than not, the consumer will have responded to a previous marketing tactic in order to be placed on your mailing list, which shows their interest in you. However, although there is interest there, it is important to not focus on hard-selling via your text message marketing. Aggressive advertising, similar to excessive advertising is a sure-fire way to lose customers as it may come across as desperate or spamming. In order for mobile messaging to be effective, you must have a solid message you wish to depict to your target market and only look to contact them in conjunction to a specific event or promotion. Furthermore, you can also use mobile marketing as a method of staying in contact with your customers. For example, if you are holding a special event, you can send a message which requires the customer to reply 'YES' or 'NO' if they wish to attend. This is a much cheaper method of advertisement compared to cold-calling or distributing leaflets, for example. In regards to sales, you can also help to increase these by using SMS messaging to provide discounts to loyal customers. For example, food chain McDonalds witnessed a 25% increase in response to their text messaging campaign which helped their sales, following their "send an SMS to Santa and receive your gift in seconds" promotion. More than 1.5 million people participated in a 5 week period. Using promotional drink cups that displayed unique codes, customers could send a text message when in the restaurant, with each code providing them with a physical prize.

Similar to less technological aspects of marketing, mobile marketing can also be utilized in order to improve your business, in particular, your customer relationships. Text message marketing does not need to be used in the same way we use text messaging as a social form of communication. Along with using text message marketing to promote or 'sell' your products, you can also utilize it by asking your consumers what they think regarding products, trends and so forth through bullets. This can help make consumers feel more responsive and open to receiving further text messages from you and will help to build on your relationships with them which is key to boosting your sales.

As the various aspects of business including marketing evolve, it is essential that we keep our business ahead of the game in order to stay one step ahead of our competitors. By utilizing new and technological marketing methods, such as mobile marketing, we will not only witness a change in our ability to communicate with our consumers, but will also benefit from a more efficient and effective method of communication which in turn, can help boost those All important sales.

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5 best practices of mobile messaging in retail

The top 5 best case studies and best practices of mobile messaging in the Retail Industry

Results from recent mobile messaging campaign data show that well-crafed, well-timed messaging to consumers can increase engagement up to 22% and can boost lift by 28%.  

latest data trends on a2p and p2a messaging

SMS engagement rates are over 94%, dwarfing those of most other communication channels. The personal, direct nature of SMS makes text messages nearly impossible to ignore. Think about it: when was the last time you ignored an SMS? You may have 1,136 unread emails and 47 unread Facebook Messenger IMs, but you likely have 0 unread messages in your SMS inbox. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that an SMS is typically read within 90 seconds of its delivery.

Given that kind of engagement, it follows that SMS is a key channel through which companies send their business-to-consumer (B2C) communication. However, just getting SMS messages delivered can be much harder than one would assume. The complex geo-political history of the modern telecommunications infrastructure has ensured a regulatory landscape that is extremely complicated — both at a country level, as well as at the independent carrier level.

And to think, SMS squats on a control channel that was never intended for person-to-person communication. In fact, that channel is still used for its original purpose: enabling network towers and mobile devices to share status updates. Text messages have to find bandwidth among that machine-to-machine chatter. You could say that each text message delivered is a little victory of human resourcefulness, especially when dealing with the vagaries of different national regulations and network preferences.

To illustrate just how complex the journey of a simple SMS text message is, this article will take you through the gauntlet of challenges global SMS messages have to survive before reaching their destinations. But before we dive into the complicated stuff, let’s start with something simple.

Person-to-person (P2P) messaging

Imagine you’re using a GSM cell phone and you send a text message to your friend. You’re both on the same network and in the same country. In this case, the journey your message takes is pretty straightforward:

1. Your cell phone turns your message into an SMS packet.

2. It then connects to the local tower and sends the SMS packet to the network’s Short Message Service Center (SMSC).

3. The SMSC stores a copy of the message.

4. The SMSC then finds your friend’s number in the network’s list of subscribers, which also tells it which tower your friend’s phone is connected to.

5. The SMSC then hands the message to the mobile equivalent of a central telephone exchange (called the Mobile Switching Center), which handles delivery to your friend’s device.

Assuming your friend’s phone is turned on and has service, the message shows up on their phone. If their phone is turned off, then the SMSC would use its copy of the message to keep retrying.

In the early days of SMS, this was how every message was sent and delivered: without SMS interconnects between mobile networks, messages could be sent to subscribers only on the same network.

The story would be a little different if you were on separate networks or if the phones were CDMA rather than GSM, but the important points here are that:

● SMS uses the network’s control channel; P2P messaging is an afterthought that must vie for bandwidth with the network’s housekeeping messages.

