Postcards are good at what they do. When sent by mail, they are easy-to-read marketing materials. As magazine inserts, they serve as an ultra easy order form. But it is only when designed well that postcards are great at what they do. Here are some ways that you can easily optimize the effectiveness of your postcard printing, making this marketing tool work harder for you.

Send your postcards to the right people. Find out who your target audience is and build a mailing list full of them. If you send out your postcards only to those who are likely to do business with you, then you will have a much higher return on investment than if you send out a general mailing.

Past or current customers should receive postcards. You can send them out when you have news to deliver, when you have a new product to introduce, and for special holiday offers or promotions.

Be direct with your message. Because your space is limited with postcard printing, your reader should understand your message immediately. Take care to write a headline that is short and full of information, and make sure your graphics reinforce your message.

Make response easy. For postcards used as order forms, always self address and stamp. Another option is to make check boxes so that ordering is fast and easy. If your customers have to wait until they can look up your address or stop by the post office, they may never get around to ordering from you.

Don’t try to sell with postcard printing but do include a call to action. There is not enough space on a postcard to close a sale. The idea is to make prospects interested in finding out more. Include direct orders to “call our toll free number,” check out my website today,” and “send a request for more information now” on your postcards. Don’t leave your customers wondering what to do next.

Mail your postcards on Tuesday or Wednesday. Mail traffic is lighter in the middle of the week, so your postcards will have less to compete with on these days. They will get more attention and you will get more responses.

The harder your postcard printing works for you, the more responses you will receive. If you are going to send them out, make sure to get the most out of them by using some smart marketing and design techniques.

About the Author

For more information, you can visit this page on postcard printing

Remembering people’s names is one of the most important parts of social etiquette. Even if we don’t admit it, we dislike when people can’t remember who we are. One remembers the scene in American Beauty when Kevin Spacey’s character says, “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t remember me either”. Having one’s name forgotten makes them feel unimportant.

Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to remember the names of lots of people. However, there are some fairly straightforward tricks you can do to help you jog your memory. Most of them come from the tricks of medieval poets who had to remember long lines of verse. The trick is that, while sounds (especially arbitrary sounds, like names) are difficult to remember, patterns and images are very easy to remember.

Some of these tricks will work better or worse for you, depending on how your mind works. Pick and choose from the following list:

Make a rhyme: Take the person’s first name and rhyme it with something starting with another word starting with the first letter of the person’s last name. So, for example, if the person’s name is “Jane Smith”, think of the name as “Jane Smane”. The rhyme will stick more easily in your mind than the actual name, and you’ll be reminded of the name when you hear it.

Turn it into a number: If you’re one of those people who is very good at remembering numbers, but not names, just turn the initials into a number. Every letter of the alphabet can be mapped onto a number from 1 to 26. So, when you meet Jane Smith, you can turn her name into 1019. With a little practice, you can easily remember everyone’s initials, which can be used to remember the names. Don’t forget to use zeros, so that you’ll always have a four-digit number. For example, Andrew Barnes should be 0102.

Use an image: If you don’t remember rhymes or numbers very well, try using an image instead. In these cases, what you should do is to think of something that sounds similar to the person, and then imagine that thing right on the person’s face. So, for example, Jane sounds a little like “chain”, so when you meet Jane smith, imagine a chain going from her nose to her ear, for example. It takes a little imagination, but once you’re good at it, you’ll be able to recall anyone’s name with ease.

Different people remember differently. However, for most people, rhymes, numbers and images are easier to remember than the arbitrary strings of sounds in which names normally consist. The above three tricks can help you remember others’ names.

About the Author

Alexander Rorty, M.A. has been writing articles on the internet since 1997. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Janet, and their two children. Their latest site is called Island Hood, and features articles such as the one on under-cabinet range hoods.

To grow your business in today’s online-dominated environment you’ll need an amazing eNewsletter. Creating a monthly eNewsletter is easy with the plethora of online email marketing companies offering low-cost services. The more difficult part of effective email marketing-once you’ve crafted a catchy newsletter, of course-is building your list. Here are easy steps you can take to make sure your email marketing list is maximized for the most open clicks:

* Make it easy for readers to sign up for your email marketing campaigns. Don’t request too much information-the more you ask for, the fewer people will likely sign up. Just ask for their name and email address.

* Make sure your eNewsletter subscription form is easy to find. If it makes sense to add this to every page of your website without creating clutter, feel free to do so. You can even add a form at the end of popular articles, in addition to having one at the top of the page.

* Utilize social media. Integrate your sign-up forms with your social networks.

* Create an archive so that potential subscribers can see past eNewsletters and are able to decide if they want to sign up.

* Reward your subscribers. You can offer an opt-in bonus for those who sign up for your emails, but you can also reward those who respond in some way-such as answering poll or survey questions or providing testimonials. Appreciated subscribers will want to stick with you-and your email marketing campaigns

* State your Privacy Policy. No one will want to subscribe to your eNewsletter if they think their personal information will be published, so let them know by providing a policy page that clearly outlines you won’t share their information with others.

* Blog often. This helps to build a community with prospects and potential clients, along with complementing your email marketing strategies. You can also post comments on others’ blogs with links back to your site.

* The No. 1 way to build a larger email marketing list is through publishing useful content. No one is going to want to sign up for your eNewsletters if you don’t provide them with unique and worthwhile content. Don’t send out newsletters too often, and make sure your content is worth reading.

For information on email marketing services, including reviews of popular companies, please visit www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.

About the Author
Darcie Duttweiler is a copywriter at ChooseWhat.com.

Those who doubt that mobile marketing hasn’t made headway might want to go amp themselves.

