by TXTImpact

Build Text Alert Opt-in List using Text to Join campaign

#1 Setup a Text to Join campaign

Prospects and customer can send a mobile keyword and join your text alerts list.

#2 Optionally you can add a signup to your website or facebook page using our web widget tool.

Create customize web signup widget, which you can add on your blogs, website, or facebook to allow people join your Text Alert List

#3 Promote your Mobile Keyword

Add to print material, restaurant Menus, Yard Signs, Print Ads, Online, Shopping cart, at POS, Sales receipts, etc.

#4 Now time to enjoy fruit of all hard work, you have gathered opt-in mobile numbers, time to send a promotion, invite for private event, reminder, fund raising call, etc.

Be careful, send very specific message, actionable, to the point, should able to provide or point to the details. Alway include "Reply STOP to cancel. Msg&Data rates may apply."

TxTImpact annouced a SMS Marketing jump start package for businesses to launch their SMS marketing campaign with Dedicated short code.

Signup for $500/month plan before Dec 25th, 2011

• No Monthly fee for dedicated short code hosting
• Include 50,000 Text messages a month, only you have to pay for Short code lease ($500- random, $1000-vanity shortcode)
• 1 cent a Message for additional text messages
• $1500 one time setup fee

Through TxtImpact effective and affordable SMS Marketing and group text messaging services now businesses will be able to launch their mobile marketing campaigns without any hassle!

Click here to contact TxtImpact sales and learn more about Holiday promotions and their mobile marketing services

Record Black Friday sales have given retailers hope that business will pick up a bit this holiday season. For many people, that news conjures images of crowded mall parking lots and busy big-box retailers.

But the news also offers opportunities for small businesses like those that line Hopkins’ Mainstreet.

Hopkins Patch spoke with Doug Denny—a local marketing consultant and copywriter—about how local businesses can make the most of the season. His company, DeJa Local Marketing, has done work for businesses ranging from Hopkins Auto Body to Chili’s.

Here’s what he had to say.

1) Connect your business to local holiday events.

Hopkins has plenty of seasonal festivals that local businesses can often tap into better than big-box retailers. Small-businesses owners should tie their sales into these events in order to emphasize how local they are, Denny said. For example, stores open during Hopkins’ Old Fashioned Christmas celebration could offer an “Old Fashioned Deal.”

2) Tie in to local successes.

Hopkins’ sense of community is one of its greatest strengths. While the standardization of big-box stores can make it hard for them to capitalize on that sentiment, local businesses don’t have that problem. Their owners often live in the city and have a pulse on local happenings.

Find out what’s successful in the schools, in churches and elsewhere in the community, Denny suggested. Then connect promotions to those local highlights. When the boys basketball team won its third championship in a row, for example, stores could have offered three deals for the three-peat.

“Think local,” Denny said. “Don’t just think about your customers. Think about your customers’ lives.”

3) Connect with customers on the go.

That means going mobile.Use text message alerts, smart phone apps, mobile websites and other options to reach potential customers as they go about their day.

The good news is that these products are no longer the domain of big corporations. Small businesses can hire someone to put together a functional app for less than $2,000—with financing plans available to spread the cost out, Denny said. Mobile websites are even cheaper, as low as $750 for an easily navigable site tailored to smart phones.

When you have the mobile pieces in place, promote them heavily at point of sale locations and other traditional ways in order to let customers know the options are out there. Offer mobile-only deals with coupon codes.

Local stores may offer products and bargains as good as those in a crowded holiday mall. But that doesn’t help if customers aren’t reminded about what’s available.

“Reach them where they are, so we can shop Mainstreet,” Denny said.

4) Avoid “interruptive marketing” whenever possible.

These are messages that force potential customers to stop whatever they’re doing to pay attention to the ad—whether that’s a commercial breaking into a TV show or a newspaper ad interrupting an article.  Customers, especially the younger generation, have become adept at tuning out this type of marketing.

But what about the text message alerts and other messaging that Denny recommends? Those aren’t interruptive because customers opted to receive them, he said, noting that about 95 percent of text messages are opened.

5) Build in a time element.

All that mobile marketing means businesses are no longer communicating with people comfortably ensconced on the couch. Those messages are coming in while people are in meetings, transporting their children or otherwise going about their day. 

Including a not-too-distant deadline—“Come in during the next four hours for a special price.”—encourages customers to stop by on their way home and choose your store for the spontaneous decisions they make while out and about, Denny said.

6) Don’t sweat it if customers share the coupon codes with friends who don’t subscribe to your mobile products.

The whole goal is to increase the number of customers. As long as you’ve included some profit margin, your store will be better off for the extra people stopping by.

7) Make visiting your store enjoyable—especially throughout the holiday season.

“During the holidays, people are attracted to bright lights and fun,” Denny said.

Source: hopkins.patch.com

 Read more about SMS Marketing and Text Messaging services 

One of the new terms you’ll hear more and more whenever you'll talk a mobile marketing professional about sms marketing or mobile marketing for your business. A mobile keyword is a unique word that can contain letters or numbers and is selected by a business.