● SMS messages are stored and then forwarded; a copy of your message is kept each time it is handed off from one SMSC to another.

If you’re sending messages to a friend, the impact is little more than the 160-character limit – thanks to the size of the control channel’s data packets – or network oversubscribed messages around midnight on New Year’s Eve. If you want to use SMS commercially, things get a little more complex.

Business SMS messaging

Sending an SMS to your friend is a little like taking a bus to your favorite local mall. Sometimes there’s traffic or the driver is late, but the trip mostly goes as expected. After all, you’re taking one mode of transportation and you’re staying within the same city.

Business messaging is more like global air freight: not only do you need a chunk of infrastructure but you also need to be an expert in local regulations, customs, and individual carrier differences.

Now, let’s make our example a little more interesting.

You run a service from your office in San Francisco and you have customers worldwide. You send daily account balance alerts to your customers via SMS, and some have also opted into receiving special offer alerts by SMS.

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3 factors which can optimize mobile marketing

Being able to distinguish the hype from the hope has been difficult and has deterred many marketers from making the appropriate investments in mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing can be integrated into every stage of the purchase funnel, from product research, to shopping and ordering, to feedback and recommendation to peers.

Advertising on mobile

Marketers in a study by the Mobile Marketing Association could improve their ROI by increasing the portion of their advertising budget focused on mobile.

The study also found larger creative formats and videos in native social feeds helped achieve marketing goals more quickly and were worth premiums paid in lower frequency situations.

Marketers should carefully consider the frequency of such messaging, because these ads became annoying after several exposures so the ROI deteriorated in high-frequency campaigns.

Mobile-optimised search marketing

Many marketers reported that approximately half of their paid and organic search volumes come from mobile devices.

Search programs that incorporate local-based information are particularly beneficial.

Mobile-optimised websites

For many marketers, half or more of their companies’ website visits come from mobile devices.

Given the advances in responsive design and the complexities with managing a separate mobile-specific website, the trend appears to be to develop one ‘mobile-first’ website that dynamically delivers a customer experience tailored to screen type.

Astute marketers will continuously test and optimise the experience visitors have on the mobile-friendly sites, perhaps through the use of AB or multivariate testing tools.

Mobile-messaging

With smartphones always in reach, marketers are using text, messenger and in-app messaging to communicate with their consumers.

These messages can be viewed as an unwelcome intrusion, so be careful to limit the use of this channel to highly relevant communications.

Automation tools can be used to manage these interactions to optimise frequency and deliver within a known context of location and previous customer interactions.

Email optimisation

Over half of marketers’ regular emails are read on mobile devices. Most automation systems are able to deliver emails in a mobile-friendly manner, but for optimal results, go a step further down the funnel with your mobile optimisation – since most emails are sent to drive a click to a digital destination, that web-based content should also be optimised for mobile.

Social sharing

Consumers love to share positive experience on social. Facilitate that behaviour with well-planned photo opportunities integrated in your offering and promoting hashtags to amplify the brand.

Cross-device identity management

Since consumers and business customers interact with brands via multiple devices, creating a seamless user experience regardless of device makes requires knowing who the user is in each user interaction.

Mobile apps

Marketers are beginning to focus on fewer and more functional apps, often designed to engage with recurring customers.

Investments have been made to tie these apps to transactional systems such as flight bookings, reservation and loyalty programs.

SaaS products are increasingly incorporating accessibility via mobile apps to give customers the ability to use their systems when away from their desktops.

The report offers up a top 10 action plan for marketers to ensure they have the basics covered for keeping up their mobile efforts.

1. Implement mobile advertising campaigns that use location-based data

2. Create video and high-impact graphics for promoted social posts

3. Develop a mobile-optimised responsive website

4. Create an app that delivers functional utility for existing customers

5. Continuously test and optimise the website and app user experiences

6.Execute permission-based messaging programs that are highly relevant

7. Optimise your email and landing page systems for mobile engagement

8.Link user identities across devices to provide a seamless experience

9.Encourage photo-based social sharing of customer experiences

10. Test one new emerging capability every year

The full article offers further insight and results into how marketers can best optimise their mobile marketing push in all stages of the funnel, and includes comment and opinion from marketing leaders from big brands

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comparing sms vs e-mail communication

Both SMS and E-mail are very common, convenient, fast and efficient way of communication. There are so many similarities between these two forms of communication. Both forms of communication can be and are used in many businesses to make it grow. SMS marketing and E-mail marketing can be used very effectively even better sometimes than direct marketing. Another factor is that you might be able to do SMS marketing and E-mail marketing with less money than other forms of marketing. It is very personal to send a message than E-mail and it is a very good way to maintain a good relationship with your prospective customers to attain their loyalty. Customer loyalty is very important for the success of your business.

