SMS Marketing: What's Important For Businesses

SMS Marketing

Mobile marketing provides allows businesses to engage customers in instant two-way communication. Unfortunately however, much of the advice given to businesses focuses only on the technology - SMS short codes, long code sms, SMS vendors, aggregators... as a business owner it can be enough to make your head spin.

When setting up a campaign, the real questions that need asking are how will the text message campaign will:

Attract new customers
Retain existing customers longer
Encourage existing customers to buy more? (Or more often.)
Then equally importantly:

What value will the text message campaign provide to end users?

Smsgatewayhub Mobile marketing is unique as a medium, in that it is completely opt in. Customers have to opt in and want to receive text messages from you, and customer privacy is paramount. With good reason too - most of us keep our phones on us at all times, not even turning them on when we go to bed!

As customers we don't want to receive more marketing, but we do want to receive relevant offers that we are interested in and have opted in to receive.

The easiest and most frequent use of text messaging campaigns by businesses is mobile coupons. Financial incentives can be a great way to attract customers, especially if your business experiences quiet periods (think cheap lunchtime deals at a restaurant).

While we are big fans of mobile coupling, my goal today is to get you thinking beyond financial incentives. This is because they:

Teach customers to expect a discount (and devalue your products and services in the process)
Raise your variable costs, as you have to produce more to make the same level of profit
Other uses could be:

Service reminders. (When did you last have your oil changed? Would you like to renew your warranty? How about home insurance? Has your product been dispatched?)

Appointment reminders. For businesses that work on an appointment basis (e.g. dentists), the biggest cost of business is no-shows, as you cannot get the time back. Use SMS to send appointment reminders to give customers the chance to cancel if they cannot attend.

Instead of discounting, offer a premium SMS group , free upgrades, special access.
Mobile coupling is a great tool for businesses small and large, but for long term success every offer you send should not be a discount. Having a customer's permission to send them text messages is extremely valuable, however you need to be creative to in thinking of different ways your text message campaigns can provide value to your customers

Mobile Marketing Guide: SMS Shortcodes or SMS Longcodes

Long code sms services in India

One of the strengths of mobile marketing is that it allows you to measure the effectiveness of all your existing offline marketing; for example newspaper ads, yellow pages ads, directory listings and magazine ads. The best way of doing this is to add a mobile 'call to action' to your advertising.

Despite the media frenzy surrounding QR codes, SMS short and long-codes remain the best way of achieving this, because every phone can receive and send SMS text messages. With smartphone adoption  only at around one third, why eliminate two-thirds of your potential responses?

What's an SMS Shortcode?

An SMS Shortcode is essentially a five digit number on which you can set up a keyword. When somebody sends a text containing your keyword to the five digit number, a response is triggered - for example a mobile coupon can be sent back.

Having a Shortcode then as part of your call to action then could be 'Text DEAL to 81234 for 20% off your next [haircut/sandwich/food bill]". You can then monitor how many people text DEAL to 81234, so you now know how effective your offline advertising truly is. To see an example of a Shortcode in action, text 10TIPS to 88802 

Bonus tip: Set up a different keywords for each type of offline advertising, so you can monitor what media is driving the responses.

What's an SMS Long code?

An SMS Long code works in a similar way to a Shortcode, only (as the name suggests) a Long code is a full 10 digit number that your customers can text, but not ring. The advantage of using a Long code is that the Long code is unique to your business (only you use it), meaning you can set-up as many different keywords as you like for no additional cost.

Shortcode on the other hand are provisioned carrier by carrier, making it very expensive to operate your own Shortcode. For smaller businesses, it is more common to rent a keyword on a Shortcode that already exists. This means you pay per keyword , and if another business is already using a term you cannot have it. This makes popular terms such as FREE or SALE difficult to get.

Which to choose?

Shortcode are most effective when the person responding does not have a lot of time to remember or write down your number. For radio or TV ads, this is really the only option. Customers are slowly becoming more familiar with responding to Shortcode, as Programmers such as 'X Factor' now take the majority of votes by text.

Additionally, while Long code can handle around 1000 messsages per hour, Shortcode can handle 1000 messages per minute! If you are anticipating a big spike in response, go for a Shortcode.

For an SME on a tight marketing budget, Long code can be excellent value of money, particularly if you want to set up a large number of keywords.

Finally whether you decide to use short or long codes, remember that the success of the campaign will be determined by the offer you are making. Remember, the quantity (and relevancy) of the offer are always more important than the technology! Think about the things your customers are most likely to respond to, and you response rates will increase regardless of the length of the number.