Among the brands that ponied up millions for a piece of the Super Bowl this year was PepsiCo beverage Amp Energy. While its 15-second TV spots didn’t venture far from the proven realms of Big Game locker-room humor—one featured an overweight truck driver starting a stalled-out car via jumper cables hooked up to his nipples—a quieter, related effort was reaching much further out. How far? Well, to people who might not even have had the game on at all. As part of its NFL deal, Amp Energy sponsored Sprint’s exclusive Super Bowl mobile channel, which allowed it to run ads via cell phone. A photo of the Amp can materialized on cell phone screens along with music, swirling green flames and the tagline “Go Amp Yourself.” (Hopefully, none of those cell phone users elected to do it with jumper cables.)

When a Super Bowl ad effort stretches into the cellular realm, it’s surely a sign that mobile marketing has arrived, right? After all, even though the third-screen spot was a timid boil-down of the in-your-face TV version, the very idea of adapting a commercial for mobile distribution would have seemed like an alien concept only a few years ago.

Today it is a reality, sort of. Around this time 12 months ago, experts were busy touting mobile marketing as the Next Big Thing. It wasn’t. And not a whole lot is different. Mega brands like Pepsi and Burger King are still toe-dipping in the mobile pool, testing various forms of advertising and promos even as the bulk of their spending dollars go elsewhere.

As mobile expert John Hadl puts it: “It’s hard to get a real read on the value of mobile when you’re only spending $25,000 to $50,000 on it.”

But things are beginning to change. Mobile marketing is “headed in the right direction,” said John Vail, director of the interactive marketing group at Pepsi-Cola North America, Purchase, N.Y. “It’s just taking a lot longer than people thought.” Mobile analytics firms such as U.K.-based Bango are helping companies measure mobile Web site traffic, what devices recipients used and the countries they’re in. In February, 58 million mobile subscribers reported that they’d already been exposed to mobile advertising, per San Francisco-based Nielsen Mobile (a unit of Nielsen Co., which also owns Brandweek). While that’s only 23% of today’s total mobile subscribers, that number will spike as marketers’ mobile experiments continue to grow. And Hadl, who serves as managing partner of Beverly Hills-based BrandInHand, overseer of Procter & Gamble’s mobile efforts, added that a threshold is approaching: “Once there’s direct proof of ROI,” he said, “the spend will shift faster than the industry can handle.”

That might happen as soon as two years from now. Forrester Research forecasts that mobile-marketing spending in the U.S. will surge from the $270 million it stands at now to $405 million in 2009. Then it all goes exponential, doubling every year through 2012, at which point the Cambridge, Mass.-based research firm predicts mobile marketing will be worth $2.8 billion.

Marketers view the mobile marketing explosion as “inevitable,” said Bill Jones, president of Atlanta-based mobile Internet platform provider Air2Web, which counts Starbucks and UPS as clients. Some are “really trying to accelerate” the channel because “properly used it is the most effective mechanism to interact with customers and prospects.”

All of which begs the question: How can marketers profitably use mobile devices to deliver their brand messages right now?

What follows are some of the answers. Like many emergent ideas in the tech realm, mobile marketing’s birth has been attended by as much fantasy as reality, and marketers are learning the painstaking (and, at times, just painful) differences between the two. For instance, studies repeatedly show that many consumers don’t like to get ads on their phones. (A mere 10% of mobile data users deem ads received via PDAs to be acceptable, according to Nielsen Mobile.) At the same time, a third of the same respondents said they’d be OK with seeing ads, so long as the spots offset their mobile bills—say, via free minutes. “That,” said Nielsen Mobile corporate marketing vp Paul Okimoto, “is where we’re starting to see an uptick.”

No doubt, we’ll start to see many more of those. For now, here’s the story on the mobile-marketing phenom today—both fantasy and reality.

REALITY

Customers dig mobile games.

Videogames were once synonymous with geekdom, but one glance at who’s using a Wii these days (including AARP members and the physically disabled, at last check) shows how dated that stereotype is. This love affair has carried over to mobile devices. In fact, some watchers are now predicting that the global revenue from mobile games will eventually surpass that of traditional console and handheld versions. According to U.K.-based consultancy Understanding & Solutions, mobile gaming is expected to hit $6 billion by 2011.

Some brands are already prepared to embrace this passion by offering free downloadable games for mobile devices that keep their brand front and center. The latest is BK City, debuting April 21, an elaborate game with three worlds (five games in each) ranging from a castle to a BK drive-thru. It will be available across all carriers except for Verizon. POP, online ads and mobile ads, of course, will support the effort. BK City is the latest creation of Mobliss, Seattle, whose prior efforts include Nickelodeon’s Rugrats Food Fight and Brady Bunch Kung Fu.

“A lot of what mobile content advertisers throw out there is cheesy,” said Tia Lang, director of media and interactive for the Miami-based chain. But, “as players progress, our game gets more difficult. It’s fun, funny and relevant to our target.”

FANTASY

People will never use their phones to buy stuff.

Think again. Remember when everyone was worried about using credit cards online? Even some tech-savvy shoppers wrung their hands over cyberthieves stealing their identities and draining their savings accounts. (Psst—it rarely happens.) Even as those same worries have swirled around mobile banking and on-the-go transactions, the truth is that a quarter of cell users with mobile Web access have already trusted their handheld devices to do their shopping, according Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y. Sixteen percent already use mobile banking services and one-in-five respondents hope their phone becomes a mobile wallet.

Smarter brands are beginning to respond. In January, Pizza Hut began allowing U.S. consumers to order from any of its 6,200 stores using the mobile Web or text messaging. The chain said it expects half its sales to come online or via mobile devices within the next five years. Papa John’s began offering the ability to text in orders last November.