If you compare SMS to E-mail, there are many differences as well. In both ways of communication, you can type in the message in your computer or in your mobile phone and send it to multiple contacts at the same time. One of the differences is that if you are sending SMS, there is more possibility of the person actually reading the message than when you send E-mail. You always tend to read your SMS than your E-mail may be just for the reason that you always carry around your mobile phone and you tend to read the message and you also have more ability of seeing the message sooner than when you send E- Mail. The effort is definitely less to read a SMS than E-mail.

To read an E-mail, you got to get a computer typically, type in your e-mail address and password and then only you get to read the e-mail. Still the possibility is there that you may not open the e-mail after seeing the subject line. To read SMS, not much effort, as you get a beep sound, you open the message and you can read your message immediately. Of course with the latest forms of mobile phones where you can also read your mails, the process of reading E-mail also has become simpler and fast, but still reading SMS is more easier than reading E-mails. You have the prospect of getting new customers faster when switching from SMS to email .

The only true benefit that E-mail marketing has over SMS marketing is that it does not cost anything to send an e-mail compared to SMS marketing. Sending SMS usually costs money without you have a scheme where you can send free SMS or if you have signed up on certain SMS websites that lets you send SMS for free. If you have the option of sending SMS for free from your mobile phone, it is well and good and if you can send SMS for free from website, then you need to have a computer and internet connection to do this, even though the person receiving The message will be able to read this in their mobile phone without any computer or internet. The person can receive the message just like how they receive any other message.

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6 sms marketing tips to improve business

SMS marketing can boast some untouchable numbers when it comes to open and response rates. With an amazing 98% of all text messages getting opened, compared to just 22% of emails – there really is no doubt that if you want to send your customers a message, the best way is via an SMS text message.

And when it comes to retail, SMS marketing is the perfect way to market your shop or website. They work together seamlessly to boost sales, build brand awareness, customer retention and help build and develop your small retail business into a huge worldwide brand.

So to the six ways that SMS marketing can help your retail business

1. Text customers with your special offers – Do you regularly have sales and offers on? The let your customers know by text! With SMS marketing you can virtually guarantee that your message will be read, so let them know that you have a sale on, when it finishes, how they can take advantage of it and most importantly how much they can save.

2. Purchase and delivery information – When a customer makes a purchase, send them a message to say thank you. Then let them know when their item is to be delivered – going that extra mile with customer service always pays off.

3. Get more store visits – Sometimes getting customers through the door is the toughest task, so text your customers an offer that can only be used in store.

4. New stock and products landed – Keep your customers updated if you have new ranges or products in, let your customers know – send them a link or get them to come in store.

5. SMS loyalty programs – Customers like to feel special, and by sending them exclusive offers by text message – you will certainly make them feel special. So start an SMS loyalty program and allow customers to sign up – word will soon spread.

6. SMS surveys – Feedback is always important, it’s a great way to discover what you are good at and where you can improve. So after a purchase, send your customers an SMS survey and see what they think of you.

So if you are retailer or have an online website, give SMS marketing a go, your customers will love it and I am sure you will soon start to see the benefits.

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importance of sms for a successful mobile marketing campaign

As we entered the new millennium, few would have predicted how the rapid uptake of smartphones would cause a monumental consumer shift that has had ever reaching consequences for markets and businesses globally. Teenagers now possess more computing power in their pocket than most businesses would have had across entire departments just 20 years ago.

In the past decade, smartphone penetration has almost certainly accelerated the growth of social media; it has changed the way we communicate with our friends and family and given us access to virtually limitless information anywhere, anytime. The result? Fundamental shifts in the way consumers expect to interact with brands, businesses and each other.

It is now nearly impossible to think about marketing or communication of any type, with your customers as a one-way street, thrusting messages upon them hoping one will resonate. Arguably, the most successful out-of-home (OOH) campaigns now rely on user engagement via mobile. Retail is being forced to embrace smart devices as part of the shopping experience. Banking relies heavily on one-time passwords and mobile apps. All of these touch points represent a conversation with your brand.

So, we know mobile is fundamental to any business or communications strategy, but what is fundamental to mobile? The answer is simple – SMS. Now, I know you’re probably thinking, “Of course I’d say that”, but the numbers stack up, and even Coca-Cola – arguably one of the biggest consumer brands of all time – has been known to spend up to 70 per cent of its mobile marketing budget on SMS.