But why do you need a unique single word? SMS marketing is conducted using a short code (5-6 digit mobile number), short code is a 5-6 digit mobile number which is used to send and receive sms text messages from a software application. A company can either lease their own dedicated short code (bit expensive) or they can use a shared short code provided by SMS Marketing companies. Regardless of dedicated or shared short code, the mobile keyword is required for each campaign company like to execute. For example you own a restaurant and you like to run two types of mobile campaigns; one is your mobile VIP club in which you want customers to opt-in and receive promotions on weekly basis. Second campaign you like run is a mobile feedback, so customer can submit their feedback about quality of food, or customer service.

In order to keep these campaigns unique and run independently, you need to pick a word (mobile keyword), so customer can text "VIP" to short code (27126) to opt-in to your list and for survey you have choose "Feedback", so customers will text 'feedback" to 27126 and they'll be asked series of questions.

Mobile marketing is a new marketing tool that can work extremely well for a lot of businesses. Since text messages get read 95% of the time, a well designed keyword marketing plan can typically result in a 25% response by the consumers. This kind of response is much higher than that of other traditional marketing methods like direct mail or email.

Why Mobile Club is important?

Businesses such as retail, clubs, salon, spa, golf ranges, bowling alley, etc should have Mobile Club like some store have friends and family. You want your customers to feel special once they provide you their mobile number, treat them differently. Since these customers will react to your promotions a lot quickly and there are more chances of coming to store or ordering product. Why? Just for simple reason.. because over 95% of text messages are read!!

You can't throw away email or print advertising and marketing, but mobile channel is something you need to tap as well. Why because it's sexy.. new cool touch phones.. advance features.. everyone likes to play with it and that's what business should understand, where people like to spend their time. You be there where your customer is...make sense

Why Text Message Marketing with Advertising?

Improves response to current advertising/direct response marketing efforts. The Direct Marketing Association reports that response to text message marketing ranges between 12 and 27%. Our SMS Marketing system captures mobile number and stores in a database for future marketing. Provides the ability to remarket to an already OPTED-IN and interested customer with the potential for multiple messaging/marketing opportunities. The SMS Marketing system has numerous mechanisms to tracking responses per campaign to measure effectiveness and ROI. Almost 40% of U.S. adults already prefer text message advertising to television or radio. Over 94% of text messages are read. Text message marketing has a 43% message recall rate.

Make your advertsing "interactive"! Get your prospects to send you a text message, and measure the effectiveness of your ads. You can measure effectiveness of ad by measure number of opt-ins from different sources. If you putting ad in papers, radio or TV, may be billboards, plan to include Text message opt-in keyword in all your advertising material.

Image This..

A person is sitting in Restaurants having breakfast, reading the newspaper. There's an ad for your Mortgage Company that says "Text SAM to 27126 for today's interest rates and more information." That person instantly gets back the latest rate, and you can follow-up with them in the future to help them with their loan. You can also judge the readership of your ad.

You can add your keyword to the radio & T.V. ads introduces the ability to have 2-way communication with the people you are trying to reach. Provide additional information about your business.

"Mobile SMS marketing provides a unique opportunity to interact with customers, get product feedback, and create a direct response to a marketing message. "

To lure customers and boost sales, stores are deploying cool smartphone apps. Will consumers buy into the latest shopping fad?

By Caitlin Keating, reporter

FORTUNE -- Scott Thompson, president and CEO of eBay's PayPal unit (EBAY), says that he is one of those people who drives to Starbucks, sees the long line, and keeps on driving. "I'm on the go. I wish I could have stopped, but I don't have time," Thompson quips over a glass of wine. "No one does."

Not surprisingly, Thompson and his competitors in the fast-growing mobile payments business have a solution for impatient consumers and harried retailers alike: software that lets consumers pre-order and pre-pay for their coffee (or sweaters, or TVs) with a few taps on their mobile phones.

"We all just don't have time to shop," says Thompson, who hosted a recent soiree in New York to unveil PayPal Wallet, smartphone software coming next year that promises to replace both the consumer's wallet (all your credit card information is stored in it) and the retailer's cash register.

But retailers aren't waiting for PayPal Wallet. Many are already going mobile, either offering mobile apps to supplement e-commerce sites, or finding new ways to let potential shoppers get information in stores using their mobile phones.

Sears, for example, has tricked out O'Hare Airport and other high-traffic areas with so-called shopping walls that feature its top-selling products. See something you like? Whip out a camera-enabled phone, scan the Quick Response (QR) code, and you'll be sent to an e-commerce site that lets you purchase the item. By the time you board your plane, the item is already in the process of being shipped.

Tom Aiello, a division vice president at Sears's parent company, Sears Holdings (SHLD), said in regards to this holiday season, "Customers are going to spend more, but shop less. We have seen people use mobile phones when electricity was out to order generators in an ice storm, or an air conditioner during a heat wave in New York City. We've also seen surprising items like lawn tractors purchased on mobile phones and tablets."