You can find more examples of SMS campaign best practice on my website Smsgatewayhub

Long Code Services With SMSGATEWAYHUB

Long Codes are nothing but a 10 Digit Virtual Mobile Number (sometimes also called as SMS Virtual Number) to which a user can send a text message to interact with applications and get the desired response. Typical services that can be deployed using a virtual mobile number can be a Request-Response application, Information-on-Demand, Activation of service, etc.

Unlike Long codes which are accessible only in India, SMS Virtual Numbers are globally accessible and an end user can send message to virtual mobile number at normal SMS charges; hence, Long code Services are a perfect fit for enterprises who don't want their target customers or employees to pay premium SMS charges for sending a query. Moreover Smsgatewayhub  Long code services also offer enterprises to have their own dedicated virtual mobile number at very affordable prices.

SMS Virtual numbers are perfectly suitable for closed group target audience (Closed Group Information System) like Existing Customers, Employees, Vendors/Dealers, Sales Force, Service Engineers, etc. who can regularly use the 2-way SMS Application on SMS Long code and Fetch/Provide the desired information. A Few of our clients are satisfactorily using Smsgatewayhub  Long Code Services for Mobile Easy Recharge Application, Collecting Feedback from the customers, Information-on-Demand, etc.

At SMSGATEWAYHUB, we can provide our clients a SMS Virtual Number from any telecom operator circle (State) in India. We not only provide but also manage the Virtual number with 99.9% up time and 24×7 technical support

Features of Long Code or Two Way SMS Services


Register your own exclusive Keyword (Subject to availability)

Unlimited Free Sub Keywords
Get Inquiries / Votes / Complaints / Feedback etc on your Keyword
National Coverage
Web Interface for viewing reports
No Setup Fee
Auto Reply to the client
E Mail Notification on every hit
SMS Notification on every hit (Optional)
URL Forwarding (Optional)

From each message on your Keyword you will receive :

The date & time when we received the message

The number of the mobile that sent the message

The Complete message including your Keyword

Long codes through SMSGATEWAYHUB  are the best and easy to use and fast to send and can reach lakh of people within seconds.

Long Code Sms International Marketing Tool at Your Fingertips

Long code also known as virtual mobile number, is a reception mechanism used by businesses to receive SMS messages and voice calls. As well as being internationally available, long numbers enable businesses to have their own number, rather than short codes which are generally shared across a lot of brands.

The term online message to mobile typically refers to a process of sending a single, group or bulk SMS without the use of native handset. It is a way of sending a message using online method, also called web based SMS. This platform is generally used for establishing business and brand. It is cheap, reliable and quick way of marketing and communicating.

No wonder then many businesses use Online SMS to Mobile technology to keep in touch with their clients, customers, suppliers and workers. As mentioned above it is the cheapest and the quickest way of communicating with mobile audience.

From the marketing point of view, it is one of the most innovative and trendy forms allowing marketers to tap thousands of potential customers which just a click of mouse button. Sending bulk messages is a powerful, direct marketing tool which uses SMS gateway protocols to despatch messages. You just need an internet connection, a web interface and SMS credits. No need for a native device such as mobile phone and handheld device. Simply go online and send your SMS to any mobile device.

Some of the bulk SMS providers offer free SMS service, of course with a cap on the number of messages which can be sent. If you are planning to send out large number of messages then opt for one of their commercial plans and start marketing your products and services. Don't forget, you can also use it as a reliable and efficient communication tool.

Short Code SMS is one of the SMS solutions. It is a subset of bulk SMS. So what is the difference between bulk SMS and short code SMS? Well, to begin with, short codes typically allow the recipients to interact with the sender. These are short numbers which are easy to remember. Short codes are further categorized as dialling and messaging types.

Short codes are unique to every operator. These numbers provides intuitive features of varying levels depending on the technological infrastructure of the network operator. Of course there is a central body which regulates these special numbers to prevent duplication or overlapping.

Short codes provide marketers with several value added features which allows them a greater control over their marketing tasks. It also provides many benefits which are absent in normal bulk SMS. Some of those advantages are mentioned below.

1. Television program voting and competition.

2. Ordering ringtones, wallpapers and mobile utility applications.

3. On-demand services such as weather report, flight information, stock quotes etc.

Messages sent via short codes are typically billed at premium rates. This is done to recover the cost of the service provided to the end user. If you wish to unsubscribe to the service simply send a message which would be something like "STOP" to 767676.

Short codes can be dedicated or shared.

Long Code SMS is yet another way to interact with your mobile customers. Following are some of the advantages of long codes.

1. It allows you to send SMS and receive voice calls.

2. SMS's can be targeted at international customers.

3. These are virtual phones or dedicated numbers which provide a discreet way to communicate. The routing typically hides your identity from customers, suppliers and people with whom you are interacting.

4. It can be used for product feedbacks, campaigns and promotions.