Why? Over 95 per cent of SMS messages are read within three minutes of being received. There’s no junk mail filtering, your messages are getting through and aren’t being lost in an email inbox. You’re not relying on app push notifications, which can be disabled. In essence, it’s the most simple, reliable and effective method of getting a message to your recipient. Furthermore, in the age of the smart device, you can push WAP links to customers, turning SMS from a 160-character message to a doorway of interactivity that will allow them to consume your mobile content.

Let me give you one of my favourite examples. SMSGlobal have clients all over the globe – banks, airlines, insurance companies, retail chains – but this one really is quite close to my heart… pizza! Aside from it being one of my favourite foods, it’s a great example because it is also a very competitive market. Our client was one of the main players in the takeaway market, which is traditionally rife with discounting and aggressive sales promotions. With over 100 stores nationwide and a significant customer database in play, we helped them develop SMS marketing campaigns over the course of 12 months to huge success. By the end of the campaign, tracked sales through the use of mobile coupons were up 150 per cent over other marketing channels.

SMS marketing has proven to boost company sales, and even consumers themselves are aware of their revitalised spending habits. According to a Millward Brown Digital report from 2013 based on more than 1,500 consumers in eight countries, 59 per cent of respondents prefer SMS and push campaigns over other forms of mobile marketing, including video advertising, banner or standard display ads, and email. In 2013, 63 per cent of respondents stated they had agreed to receive SMS messages from businesses, compared to 57 per cent last year and 47 per cent in 2011.

The study showed that consumers plan to increase their current use of the mobile phone. They said that after reading an SMS or push message, respondents were more likely to be pro-active – 22 per cent redeemed the deal featured in the message,14 per cent shared the message with their friends and family, and 13 per cent made a purchase. More than 54 per cent made a successful purchase on their mobile phone in the last 12 months.

Consumers are demanding more from brands and SMS is helping them meet it. If SMS isn’t in use or on your businesses radar, it should be. Simple and effective messaging can go a long way to increasing efficiency and engagement while simultaneously decreasing costs.

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3 risks associated with text messaging

Let’s face it, texting is simple, concise and compatible with virtually every mobile device, operating system and wireless carrier. This makes it extremely accessible when an employee wants to communicate with their colleagues, customers, or prospects in a time-crunched, connected society.

In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans who own a smartphone use it to send or receive text messages, demonstrating that mobile messaging is one of the most widely used features. However, even though texting is easy, reliable and intuitive, if it’s used for official business communications, it can create tremendous risk for a company.

Text messages can be problematic

When you think of the countless regulatory, legal and general risk and brand management challenges that companies must manage today, you might think email and other ‘official’ communications on social media accounts and corporate websites are the only content types that need to be archived or supervised. Nevertheless, text messages must be considered too because in many instances they are used to conduct company business. Sending text messages between mobile devices is now one of the key ways that employees connect with each other and customers, and these records need to be maintained for completeness.

One alarming thing is that companies don’t give text messages the same level of recordkeeping attention they give other forms of digital records. Many don’t have an archiving solution in place for the retention and oversight of text messages, which causes problems and significant risk when facing a regulatory examination, open records request, an investigation, e-discovery event or litigation.

Compliance, legal, IT and risk and reputation professionals across a variety of litigious and regulated industries are now realizing that proactively archiving text messages is necessary to alleviate anxiousness about risks arising from their records retention and oversight practices not keeping up as employee use increases. They need to meet the challenge of accurately identifying specific sources of additional risk with this form of communication as it gets leveraged by employees within their business. Text messaging without proper governance is a major gap that can no longer be ignored.

The following circumstances have organizations worried about recordkeeping challenges surrounding text messages:

• Text messages must be kept in a searchable format that cannot be tampered with, destroyed, or otherwise disposed of by anyone on purpose, or accidentally. Text messages must also be produced quickly for e-discovery, public records requests, and regulatory examinations.

• A company may operate a tremendous number of phones through contracts with one or more carriers, and erroneously assume text records are kept by carriers. However, carriers don’t keep text messages for very long, and they aren’t obliged to provide records of them, either. The responsibility for retaining and producing requested text messages lies with the organization that creates the records.

• Organizations can no longer say ‘we didn’t know’ as an excuse to avoid archiving and oversight of text messages. Several well-publicized cases involving text business messages that have been lost, altered, or mishandled in the public sector, financial services, and other industries have alerted us all to the fact that these types of messages must have oversight. Companies that aren’t yet retaining text messages will find they have plenty of technology options to help them start.

Following email and social media, SMS/text messaging is perceived as the next source of the most compliance risk by compliance professionals in the financial services industry. The Smarsh 2016 Electronic Communications Compliance Survey Report revealed that when SMS/text messaging is allowed for business communications, only 32% of firms said they have an archiving/ supervision solution in place. In addition, nearly 40% of respondents said they have no or minimal confidence in their effectiveness to prohibit the use of text messaging.