“If privacy and security issues can be caged, mobile banking and mobile wallet services could launch the next leg up for mobile operators,” predicted Joseph Porus, vp of Harris Interactive’s technology practice. Rajeev Raman, CEO of mywaves, a mobile video destination whose clients include MBW, concurs. In the near future, he said, “purchasing movie tickets, fast food and music via mobile phones will be considered normal, everyday behavior.”

REALITY

Convenience works.

Skip the cleverisms; brands that give consumers information that makes their lives easier are the ones that’ll benefit. “That’s why we bought the phone in the first place,” Hadl said.

Starbucks, for example, makes it easy to find the nearest latte with a mobile-based store locator. When is that blue turtleneck you ordered going to show up? UPS will let you track the whereabouts of your package on your mobile device.

“Too many people pigeonhole mobile marketing as just being ringtones or wallpapers,” said Air2Web’s Jones, whose company created both applications. Brands that sponsor services that tell users things like where the is nearest baby-changing station or where is the store where I can buy what I need, will thrive, added Hadl of BrandinHand. “Soon,” he said, “mobile devices won’t simply be a push medium.”

FANTASY

Texting (aka SMS) isn’t effective.

Like hell it isn’t. While many are looking at mobile video, the mobile Web and other features, the simple, text-only brand campaign often still is what works the best. Why? Because even the oldest, most primitive cell phones out there have the technology that lets people receive a text promo and respond to one. Plus, the practice of text messaging has already been widely adopted.

In December, 1-800-Free411 attached ads sent to users who opted in to receive text horoscopes, diet tips and other information from a company called Limbo. While the free-information service usually gets about 40,000 to 50,000 new callers daily, that volume shot up to nearly 80,000 a day after the mobile ads ran. Overall, Limbo received a 7.1% response rate for text ads it ran for its clients in the fourth quarter.

“The forgotten technology of SMS will be a much bigger factor in digital spends than anyone is predicting,” said Jonathan Linner, CEO of Limbo, Burlingame, Calif., who’s amused that so many marketers are buzzing about putting a movie or banner ad on a cell phone. Those people, he said, “Don’t’ get it yet. You’ll get 10 times better performance from SMS.”

REALITY

The iPhone’s changed everything.

One of the biggest hang-ups (pun intended) for mobile marketers is the lack of “high” in the tech. We’re talking about antideluvian cell phones that everybody was carrying around prior to last summer, when the Apple iPhone hit stores. In January, CEO Steve Jobs had promised the iPhone would “reinvent” telecommunications. Some disagreed. Some still do. But mobile-marketing advocates generally aren’t among them. The average iPhone user over the age of 18 is five times more likely to explore the mobile Web and 11 times more likely to use mobile video or TV, per Nielsen Mobile. An iPhone-toting American also is 70% more likely to use SMS.

“Look no further than the iPhone for proof that improving the device and user interface can radically increase media consumption,” said John Najarian, svp-media and business development at the Comcast Entertainment Group, who oversees E!’s mobile page.

Better still, the iPhone’s popularity has meant lower-price imitators—triggering a new generation of “smart phones” that experts like Chetan Sharma, co-author of the just-released book Mobile Advertising, believe will make up as many as 20% of the domestic market in two years. (More powerful data pipelines as well as all-you-can-eat data plans will help, too.) Thanks to the iPhone, Sharma said, Americans finally think the cell phone “is more than just something you talk with.”

FANTASY

It’s getting easier to run mobile marketing programs.

Dream on. It still takes about two months to get a major carrier like AT&T or Verizon to approve a text program. And that, according to Gene Keenan, vp-mobile services at Isobar, San Francisco, and vice chairman of the Mobile Marketing Assn., Denver, is “ridiculous.”

“You can by a URL and have a Web site up in two hours,” Keenan said. “It’s still way too hard for brands and agencies to do mobile.” Even worse: “Until it’s easier for big brands to participate, you won’t see the big money.”

Keenan and experts like him have likened carriers to walled gardens: nice to be part of, but good luck getting in. They exert authoritarian control over their on-deck content (that’s the proprietary stuff available only to subscribers) and move with Soviet-style bureaucratic slowness in approving marketing programs.

For instance, WAP sites and banner ads have to be customized by handset and by carrier. “It introduces a lot of complexity,” Sharma said. “You can’t press a button and have a program launch nationwide. You have to negotiate everything and get your content approved.”

But stay tuned; fantasy might turn to reality by this time next year. “You can get over the wall,” Hadl said. “You’ll get hot and sweaty doing it, but you can get over. AOL already proved that this [walled approach] is a model for failure.”

REALITY

The mobile ecosystem is evolving rapidly.

Quick as the pace of technology is, sometimes it never seems quick enough. But mobile advocates hamstrung by tools that haven’t kept pace with their marketing dreams may soon be doing a high-tech jig. In November, Google announced Android, a new Linux-based operating system for mobile. Microsoft just inked a deal with Nokia that’ll bring its Silverlight platform to mobile. And this quarter, Yahoo! will launch what it calls onePlace, a mobile bookmarking tool that will allow better control of information. These developments come on the heels of AOL’s ’07 purchase of Third Screen Media, a company that serves banner ads to mobile Web sites. Nokia bought the mobile agency Enpocket last year, too.

All of it, said Sharma, means that “there’s a cautious optimism” out there. “Optimism, because of the uniqueness and reach mobile presents. Caution because of the enormous fragmentation in the industry.”

FANTASY

There is one killer application.

Just like Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd debated whether New Shimmer was a floor wax or a dessert topping (it’s both!) on Saturday Night Live, each marketer seems to have his own miracle claim for mobile marketing. And so far, nobody’s quite nailed it.