The National Retail Federation estimates more than a third of retailers say they have significantly invested in QR codes in offline advertising, such as magazines and billboards. About half of online retailers say they have significantly invested in mobile-optimized websites, and 20% have invested in tablet device apps.

Greg Ahearn, chief marketing officer of Toys "R" Us, has started accepting mobile payments in some of its stores via Google Wallet (GOOG), the search giant's mobile commerce platform. Consumers who have phones enabled with special wireless technology can "bump" their gadgets against compatible cash registers at some 200 of the toy retailer's 870 worldwide locations and complete the sale that way. "It's all about convenience," Ahearn says. "The easier you make it for someone to find the exact toy you're looking for and get it to them the way they want it is the way retail is headed."

But sometimes people can't find that exact toy, or book, or necklace. That's where gift cards come in, and no surprise, gift certificates have gone mobile, too. David Stone, co-founder and CEO of digital gift card purveyor CashStar estimates that Americans purchase some $100 billion in these cash substitutes every year. Cohen's company is trying to shift the business from plastic cards to digital chits. "This is the post-plastic card era, because we are living on our iPhones, iPads, and computers."

Stone's dream scenario: "You're walking up to your friend's kid's birthday party, and you see people bringing gifts, and you think: 'Oh my god, I forgot to get a gift.' So you take out your smartphone and instantly buy the gift, walk into the house, and you say, 'Susan or Debby, I just sent you a gift! Check your phone, and there it is.'"

Convenient, yes, but we're not sure if Miss Manners would approve.

A shorter version of this article appeared in the December 12, 2011 issue of Fortune.

The SMS Marketing text messaging service for advertisers provides marketers with a fantastic way to keep in close contact with their customers via print ads, TV, radio, and more. It’s tough to make it in business no matter what type of business you’re operating. The statistics are rather frightening. Over 85% of all businesses fail. And this isn’t because people set out to sell bad products that nobody wants. It’s more to do with the fact that there is so much competition. Only the best known, heavily advertised companies are capable of building a brand, and only a successful brand reaches long-term, sustained success. For anyone needing to advertise their business, TXTImpact has released their SMS Marketing text messaging service for advertisers out there. Whether your company is big or small, local or global, this sms marketing approach is a surefire winner when used correctly.

Say that you print weekly ads in a popular newspaper. You cannot achieve very much with the space allotted. You’re usually only putting forth a catchy tag line and some details to entice people, and then you attach your business’s number and/or location. That’s the traditional advertisement. With a text messaging service, though, you can list your text number with an ad that says something to the extent of “Find out today’s biggest deals.” And when someone texts you, you can respond with the in-depth information needed to lure customers to your business.

Having a text messaging service like this is just easier and more convenient for everyone involved. Customers don’t have to visit your location or wait to speak to a person on the phone. As soon as they text your number, they will receive all the information they need. And what’s better – now they’re part of your network and will receive every ad you decide to send.

It doesn’t only work for print ads, either. You can do the same on local TV by airing your number across the screen, or for a local radio spot. Any way you decide to go here, people deciding to opt-in to your text network allows them to receive ads from you at any place and at any time.

You can send people a wide assortment of custom-tailored information, including but not limited to:

·         Offer discounts

·         Prize entries and drawings

·         Customer support

·         One-on-one conversations and feedback

·         Affiliate systems

·         And so much more

Having a service like TXTImpact’s text messaging network allows you to advertise in ways you never thought possible, and on a budget that’s absolutely unbeatable.

TXTImpact offers a simplistic web-based text messaging application that allows real estate agents and customers to interact in a more intimate fashion than what the market previously allowed. Although the housing bubble burst in 2008 and most so-called experts wouldn’t be caught dead attempting to sell real estate, most successful agents are savvy enough to realize that there’s money to be made in any market. You only have to offer potential homebuyers what they’re looking for. Thanks to TXTImpact and their new SMS Marketing service for real estate, people shopping for homes now have instant, enticing information available.

Real estate can be a very tricky business. There are only so many ways to communicate with a buyer. A picture of a house is posted in a circular somewhere, and if a homebuyer is interested in shopping homes, they call you, ask for details, and you might get lucky enough to take them out looking at homes in person. And in the rare instance, you finally land a legitimate buyer.

With this new text messaging service, however, you have a new, fresh approach to giving homebuyers details about the property.Real estate agent put texting enabled yard sign or Rider in front of the house. That's it! As prospective buyer's text in for information, there phone # is sent right to your mobile phone or email. When the property is sold, simply reuse the codes.

You can send out new photos and other interactive materials, details about the area, up-to-the-minute pricing changes, and so much more. Whenever a buyer wants to know about a particular property, as long as they’re a member of your network, you can send them a wide range of materials.

This intimate one-on-one setting makes the homebuyer feel like an important part of the real estate process. Instead of homes just sitting there collecting dust, your listing can go viral and reach many people through SMS marketing approach.

For the savvy real estate business out there looking to offer their customers much more than the ordinary, TXTImpact’s real estate SMS Marketing package is a great step in the right direction.