The three business risks of text messaging

Now that we have discussed the circumstances that have organizations worried about text message recordkeeping challenges, let’s take a closer look at risks, and the potential impact they can have on a business:

Legal risk

Text messages can also be requested as part of an e-discovery or litigation event, since texts are often considered relevant electronically stored information (ESI) within an organization. Many courts compel the production of texts in civil litigation, if a mobile device is believed to possess relevant text messages.

While other forms of electronic communication, including email, are relatively straightforward to collect, archive, and extract, text is different. Companies must now figure out how to collect and preserve data from numerous devices, operating systems, and device ownership scenarios. It does not matter if an employee uses a corporate-issued device, a personally owned device, or a combination of the two for business-related texts. All devices are fair game for discovery in litigation if they contain relevant business communications.

If a company’s legal team cannot find and produce text data in real-time, and respond quickly and completely when asked to search and produce specific text messages for discovery events and litigation, the organization may face legal consequences related to data spoliation, missing records, or failure to produce requested data—not to mention high legal fees.

Reputational risk

The use of text messaging without the proper monitoring protections in place can also leave a company susceptible to brand problems. Most businesses know the importance of brand reputation, since those with a strong track record tend to attract the best employee talent, and are perceived as providing more value to customers. Customers may also be more loyal and likely to recommend a company if it has a trusted reputation.

The supervision of electronic communications is critical for companies that want to find and mitigate any potential reputation risks, even if they aren’t directly related to compliance or legal issues. Emails, social media accounts and corporate websites are often monitored, but text messages must be brought into this perimeter to further reduce risk. Currently, most companies do not monitor business text messages sent and received by their employees.

When a company manages its brand by monitoring text messages and other electronic communications on a regular basis, steps can be taken to quickly assess potential threats, and mitigate actual problems when they occur.

Regulation risk

In highly regulated industries, text communications need to be retained and supervised. For instance, financial services firms are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to archive and supervise electronic communications used for business purposes, including text messages—and recent surveys show firms lack confidence that they can meet those requirements.

Similarly, state governments have seen recent rulings that reinforce how text messages are classified as business records. Essentially, any highly-regulated industry that has recordkeeping requirements for business communication must archive electronic messages, no matter what platform they are on—and that includes mobile devices.


Don’t get left behind

Archiving, monitoring and producing text message data needs to become a core part of your overall electronic communications risk-based surveillance preparedness. Organizations of all sizes need to put the right policies in place, and implement automated text archiving and supervision as soon as possible—before it’s too late.

An important component of the chosen solution is the ability to archive the text messages alongside all your other electronic communications content — including email, social media, websites, instant messaging and collaboration platforms — to give compliance, legal, and risk and reputation professionals the ability to supervise and produce these records in one place, with a common user and administration interface. When a company has access to these content types with a single comprehensive archiving solution, conversations can be monitored from a broader and more holistic perspective. For instance, conversation threads can be followed easily when a discussion starts on social media, moves to email, and concludes in text messages.

Businesses that recognize the benefits of comprehensive archiving will reap the rewards almost immediately when they implement it by allowing their employees to take full advantage of the productivity that text messaging provides while staying compliant and managing the risk out of it. Others that leave text messages out of their electronic communications compliance strategy, or implement multiple point products to try and address it, will lag and be playing the odds – at a time when compliance examinations, litigation procedures and the importance of brand reputation and risk management are more central than ever to business success.

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avoid these mistakes when trying to send bulk sms messages

Small business owners making the same mistakes over and over again when trying to send bulk SMS messages to their customers.These mistakes are obviously hurting their ability to connect with customers and prospects! Yet, they keep making these mistakes over and over again.

Let me be blunt – If you’re making these mistakes it’s costing you money – lots of money.

Today, I’m going to expose these mistakes to the world… and show you exactly how to fix these mistakes.

Before long, you’ll be able to send bulk SMS messages to your prospects and customers, and get a great response!

Five Major Mistakes Owners Make When Trying to Send Bulk SMS Messages

VECTRAMIND IS AMONG THE LEADING SMS AGGREGATORS AND BULK SMS SOLUTION PROVIDERS

Mistake #1 – Not using bulk SMS messages for marketing.

I’m a marketing guy… I love marketing. It’s a puzzle for me.

How do you reach out to prospects and customers, and get them to engage with your company? How do you get a prospect to buy for the first time? How do you get a current customer to buy again?

One of the most effective ways I’ve found is with mobile marketing… specifically by sending bulk sms messages to different groups. I’ve found success… but I’m not the only one.