Take GPS-enabled initiatives, which some see as the potential holy grail of mobile marketing. CBS Mobile announced a test earlier in the year that’ll pinpoint ads to customers based on where they happen to be standing, and Burger King’s Lang has been lovingly nurturing the idea of “serving customers an ad at lunchtime, asking them if they’re hungry.” The problem? “Those kinds of things are fantasy.”

Hardly the only one. “My fantasy is offering Pepsi Smash [music programming] as video-on-demand optimized for the third screen for millions to view,” Vail said. P&G, General Mills and others are currently in test with Cellfire, a company whose technology allows customers to store e-coupons on their cell phones.

There’s the dream of direct-to-consumer mobile video, alive in the mind of BMW Mini as it kicked off a program with mywaves in January. Still others are excited about mobile search; more than 46 million used their phones to search for information in the third quarter of last year, per Nielsen Mobile.

Alex Muller will tell you that GPS-driven mobile marketing won’t be a fantasy for much longer (then again, he’s CEO of GPShopper, which enables mobile-using customers to track down the best deals on stuff they want to buy.) “There will be a point,” he said, “where flipping through a paper circular won’t make sense.”

REALITY

There needs to be standards.

Mobile marketing is still a lot like the Wild West: a landscape of many players of various reputes, each a competitor peddling his wares and promises. “We need to develop more standards to reduce the friction out there,” said Jordan Berman, executive director of media innovation at AT&T Mobility, New York. “There needs to be more uniformity about how programs get off the ground. I’m on the MMA board of directors and we all agree it is a confusing marketplace out there.”

Then again, people said much the same thing about the Web itself when it was new. The growing pains, Berman said, are natural: “Online is like a toddler; mobile marketing is still in the womb.”

Courtesy of Brand Week

By: Kenneth Hein

About the Author:

http://www.israelidiamond.co.il/English/index.aspx

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Mobile Marketing Fantasy Vs. Reality

Photo by Skokie Public Library

The prospect of launching your first mobile marketing campaign can be downright scary. Mobile is a new platform, with new conventions, new language, and new metrics. Perhaps you’ve read a white paper in the past. It was probably dozens of pages long and filled with incomprehensible jargon. It discussed mobile marketing campaigns that promised paradigm shifting results. The only problem with the paper was that the campaigns it spoke of were dauntingly complex, and they seemed to rely on technology that has yet to truly arrive. Moreover, they were expensive, and they necessitated that you put your business in the hands of an expensive marketing firm.

We understand where you are coming from. And that is why we put together this Ez Guide To Mobile Marketing With Text Messaging. What makes this paper different?

• Simplicity: Mobile Marketing encompasses a number of exciting different methods, from mobile video to location-based advertising. The problem with these methods is twofold: they are unproven and require consumers to possess sophisticated devices, and they are incredibly complicated for businesses to implement. That’s why we like to focus on SMS. Text messaging bypasses these hurdles. Nearly every mobile phone supports text messaging, and with 600 billion text messages sent per year in the United States, a majority of consumers are familiar with the technology.
• Do-It-Yourself: Mobile Marketing does not need to be difficult. This guide will show how you can quickly get started with a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solution that won’t sacrifice any of the power and effectiveness of an expensive, agency-run campaign.
• Cost: In economic times good or bad, you always want to keep a careful eye on the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing campaigns. DIY mobile marketing with text messaging fulfills this goal in two ways. First, text messaging is inexpensive. Rates per message are as low as a few pennies each. And second, you can use a powerful DIY mobile marketing software package to carefully monitor costs and response rates in real time.

Ready to learn how easy it is to launch your first mobile marketing campaign?

About Ez Texting:

Since 2006, Ez Texting has led the mobile marketing industry in providing a simple, affordable text messaging platform for small to medium-sized businesses. We proudly offer the only US-based turnkey online solution that allows clients from all industries – education, hospitality, religion, politics, non-profits, technology and more – to develop and execute a text messaging campaign within minutes.

Own a fast-food franchise and need to send instant coupons to hungry customers? Organizing a weekly soccer league for your kids and want a quick way to communicate with fellow parents? Looking for a way to capture incoming leads for your sales team? Look no further.

Using our powerful platform, clients can setup SMS alerts, voting, contests, polls and much more. Get instant feedback from your members right to your Ez Texting inbox with our true 2-way messaging capabilities. And with the easy-to-remember shared short code 313131, setting up keywords is a breeze. We also offer advanced API and dedicated short code options.

Ez Texting currently supports messaging to the US and Canada for a rapidly growing client base of over 40,000 users.

A Note From Shane Neman, CEO of Ez Texting, Inc.

A few years ago, the term “mobile marketing” was a concept far too esoteric and technical for businesses to grasp, let alone attempt to implement in-house. Ez Texting offers a web-based mobile text messaging platform for businesses. Here’s how it works: You connect to Ez Texting online, tap out a message and then it is sent out to your intended audience (customers, organization members, employees, etc). For marketers, customers on the receiving end can choose to either ignore the note or respond to the promotion.

When a local sales team from Jostens, the yearbook and class ring company, recently used Ez Texting to remind students in the Puyallup, Wash., area about payment due dates, the number of people who paid for the company’s graduation products ahead of schedule rose by as much as 40%. Because of that success rate this Jostens team scrapped its direct mail campaign, saving it roughly $1,000 in postage.

We love helping people reach that “Aha!” moment. So many clients come to us with ideas they can only conceptualize. It’s rewarding to present them with techniques that can help their ideas evolve into real results.

We also love educating customers about what exactly mobile marketing is, how they can use it and showing them what kind of results they can expect. That’s a big feat for a small team of people, but we have managed to help over 40,000 customers and continue to do so every day.

- Shane Neman
CEO, Ez Texting, Inc.

