If you own a cellular phone, chances are you’ve received at least one promotional message sent to your device – either from a company with which you signed up to receive sales offers via mobile marketing or from a random seller who’s obtained your number using some other technique.

But what are these sales messages, and how can you use them to your own advantage in order to promote your own offers with this form of mobile marketing?

In fact, this type of promotion is referred to as “SMS” – or short message service.  SMS messages are brief sales pieces that are sent out as SMS blasts to mobile subscribers or to randomly generated lists of cell phone numbers with the hope of motivating recipients to take some type of desired action.
Here’s how to get started with SMS mobile marketing…

Step 1 – Gather your list of cell phone numbers

As a marketer, you have two different options for collecting the cell phone numbers to which you’ll send your SMS promotions.  You can either gather numbers from your current customers, or you can work with agencies that will allow you to send your messages to their lists of cell phone numbers.
In general, you’ll find that you get the best response from customers that have opted in to your mobile marketing list – meaning that they’ve given their explicit permission to receive this type of message from you.  Because these people are already familiar with your business, they’ll be more likely to take the actions you request, based on your preexisting relationship.

On the other hand, if you rely on your own customer lists for your mobile marketing campaigns, you’ll likely find that your reach is limited.  Generally, lists of past customers who have opted in to receive mobile marketing promotions tend to be shorter than randomly generated lists, so you’ll want to think about whether your promotions will benefit from past contact with your business, or if you’d achieve better results by reaching out to a larger group of random numbers.

Step 2 – Draft your messages

Because SMS blasts tend to be quite short, it’s imperative that you put some time and effort into coming up with the best possible combination of words to use in your messages.

If you haven’t sent an SMS promotion before, consider researching case studies of successful mobile marketing campaigns.  The lingo used in effective mobile marketing messages is quite different than what you’ll use to promote your business anywhere else – making it a good idea to seek out examples of campaign messages that have worked well for others in the past.

At the same time, it’s a good idea to come up with at least a few potential message text options.  As with any type of marketing, you’ll want to test different variations of your SMS blast to see which versions result in the most sales or other actions.  Take the time to put together different versions that can be sent to various groups of target customers before moving on to the next step.

Step 3 – Send your campaign and measure your results.

Finally, it’s time to send your campaign!  You can either do this yourself or work with a company that sends out SMS blasts on your behalf.  While these companies may charge you to use their services, be aware that they often offer better deliverability and other benefits to their customers.
After your mobile marketing promotion goes live, you’ll want to pay special attention to the results you receive.  Measure the number of desired actions that occur in relation to your individual SMS variations and use the results of this analysis to ensure that your next campaign will be even more successful!

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• The pros and cons of using SMS as a mobile app marketing tool
• How to Market with Mobile Technology
• 48% Of Consumers Would Respond To Offers Via SMS | [Infographic]