Big companies like Coke, Dunkin Donuts, Wendy’s, and thousands of others are using SMS messages to market… but many small business owners just won’t!

It drives me crazy. I think every small business should be using SMS messages for marketing… but they don’t.

If you’re on the fence at all about marketing with bulk sms messages, let me ask you to do one thing… look around. Seriously, look around and track how many different businesses you see using SMS message marketing.

You’ll start to see them everywhere.

My car wash uses them, my barber… the grocery store I go to… the local bar, the fast food joint up the road. I’d be hard-pressed to find a single industry that doesn’t have at least one business using mobile marketing.

Mistake #2 – Not using a professional SMS texting platform to send text messages.

This is a huge mistake many business owners make when first getting started with sending bulk SMS texts. They want to save a little money… so they start collecting phone numbers from customers and prospects.

Then they start texting from their own phone.

Some may even go out and buy a new phone just to send messages.

What they don’t realize is this is just fraught with danger. Have you ever lost your phone… or had it stolen… what happens then? Someone else has your customer list!

How do you backup your data on the phone?

What happens once you get 1,000 or 3,000 or 5,000 numbers on your list?

Simply plugging phone numbers into a phone doesn’t meet the legal requirements for sending marketing messages over SMS… are you tracking everyone who wants to be unsubscribed?

Here’s a quick story.

I recently interviewed a nightclub owner who was promoting his events with bulk SMS messages. He did it with a phone that had 5,000 customer numbers in it. Every weekend he sat down and started sending messages to his list.

It took him hours and hours to send everyone a quick text.

Then he ran into a real problem.

The cell phone carriers started blocking his messages! They viewed his messages as spam. He kept sending the same message over and over again. What’s worse, he didn’t track unsubscribe requests very closely… so some people were complaining about his messages. It was a mess!

Eventually, he realized he needed a professional bulk sms platform to send messages. It saved him hours of work, and he didn’t have to worry about complaints and tracking customer signups and unsubscribes – the system did it all for him.

Just imagine all the revenue he lost… while trying to save a few bucks!?!

If you’re going to send bulk SMS messages, sign up for a professional bulk SMS platform. I’m partial to my company Betwext.com, we have a great SMS marketing platform… but there are dozens out there.

There are some basic things you want to look for in a bulk SMS service…

You want a dedicated phone number (don’t share numbers)

The ability to pick your keywords

A system that lets people automatically sign-up… and unsubscribe.

A scheduling system helps if you really want to use the power of mobile marketing

A system that doesn’t cost an arm or leg!

just keep a few of those items in mind when you start looking for your own bulk SMS system.

Mistake #3 – Not sending interesting bulk SMS messages.

 its essential to understand that  your merssaging has to be properly targeted and  be interesting enough for consumers. For example among tons of messages,every message suffers from low attention span, therefore its imperative that a consumer needs to click on your message and it better be interesting if you wish to increase interaction

Too many marketers feel like they have to send out a message every chance they get… so they rush to send a bulk SMS.

Business owners don’t think about the message they are going to send. They just send any old thing… and frankly it’s boring – useless – and a waste of time.

Suddenly, customers and prospects start to unsubscribe from their sms list, and the business owner doesn’t know why!

The solution is simple… give people what they want, when they want it.

You wouldn’t try to sell a breakfast burrito at dinner time. Most people are not thinking about work on a Sunday morning. And, you’re probably not thinking about your weekend plans on monday!

Remember, when you send bulk sms messages to your customers and prospects, the majority of them will see the message within 10 minutes.

So, send them something timely, interesting, and useful.

How about a car wash discount after a major dust storm… or a pizza coupon on a Tuesday at 5 pm… or a offer for Friday night theatre tickets on Thursday afternoon.

Do you always need to send a discount, special offer, or coupon?

NO – you can keep people informed about cool things with your business…

Here’s an idea… If you run a restaurant, create a secret menu item (like an appetizer or dessert), then let everyone on your mobile marketing list know about it! And ONLY share it with your mobile marketing list.

Tell them they have to use a secret codeword to order it!

Want to take this offer to the next level?

Take a picture of the item, and send it via MMS message… so they not only read about the item, but see it too!

Like I said keep it interesting.

Mistake #4 – Not including a call to action in EVERY SMS message.

This is a huge mistake many business owners make.

A few weeks ago we had a phone call from a paid subscriber. They had been sending bulk SMS messages to customers, but didn’t get a single response.

We were perplexed. We asked them about their product, and their customers. We asked about where the names came from… and how they were added to the list. It was all on the up-and-up!

We had our IT team dig into their account to see if there were delivery issues… nothing was wrong.

We were stumped…

Then we looked at the bulk SMS messages the business owner sent.