What Is Mobile Marketing & Why Is It Different?

Mobile Marketing is, simply put, the practice of extending your marketing efforts to mobile devices. Today ‘mobile devices’ primarily means mobile phones, including smart phones such as the Blackberry and the Apple iPhone. In the future we will likely see full-fledged mobile computers, with persistent connections to the Internet. Such devices will offer a rich media marketing platform. However, those services are not yet here on a meaningful scale. For example, less than a quarter of Americans have ever browsed the mobile web And this represents the fundamental conundrum facing your firm when you consider whether to launch your first mobile marketing campaign. You’ve heard that mobile marketing is the future of advertising, but just not yet.

Only that’s not the case.

Contrary to what you may have heard, Mobile Marketing is here, and savvy firms, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses, are already running successful mobile campaigns. SMS Text Messaging is the key to this puzzle.
Nearly every phone in the United States supports text messaging. Over half of all

Americans have sent or received a text message. The average mobile phone subscriber sends nearly 200 text messages every month. When you look closer, at the prized 18 – 29 demographic, the adoption rate is even higher, edging toward saturation at 85%. Among those 30 – 49 years old , the adoption rate is at 65% and climbing

So Americans are clearly texting. But what do they think about being marketed to via text message? In a recent Direct Marketing Association survey, 70% of the sample revealed that they had responded to a marketing text message. To put this in perspective, the DMA adds that only 30% of those surveyed responded to a marketing email.

Why are consumers so eager to respond to marketing text messages? The answer reveals the value text messaging offers to both you and your customers:

• It’s Interactive – 21st century marketing is about having a conversation with your customers, rather than shouting at them. A world saturated with intrusive advertising like spam, pop-ups, and commercials has overwhelmed consumers. Increasingly, they tune out messages broadcast to a wide audience, whether by using digital video recorders to skip past commercials, or simply by ignoring the banner ads on their favorite website.
• It’s Personal – Your customers expect you to speak to them, and text messaging allows you to reach them individually, whenever, wherever, in the palm of their hands. This reach is of value to you the marketer. It also is of value to your customers. With a few taps of their thumbs they can respond to whatever message that you have sent them. With text messaging you can build relationships with your customers.
• It’s Immediate – Text Messaging, like Twitter, and Instant Messaging, is blazingly fast. With text messaging you can communicate with your customers as speedily as they are now accustomed to living. You can also move quickly. Say you are a winter wear shop and you see that today a snowstorm is on its way. In less than five minutes you can send a text message to your customers containing a special offer on hats and gloves.
• It’s Trackable – When you send out text messages to your customers you can see, in real time, who has responded to your message.
• It’s New - Although thousands of companies large and small are already marketing to their customers via text message, the medium is still in its infancy. If you act now, you are letting your customers know that you are a forward-thinking firm. Your marketing efforts will break through the traditional clutter.

What Is The Value Proposition?

Mobile Marketing comes in many different flavors. For the vast majority of businesses, we think that text messaging is the best way to reach your consumers. In order to give you a quick overview of your options, below we walk you through the forms of mobile marketing other than text messaging that are available, explaining their pros and cons.

• Advertising on the Mobile Web – Many prominent websites now offer custom tailored sites for mobile phones, via WAP, and specially designed iPhone or Blackberry sites. The problem is, less than a quarter of Americans use the mobile web. This seriously restricts the reach of your mobile advertising campaign. Furthermore, when you design a banner ad for the mobile web you need to make sure that it will display correctly on thousands of different devices, made by over a dozen different manufacturers.If your firm does decide to build its own WAP site, you can easily integrate it into your text messaging campaigns.
• Bluetooth/Infrared – In recent years a number of brands have rolled out Bluetooth and infrared marketing campaigns. In a typical scenario, a street advertisement will offer consumers the opportunity to receive marketing content wirelessly at the ‘hotspot.’ We have seen such initiatives from Discovery Channel and Pepsi using New York City bus stop shelters. These campaigns, while technologically innovative, are rare.
• Location Based Advertising – Many mobile phones are equipped with Global Position System receivers. In a typical scenario, a store may send a special offer to a consumer when they are in the neighborhood. This technology is growing in popularity overseas, but it is very much in its infancy in the US.
• Multimedia Message Service (MMS) – Most mobile phones support multimedia messages, which can contain text, sound, images, and even video. The iPhone, notably does not support MMS. The downside to MMS marketing is that receiving such messages can be costly to consumers. Furthermore, different networks and different devices conform to differing standards, hindering simple, ubiquitous campaigns. Successful MMS campaigns are typically run “on-deck,” which means that they confined to a single carrier. Although running an “on-deck” campaign allows you to leverage the power of MMS by conforming to a particular carrier’s technology, you are limited to that carrier’s customers
• Mobile Search – Marketers familiar with Cost Per Click (CPC) search advertising programs such as Google AdWords, may be aware that these programs are now available on the mobile web. Extending your CPC search campaign to the mobile web presents numerous challenges. First, mobile search suffers the same ‘reach’ drawbacks as mobile advertising. Furthermore, the major cellular carriers hope to keep searches in house, rather than ceding their users to a mobile search engine; and when consumers search on their mobile device their intentions are very different than when they are sitting at their desktop.
• Mobile Gaming – Consumers have begun to embrace gaming on their mobile phones. Some firms have begun to advertise within freely available games. Mobile gaming is certainly popular, but it does not offer scale. Furthermore, your firm may have difficulty finding suitable placements.

As you can see, all of these marketing formats have serious drawbacks. We would not be surprised to see them become more viable in the future. For now though, none of them offer the reach, the simplicity, and the low cost of text messaging.