What he sent out was the name of the business… that’s it. No phone number, no link, no message. He thought by simply reminding people he was around, he’d get business.

Talk about a boring and useless message… what’s worse, he never included a call to action.

Never once did they say call us.

Never once did they say click this link.

Never once did they ask their customers to take an action.

All of the sudden their poor results made sense.

The business owner was expecting sales to skyrocket just by reminding people he was in business… once he started thinking about the customer… and giving them a reason to take action did he see the powerful results of sending bulk sms messages!

So, don’t forget – always include a call to action when you send bulk sms messages.

Mistake #5 – Not giving customers and prospects a reason to be on your SMS list.

This last mistake is a simple one… and it’s all about thinking like your customers.

If you run a business, you are in business to serve your customer’s problems. So use that to your advantage and always be helping your customers.

Give them a reason to join… and more importantly stay on your sms marketing list.

Here’s an example…

One physical trainer I know sends inspirational messages to his customers and prospects daily!

Every so often he includes a recipe for a favorite, tasty, and healthy meal. Then he’ll text out a free “do-it-at-home” workout routine.

He engages with his customers over and over again… but he’s always giving them something they need… something they want.

Maybe you give them information, or a coupon, or breaking news… it can be anything. But make sure they really want it!

Now, I’ve gone through and highlighted 5 major mistakes business owners make when trying to send bulk SMS messages. Is that all the mistakes?

Not by a long shot.

There are dozens and dozens of other mistakes business owners make… but I’m out of room for today.

But before I go…

I promised to share with you the right way to do things…

Like I said earlier… if you’re on the fence about trying to send bulk SMS messages to promote your small business keep an eye on what others are doing! For more information, we wrote a special report just for you… “The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Marketing”

Remember, bulk SMS marketing is a very powerful tool that many small businesses use to grow sales. It’s a cost-effective way to communicate with your prospects, customers, VIPs, and even employees!

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3 killer disruptions across mobile messaging market in 2017

vectramind''s synapse is one of the leading SMS aggregators and enterprise mobile solutions 

Mobile messaging today has become the the hottest emerging marketing channel. Ask any transformation-driven company which technologies they're exploring for delivering quality customer care, and many will probably tell you that mobile messaging applications look most appealing. 

Mobile messaging apart from being an extreme cost effective tool, is also an excellent medium of customer care . As apposed to email, which might be missed by a consumer, 80% SMS are read withing 10 minutes of delivery. The sheer convenience and almost real time tool makes it the most effective channel to ensure loyalty and c customer acquisition. 

 Analysts predict that 35 percent of customer support will take place on mobile devices by the end of this year, which is certainly possible. But it is no certainty because several technical hurdles stand in the way. At the end of the day, mobile messaging is still in its early stages. It’s relatively unproven in customer-care circles. And coupled with that challenges remain  in adopting mobile messaging specially when it comes to security and systems integration.

However All of this will change in 2017, however, and here are three technological disruptions and  innovations that could accelerate mobile messaging apps for customer care this year:

No 1 : Chat bots By now, we’re all familiar with chat bots, those automated (sometimes animated) personalities on websites that respond to frequently asked questions we pose about products or services. The next step in the evolution of mobile messaging apps will be to assimilate these capabilities for customer care. There are two basic ways in which this could materialize. The first is a model that WeChat, Line and KakaoTalk are using, where brands use those platforms to create their own, customized self-service hubs for FAQs. This basically enables organizations to lighten the load on call-center agents for inquiries that can just as easily be handled by an automaton.

No 2 : Artificial intelligence Most of us use some form of AI in our daily lives whether we realize this or not.  Many consumers first experienced AI on web and social media sites that watched how they window-shopped online and suggested products they might like to view. Reccomendation engines are another example of AI application

More recently, AI has shown up as core technology in intelligent assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana and Google Assistant. For mobile messaging apps to deliver great service at scale, they will have to integrate AI capabilities and serve them up on just about every mobile and connected device. AI can play a huge role in helping to tear down the language barrier confronting many customer-care organizations today.

No 3 : Augmented reality All efforts at automation and AI aside, human interaction and intervention may still be necessary to completely resolve a customer’s problem. Bots and AI have limitations, and many customers still prefer speaking with live support agents instead of automated IVR's and Chatbots

Also  getting on the phone to address an issue can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Emailing back and forth with a representative takes far too long. Even an instant message conversation can be frustrating, especially if customers feel like the agent is following some sort of service script that sounds completely irrelevant to their issue. This is virtual reality comes into the picture 

Sometimes the problems are more complex in nature and difficult to resolve, particularly given hardware failures. Such situations might need the intervention of a  visual interaction, and integrated AR capabilities within messaging apps could certainly fit that bill.

5 unknown facts about mobile marketing

Mobile marketing is that one trend that, if ignored, could actually put you out of business. Puts me out of business, come on Michael, really? YES. I am that serious. A number of companies that still don’t have a mobile marketing strategy are astonishingly large. Jump on this train or be left behind!

Some statistics

• Over 80% of internet users have a smartphone
• Text messages have a 99% open rate
• Over 50% of smartphone users grab their phone the second they wake up
• By 2019, mobile advertising will represent 72% of all digital ad spend (according to Marketing Land)

The best way to approach mobile marketing is to adopt a policy called “Mobile First.” This means that any marketing you do needs to be thought of and be started with a mobile mindset. Assume your customers and prospects want to interact with you via their mobile devices; whatever marketing tactic you are getting ready to deploy must work beautifully with mobiles.

For those businesses that are looking to get their feet wet with mobile, here are some mobile marketing 101 tips to get you moving. They are in chronological order of which I recommend you nail down the first before moving onto the next.

1. Mobile websites
2. Mobile text message, picture, or voice messages
3. Mobile e-mail marketing
4. Mobile apps

Mobile Websites

Plain and simple—your website must look and act flawlessly on mobile and tablet devices. More than 50% of people say that if your website does not work well on mobiles, they will NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, return to your website or business again.

The easiest way to make sure your website is always amazing on mobile is knowing that it was designed in a language called “mobile responsive.” This means that regardless of the device they are on, the website will respond to them. Whether they have a 60-inch TV monitor or an iPad, the website will realize that and will adjust to make it look great.

Action to Take: Redesign your website using a mobile-responsive theme.

Mobile SMS Marketing

SMS marketing is a form of sending marketing messages (promotional and rapport-building) to your customers and prospects’ cell phones. They can be in the form of a picture, video, audio, or text.

In the statistics above, I mentioned that text messages have an open rate of 99%. When was the last time you sent an e-mail that had a 99% open rate? Sending to three people does not count :) No business is getting 99% open rate. In fact, the average e-mail open rate is around 25%. So if you send 100 e-mails, only 25 will open the e-mail. If you send 100 text messages, 99 out of 100 will read the text message. Does that convince to consider this?

The great thing is that getting started with SMS marketing is actually quite simple.

Step 1: Sign up for an SMS tool where you will store and send the text messages.

Step 2: Start asking for MOBILE phone numbers everywhere.

I call out mobile because on all the signup forms you are using or opt-in forms on your website, you should specify mobile versus simply saying phone.

Two quick ways to start to build your cell phone numbers:

Send an e-mail to your database offering an incentive if they opt in to receive text messages.

Create a mobile keyword signup where people can text into a keyword and be automatically opted in.

Step 3: Craft some great content.

Unlike e-mails, where sometimes sending a daily e-mail is OK, it is not OK with mobile marketing. Craft some content where you are sending 2-4 messages/month to start with. At least 50% of your messages should be NON-promotional. Keep the audience engaged. Don’t just spam them with offers. Thank them for their business; send birthday messages, happy holiday messages, contests, and member-only specials just to name a few.

Mobile E-mail Marketing

Adopt the “Mobile First” strategy that I described above, and assume that your prospects will be reading your e-mail on a mobile device. Similar to a responsive website design, your e-mails should be responsive. Many e-mail tools have this option but just as many do not.

My favorite tool for e-mail marketing is Infusionsoft.com. It allows you to send beautiful e-mails and do some very advanced things to increase conversion.

Mobile Apps

When people hear “mobile marketing,” they usually think, “I need an app.” While that may be true, your efforts should be focused on making sure that the #1-#3 things above are firing on all cylinders before you consider this strategy.

There are two strategies when it comes to apps:

1. Design your own app

The price to get an app produced has come down substantially. There are many services where you can get an app live for $50/month. The secret sauce to creating your own app is to make sure it is something that will have utility to your audience, something they will use on a regular basis. Think about the flashlight on the iPhone for example—that has utility.

Once people start to download your app, you have the ability to start to market to them, monitor their location, and push messages to their phones. There are quite a few things you can do here from a marketing standpoint.

2. Use other people’s apps to market

The lion’s share of the apps that have been created was done for marketing purposes. You can push marketing messages on other people’s apps (both locally and nationally if your market is national). The investment levels normally start off around $500/month.

Action Summary

• Get a mobile-responsive website.
• Start capturing mobile numbers, and send 2-4 messages/month.
• Make sure your e-mails are mobile-responsive.
• Consider getting an app already produced, or advertise on other apps.

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