Now let’s take a look at mobile marketing with text messaging:

• You Can Do-It-Yourself – Small and medium businesses that do not have the inclination or the resources to work with a marketing agency can launch a text messaging campaign in-house using a simple web-based software/service like Ez Texting. All you need is a web browser and a credit card to get started.
• Text Messaging Is Inexpensive – The cost of text messaging is important to you and your customers alike. Sending out a mass text messaging campaign is inexpensive (prices as low as a nickle per message). Receiving text messages comes at a very low price as well: most mobile phone plans include at least a few hundred messages per month, and additional messages cost only pennies to receive. Heavy texters – most of whom are concentrated in the 18-35 age group – are likely to have unlimited message plans.
• High Penetration Rate – Half of all Americans are already texting, and even those who don’t text are almost certain to own a phone that supports text messaging. Over 250 million Americans own a mobile phone, and nearly all of them are ready to receive your message. No other type of mobile marketing can match text messaging’s reach.
• Begin The Conversation With Text Messaging – Other types of mobile marketing will grow in importance in the future. If you start text messaging with your customers now, you’ll have the relationship (and data) in place to reach them in new ways in the future.

How To Start Your Text Message Marketing Campaign In 9 Steps

As this is the Ez Guide to Mobile Marketing with Text Messaging we hate to complicate things, but we do need to help you understand an important difference between the two common types of text message marketing campaigns. Don’t worry – the difference is simple, but as you will see, the steps that you will take to get started will vary based on the type of campaign that you are planning.

There are two types of text messaging campaigns: pull and push. In a push campaign, your firm starts off with a database of opted in phone numbers. A pull campaign is designed to build a database of phone numbers for future use.

• Pick A Firm – Can they handle volume; do they support all carriers; do they offer easy-to-use software; do they offer advanced features you may want to use down the road?
• Target The Customers/Members You Would Like To Reach – The power of marketing with text messages is that it allows you to reach the customers you want to reach. Figure out who they are before you design your campaign. (If you are conducting a push campaign, you already have these customers’ phone numbers. If you are launching a pull campaign, you will design the campaign to best reach your target customers)
• Setup A Means To Collect Numbers – There are three ways to collect phone numbers. You can direct your customers to opt-in by sending a message with your keyword to a short code; you can collect customer phone numbers using a web widget; or, if you are conducting a push campaign, you can easily import previously collected phone numbers into your campaign database.
• Choose A Keyword – A Keyword is a short word (which may include numbers) that customers send a text message to, in order to join your list. An example would be: ‘Text KEYWORD to SHORTCODE to join our text messaging list.‘ When you select a mobile marketing firm to work with, such as Ez Texting, they will allow you to use their shared Short Code. In Ez Texting’s case this code is 313131 Feel free to give this a try! Text EZ to the number 313131 and see what happens.
• Choose A Good Call To Action (CTA) – You want to offer your customers value in return for joining your database. A typical CTA might go: Text KEYWORD to SHORTCODE to join our text messaging list and receive 10 percent off your next purchase at the boutique.
• Design Your Promotional Efforts – Your mobile marketing campaign can stand alone, or it can compliment your existing marketing campaigns.
• Keep It Simple! – When you send out a mass message, keep it simple. You have 160 characters. Use them wisely. And always send a test message to yourself!
• Always Allow Your Customers To Opt-Out – When you first text your customers you need to let them know how to Opt-Out from receiving future text messages. This is usually accomplished by replying STOP to one of your messages.
• Track Your Results – When you run a campaign you are going to collect a lot of data – response rates, time of day, and other data points. Use that data to design your next campaign and you’ll achieve even greater ROI!

The Value Of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Mobile Marketing

As we’ve already shown you, Mobile Marketing with text messaging is easy. There are other advantages, beyond ease of use, to DIY text messaging:

• Ease Of Use – A Mobile Marketing package like Ez Texting is simple to use. It is web-based, which means that there is no software to install. You can check on your campaigns and launch new ones from any computer with an Internet connection or even directly from your own cell phone.
• Cost Effective – Our current economic climate is extremely challenging. There is a good chance that your customers are spending less. Meanwhile, your competitors are cutting prices, hoping to make whatever money they can. When you start looking for places to cut corners, your marketing budget often winds up in the crosshairs. A DIY mobile marketing campaign allows you to keep talking to your customers without the upfront costs of traditional ad buys. You can’t afford to stop advertising, and text messaging allows you to eschew expensive, untargeted campaigns in favor of inexpensive, targeted campaigns. Many Ez Texting clients tell us they were able to cut back on other, more costly advertising methods once they built an effective database of opt-in customers.
• Control – Everyone needs a helping hand every now and then, and a premier mobile marketing firm like Ez Texting is always there to help you get started and answer your questions. What you don’t need is an expensive agency to do things you can do yourself, on their terms, instead of your own. Ez Texting’s software allows you to conceive and send messages on your own. Even more importantly, you control every dollar that you spend.
• Data – When you run your own mobile marketing campaign you control your data. Names, phone numbers, response rates – whatever data you collect, it is all yours. Do not rely on an agency to provide you with your data upon request.
• Campaigns That Are Uniquely Yours – Instead of allowing an agency to repurpose a cookie-cutter campaign, with a DIY solution you (or your marketing team) design campaigns that fit what your company does and what it represents.

Text Message Marketing That Goes Beyond Mere Messages

SMS Text messaging is the most popular and effective form of mobile marketing because it does exactly what it is supposed to do. You can achieve great ROI doing nothing more than occasionally texting your customers with notices, reminders and offers. But, as you will see, there is so much more that you can do. Importantly, for you and for your customers, all of these compelling methods keep things simple.

• Mobile Couponing – Invite customers to text in your keyword to receive instant coupons that they can display in your store for a discount. In numerous surveys, consumers report that they are especially open to messages that offer value.
• Contests – Commonly referred to as “Text-2-Win”, a mobile contest offers consumers the opportunity to text in to win a prize. Ez Texting’s software includes built-in contest functionality, allowing you to randomly select winners or to offer prizes to the first x number of entries. Every person that texts into the contest will be added to your database of phone numbers
• Voting & Trivia – Interacting with consumers often produces the most successful marketing campaigns. Not only do Voting & Trivia allow customers to put in their two cents on a topic, but you collect valuable demographic data about your target consumers’ likes, dislikes and personality trends.

Tips & Tricks To Turbo Charge Your Mobile Marketing Campaign

Do-It-Yourself mobile marketing with Ez Texting’s software is simple. That does not mean that our software isn’t extremely powerful. After spending a few minutes sending out experimental messages, you’ll be ready to try out some of our advanced features:

• Message Forwarding – The messages that your customers send you can be forwarded to your email address or directly to your own mobile phone. Radio stations use this feature to relay song requests to DJs. Churches set up forwarding to a cell phone for anonymous prayer requests during church services.
• Send Messages From Your Phone – When you just cannot get to a computer with an Internet connection you still can send out messages to your database of customers. This is perfect for one-the-go clients and marketers. Busy working the floor at a convention or a trade show? Send out timely messages to your clients from your mobile phone.
• Message Scheduling –If you know that you want to send out a message at some time in the future, just enter it into the system, schedule it, and then when the time comes the message will be sent out automatically.
• Web Widget - A fully customizable signup widget allows patrons to join your text messaging database from any website, email blast, MySpace or Facebook page. This security-enabled widget only subscribes unique, active cell phone numbers. Simply copy and paste the widget and you are done!
• Random Sends – Running a special offer? Only want to hit some of your customers? With a random send the Ez Texting software will send out messages to x number of random phone numbers in your database.
• Application Programming Interface (API) –Generally API is for advanced users only. If you don’t know what an API is, it is probably best to skip to the next page. Through your Ez Texting account, you can use our API to integrate the sending and receiving of text messages with your own website or application. This is helpful for firms with existing platforms, such as doctor’s offices that wish to add an SMS notification system to their CRM tool.

Look Who’s Texting

As we said in the introduction to this guide, mobile marketing with text messaging is already here. Businesses large and small are running campaigns this very moment. Last year, SuperStop USA, a gas station in St. Paul, MN, launched one of our favorite Ez Texting powered mobile marketing campaigns:

SuperStop USA– When gas prices are scheduled to go up, SuperStop USA owner Tony Donatell knows in advance. He believed that his customers would make it a point to fill up their tanks at his station if they were alerted in advance of the price increase. What Mr. Donatell needed was a way to quickly reach his customers with this information.

SuperStop USA found a solution with an Ez Texting powered program called Gas Alerts. To attract subscribers, the station deployed Point of Purchase (POP) displays featuring their CTA, ranging from in-store signs at the registers to promotional posters outside at the pumps instructing customers to text “GAS” to 25827.

Super Stop amassed over 70 subscribers in less than two weeks. They reported a response rate greater than 20% for each text message blast. The program is still going strong a year later.

The following three campaigns were some of 2008’s most prominent and successful mobile marketing efforts:

American Idol– A few years ago, the producers of American Idol and AT&T teamed up to allow Idol viewers to vote on their favorite contestants via SMS. In 2008, fans voted in record numbers, sending in 78 million text messages. In 2008, AT&T expanded their Idol efforts to include “voting reminders, trivia, a TXT-n-Win sweepstakes promising the winner $50,000 cash and a trip for two to the Idol series finale in Los Angeles, and contestant ringtones and video clips featuring outrageous audition moments.”

President Barack Obama’s 2008 Election Campaign – Political historians will be studying Barack Obama’s historic campaign for decades to come. There is one thing that everyone already agrees upon – Obama’s New Media team leveraged the web, social networks, and text messaging in unprecedented ways to communicate with supporters, recruit donors, and enhance get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts. Famously, the Obama campaign announced their Vice Presidential selection of Joe Biden to opted in subscribers via text message. The message went out to 2.9 million mobile phones. The phone numbers went into the campaign database.

Finally, when Election Day came, supporters received text messages reminding them to vote. This was much more than a nifty way to end a campaign that exploited text messaging so successfully – research has found that SMS is more effective than all GOTV methods other than old fashioned door-to-door canvassing. Canvassing may be more effective at turning out votes, than text messaging, but it costs nearly 20x as much per recruited vote.

The American Red Cross – The American Red Cross raised $190,000 dollars in 2008 with its Text 2HELP program. The program is activated during major disasters. According to The Wireless Foundation, “subscribers of participating wireless carriers can send a text message to “2HELP” (24357) containing the word “GIVE.” A $5 tax-deductible donation will be made to the American Red Cross for disaster relief efforts. Donations will appear on customers’ monthly bills or be debited from a prepaid account balance.”

In 2008, the Text 2HELP campaign was advertised across various communications channels, and received its biggest boost when both Presidential candidates called their constituents to action. During the Republican National Convention, Mike Duncan, the chairman of the RNC, asked convention attendants to take out their mobile phones and text in a donation. The Obama campaign leveraged their own text messaging campaign to aid the Red Cross, sending their entire database of subscribers a message asking them to text GIVE to 24537 (2HELP).

About the Author:

Since 2006, Ez Texting has led the mobile marketing industry in providing a simple, affordable text messaging platform for small to medium-sized businesses. We proudly offer the only US-based turnkey online solution that allows clients from all industries – education, hospitality, religion, politics, non-profits, technology and more – to develop and execute a text messaging campaign within minutes.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Mobile Marketing With Text Messaging

First, a question… Have you ever stained a deck? Yeah… a deck… a wooden one… have you ever stained one? No? Well, me neither. I was absent the day the Big Guy upstairs handed out “handyman” skills. Anyway, when I lived in New Jersey I had this really nice cedar and Trex deck installed overlooking my backyard of about a 1/4 acre. It kind of had this mid-western feel to it… really nice.

If you’re not familiar with Trex, it’s sort of like a tough plastic that doesn’t require any maintenance, and is sometimes used as decking. Perfect for a ‘home repair challenged’ guy like myself. The only maintenance it did require was an annual application of the cedar stain on the cedar. Of course, I had to call our handy man in each year to do it for me, but nevertheless, it got done. I think we paid him around $400 or so to restain all of the cedar which was fine by me and good for him. What amazed me, though, was that every year when it was time to have the deck restained again, if I didn’t call the handyman to come back he would never call me. And, because of that, there were many years where I didn’t end up calling the handyman back for well over a year and a half, if not more.

What the heck does my deck and lack of maintenance skills have to do with your chiropractic practice? A heck of a lot! Here’s why: Most of your patients are just like me. No… not bad with tools… but… busy. Sometimes so busy, running around with tons on their personal To Do list that their chiropractic care falls by the wayside. In some cases, it falls by the wayside for so long that they either forget about it altogether or, more likely, they become uncomfortable calling your office to schedule a new appointment, embarrassed that it’s been so long. What happens then? They don’t call and don’t come back for care with you. And, the typical chiropractic office chalks them up as a former patient… a lost patient. Meanwhile, they’re not lost. They’re just what we would call INACTIVE. And, until you do something proactive to REACTIVATE them, they’re going to stay inactive.

The good news is that statistics show over 50% of your inactive patients would become active again in your office if you simply contacted them about getting started again. That’s 5 out of 10 inactive patients you’re currently not seeing right now, that would come back in to your office and start-up their care program again with you, if you simply contacted them. Contact them, how? Doesn’t matter. Postcard, letter, staff call, email, online video, audio postcard. The key is just letting them know you’re concerned about them, not angry or upset with them, and would love to get them back on the right track again. And, if you can contact them more than once, for the ones who don’t respond to your initial contact, even better. Most of the time 3 properly written contacts to a list of 10 inactive patients will turn into 4 to 6 reactivated patients for you. Really!

Now, because of the automation and ease that comes with email, and online audio and video, I’m personally partial to using the Internet to reactivate patients. But, again, you don’t have to use the Internet. However, with something online like the Chiropractic Dashboard you don’t have to worry about sending out letters or postcards or whether your staff is making the calls to your inactive patients at the correct time or not. Online, with something like the Chiropractic Dashboard, you can have the 3 contacts being done for you, with email, audio, and video, all on total autopilot without you ever having to think about it. You can experience it yourself by clicking on the link at the bottom of this article.

Regardless, though, remember… Don’t lose patients and cash flow just because they haven’t been into your office in a while. Even if it’s been months, it’s important to recognize, with some simple contacts executed at the correct time you could start bringing back half of your inactive patients. Think of the financial impact that would have on your practice and lifestyle. HUGE!

Sidebar: I wonder how much money our former handyman is losing ever year by not contacting former customers about having their decks restained. Probably THOUSANDS! With some simple contacts he could probably reclaim most of that. You too, in your practice.

Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Todd Brown

Todd Brown, president of MoreChiroPatients, Inc, is now
giving away for FREE his popular Online Videos entitled
“The Ultimate Chiropractic Patient Attraction System”.
Get instant access to these videos at: Free Chiropractic Marketing Videos

Photo by lirontockerBuilding branded profiles, engaging prospects and connecting with potential employees and strategic partners are all powerful ways to tap into Facebook and  LinkedIn.

But, for the typical small business, there may actually be some equally important social networks you may not be so familiar with. The big networks get all the press, but small networks, say for instance, like the connectodex found here at OpenForum may prove tremendously valuable for small business folks due to the small size and targeted focus of the membership.

The list below represents some of the more active networks I’ve encountered when it come to small business social networking.

Visit a handful of these sites and choose several that feel right for your business. Once you build a profile, taking full advantage of the opportunity to link to your primary business offer full descriptions of your products and services, spend enough time to go a bit deeper.

Write or republish some articles or blog content, search and identify a dozen or so people to connect with, and give some advice, point to someone’s great content or answer questions from other members.

Don’t try to jump into every new network you can find, but do jump into a few outside of Facebook and LinkedIn and make yourself a bit of a larger fish in these smaller ponds.

In addition to OpenForum check these networks out:

• Biznik – this network for small business folks is blending online and offline by allowing members to collect by city and host and promote local events

• StartUpNation – a wealth of information focused on startups and very active community

• Wall St Journal – community build around subscribers  and geared, as one might suspect to professionals and financial folks

• Small Business Brief – heavy dose of search engine related content but very active small business focus

• Inc magazine – another popular business related magazine with community of entrepreneurs

• StartUp Biz – very fast growing network with lots of tools to promote yourself

• PartnerUp – small business focus and big on helping people find answers and connections for the things they need

• BizSugar – allows you to submit, share and vote for the best business information links on the Internet.. Great place to promote and discover your small business content

• CoFoundr – Programmers and designers use the site to find co-founders, build teams, and get advice.

• Entrepreneur magazine – Entrepreneur magazine’s community site has a lot of activity and content

• Business Week Exchange – Site from Business Week magazine is a great place to promote and find content on the web, tends to be a bit larger business focused

• Naymz – one of the better sites for those focused on building personal brands – highly indexed in the search engines

Image credit: andresmh

John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing.