Category: SMS Marketing

Bulk SMS Marketing for Business

Ekon is in the middle of an important client meeting when his phone starts buzzing. Assuming an emergency, he excuses himself and takes the call. However, the call is from an insurance sales agent regarding a new health scheme. Visibly appalled, Ekon hangs up and slams the phone down.

On the other side, the sales agent, Mary wonders what went wrong. She immediately moves on to another lead only to receive a call on her mobile number. Not wanting to miss what might be an important message, she takes it. The person on the line is another sales agent offering a housing scheme. Mary instinctively wants to slam down the receiver, but she does not. A thought strikes her. They have been making cold calls at all hours. This is precisely what went wrong with the previous customer.

Mary communicates the problem to the team lead, and they decide to find a different approach. The team realizes that cold calls hardly work for brands anymore.

More brainstorming and research bring them to the conclusion that a strategized SMS engagement plan is the best way to reach out to their audience. The company already has hundreds of customers. All they need to do is collate their databases and send the right text message.

Before they begin sending them out, it is necessary to have an efficient SMS marketing system for regular delivery and response. The Insurance Agency decides to sign up with Kirusa’s Konnect portal that offers a robust strategized set of bulk SMS solutions.

Initiating a Bulk SMS Marketing Campaign

  • The Konnect CPaaS portal offers a free trial for users to register and activate a new account.
  • Upon successful account activation, the insurance agency is asked to select a Sender Mask. The Sender Mask is the identity of the SMS sender. Brands can use a custom name or number as the preferred Sender Mask.
  • They are then asked to upload a list of those to whom the messages are to be sent. The option of a DND or do-no-disturb filter is provided to prevent them from sending promotional SMS to people who have unsubscribed.
  • The agency uploads its content or message on the platform and schedules a preferred shoot-off time.
  • They also have a complete metric to keep track of deliveries and response rate s. The Konnect CPaaS portal also offers tools to evaluate the ROI of the bulk SMS messaging campaign.

Complementing Your Bulk SMS Marketing Campaign

The Agency also takes effective measures to generate quality leads for their scheme. This is also to ensure that word gets around quickly amongst as many people as possible. Hence, they advertise the insurance policy across various media channels with an SMS code. This serves as the CTA or call-to-action.

People who see the advertisement send a text to the number and express interest regarding this policy. The Insurance Agency captures the phone number of the sender. This is how a lead is generated. The agency sales team then reaches out to these leads to turn them into customers.

Bulk SMS services are an effective method to gain traction for your business. In an era where online media has taken centre-stage, SMS remains the most accessible means of communication.

Those who believe in the value of mobile as a digital medium can use it effectively. One must also remember that SMS marketing methods should not be implemented in isolation. It is always a good idea to integrate them with various channels. An omnichannel experience provides leeway for maximum customer engagement.

Related Pages-

SnapCall | Missed Call Marketing for Voting and Elections | Missed Call Marketing for Lead Generation | Missed Call Marketing

The Konnect Guide to SMS Marketing for Restaurants

 

Aimen has a cosy little diner that serves the best meatloaf. Weekends are usually packed with long queues in waiting; weekdays are not. She wonders why and decides to do something about it. Her meatloaves deserve better than weekend queues and a weekday dud.

This is when she overhears a customer reading out an SMS to her friend. The SMS says something about a 15 per cent discount on pizza rolls every Monday at a restaurant. Aimen knows the place because it is only a couple of blocks away. The girl reading out the SMS looks elated and suggests they visit the restaurant next Monday.

“Now, why haven’t I thought of it earlier?” thinks Aimen. She decides to look up SMS marketing ideas on the internet and perhaps some SMS marketing tools that could help with the implementation.

Implementing a Successful SMS Marketing Campaign

Aimen decides to promote her meatloaves. Most people stop by her place because no other diner serves meatloaves as succulent as her’s. It is time to capitalize on what she does best.

Aimen signs up with Kirusa’s Konnect portal and gains access to its SMS marketing platform. She buys a shortcode 660758 and reserves a keyword ‘LOAVES.’ After the configuration, Aimen creates a text for customers in her database.

Outbound Messaging

She begins with Konnect’s bulk SMS service and sends out promotional messages to all those who regularly visit the diner. The SMS contains a coupon code, which allows customers to avail a 25 per cent discount on meatloaves between 3pm-6pm every weekday.

With the help of SMS tagging, Aimen also inserts the coupon codes within billing details that she sends to people after every delivery.

So far, she has targeted every customer on the database and word gets around quickly. The diner is located on a popular street, and nobody wants to resist the attractive discount on meatloaves.

Inbound Messaging

She also puts up an advertisement outside the diner containing the shortcode for free deliveries. Sure enough, people start catching up, and within a few hours, Aimen starts receiving orders.

In fact, more people start visiting the diner on weekday afternoons for a taste of Aimen’s new item on the menu, the weekday meatloaf pizza special.

So we see that SMS marketing is crucial for small businesses, especially restaurants. It works wonders for the brand, particularly if you want to keep customers in the loop about discounts and coupons. The little perks and loyalty points will always keep them coming.

The analytical tools over platforms like Kirusa Konnect also enable international SMS marketing for overseas customers. A lot of restaurants and food chains are located across different countries and location is extremely crucial. Customers need to know where they are going to redeem offers.

Related Pages-

SnapCall | Missed Call Marketing for Voting and Elections | Missed Call Marketing for Lead Generation | Missed Call Marketing

Why Use Konnect’s SMS Marketing Service

In 2008, an unassuming 47-year-old stunned the audience with her rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables. Susan Boyle became an overnight sensation in the first round of ‘Britain’s Got Talent.’

Following this, she was one of 40 acts that were put through to the semi-finals. In the public vote, she received the highest number of votes and went through to the final.

The phone vote, which occurred after all the semi-finalists had performed, determined the first winner of the semi-final and took place via an exclusive phone line.

Does that ring a bell? Many of us have voted for our favourite performer in reality shows at some point, and we have used voting channels like SMS.

Didn’t the sheer act of voting keep us glued to the show? Did we eagerly wait for the latest episode to air? Weren’t we all increasingly engaged?

This happened because many shows nowadays deliberately adopt SMS marketing strategy to heighten their TRPs.

Leveraging an SMS Marketing Campaign

 

In the previous article, we suggested five essential tactics for an enhanced SMS marketing strategy.  Having a USP, integrating your SMS campaign, location-based promotional SMS, etc. all sound good. Hence, it is equally important to adopt an SMS marketing solution for better implementation. How about an enterprise communication suite? Especially one that offers a complete set of SMS marketing solutions.

Let’s talk about Kirusa’s enterprise communication suite called Konnect. Apart from enabling the best marketing tactics, it helps you monitor, visualize and manage campaigns over a smart analytics portal.

It has a set of unique inbound and outbound communication tools, designed to carefully leverage the ideologies of classical push and pull marketing.

Inbound SMS

The voting codes that are displayed onscreen encourage the audience to send an SMS for their favorite participant. This is called an inbound SMS. Similarly, users send SMSes to learn more or subscribe to an advertised product. Later, the audience receives a customized message from you, as a response to the inbound SMS.

Kirusa Konnect’s inbound SMS solution can be availed to create a dedicated SMS communication channel for its users. One has to simply SMS a predefined message to a short code to connect. It has multiple applications ranging from lead generation campaigns to voting contests and information on-demand services.

Bulk SMS for Cheap SMS Marketing

Bulk SMS Marketing is one of the most prolific forms of communication in the 21st century.

As a cost-effective push marketing medium, Bulk SMS marketing reaches out to maximum users over the most personal platform – the mobile phone – leaving room for personalization and emotive value.

Kirusa Konnect’s CPaaS portal offers a reliable platform for bulk SMS messaging, enabling marketers to send bulk SMS messages with just a few clicks. Konnect provides a classic SMS outreach campaign, using which promotional, informational and transactional messages can be easily communicated

SMS Tagging

Transactional SMS tend to have a higher click-through rate (CTR) compared to promotional SMS because they contain personalized information about the client’s account and transactions. What if there was a solution enterprise could use to leverage higher impression and mindshare of transactional SMS and use them for promotional messaging?

At Kirusa, we offer a service called SMS Tagging as part of our enterprise messaging suite. In essence, a solution that enables promotional SMS to piggybank on transactional SMS platform and gains audience mindshare.

Apart from that, companies can also save SMS bandwidth at an optimized cost, and there would be no need to send additional push messages. They can leverage on shorter promotional missives that blend with the existing transactional SMS.

In essence, Konnect offers multiple use value to the brand. In an era of aggressive marketing, Konnect is the best SMS marketing service for an omnichannel experience.

Related Pages-

SnapCall | Missed Call Marketing for Voting and Elections | Missed Call Marketing for Lead Generation | Missed Call Marketing

The Top 5 Tactics to Engage Customers with SMS Marketing

It was a nice balmy evening and time to get off from work. Mohor decided to scroll through his phone and find something interesting to eat. He soon found himself spoilt for choice after flipping through lip-smacking images and irresistible discounts. The hoard of tabs, social media accounts, and food delivery apps did not help either.

Our boy was already giving up when a notification startled him. It was an SMS from a Pizza place 500 meters away from where he lived. The SMS offered an “after-office” discount coupon that he could avail between 5 pm-7 pm. Without further ado, Mohor dashed out of the office and placed an order when his home was 15 minutes away. By the time he got there, a piping hot mushroom cheese-burst was waiting at the doorstep.

What is SMS Marketing?

It feels like Mohor could be any of us. We may get a similar coupon code this evening, tonight or the day after. This is because the codes, promotions, discounts, and offers are elements of an organized strategy called SMS marketing. It ensures that offers arrive at the most appropriate time when we need them.

Mobile SMS marketing is a timely technique that works favourably for brands. The number of mobile subscribers is estimated to reach around 5 billion by 2019 (source: https://goo.gl/nQZT9s). No wonder SMS has open rates as high as 98 per cent compared to other forms of advertising.  (Source: https://goo.gl/mRfw3E). A promotional SMS speaks directly to the user and can be read in less than a minute.

Despite the allegation that promotional SMSes spam our inboxes, brands must never shy away from having an SMS marketing strategy. If implemented well, mobile SMS marketing can work wonders.

Let us help you make the most of your SMS marketing campaigns with the following tactics:

Keep a Clock

While hundreds of companies send endless promotional and deals via SMS, the frequency of these messages can ultimately put off the user.  A lot of promotional messages reach the user irrespective of time and context.  A lunch coupon at 9   in the morning is irrelevant to the customer, whereas the same message would get more attention if it were to reach him an hour before lunch. Remember Mohor’s story.

Don’t Forget the USP

It is wise to be different and think beforehand why the user would be interested in your deal. Is it worth their time? The offer must be exclusive, personalized and relevant to your audience (perhaps it’s time to work on your client-database). Do you think the ‘after-office’ discount would be popular with housewives? Last but not the least, avoid copying other brands as much as possible when it comes to discounts and offers. Be original.

Piggybank on Transactional SMS

Companies that regularly send billing or transaction details to customers can add shorter promotional messages to their transactional SMSes. It is an excellent opportunity to initiate a clear call-to-action with the extra codes. Just make sure that the codes, keywords or offers blend well with the transactional message and do not lose their importance. You may even look up quite a few SMS marketing services that enable this.

Do not Isolate your SMS Marketing Campaign

Remember how Mohor made a point to scroll through food delivery apps and social media accounts before noticing the SMS. That’s true for most of us. Social media trends and updates significantly influence our buying decision and promotional SMSes act like a ‘final push.’ Hence, it is a great idea to integrate WAP links into your SMS that direct people to your site or app. The next time somebody needs service, they will perhaps browse through your website first.

Location

Mentioning your location is extremely important. A lot of brands forget to mention this, resulting in a confused customer who does not know where to redeem the offer. If you have customers worldwide, it is all the more important to have a good track of locations and time zones. International SMS marketing services are an excellent way to figure this out.

In conclusion, having an SMS marketing strategy is effective if you do not consider it in silos. The social media can get overwhelming for a buyer with its unending images and options. Treat it as the sweet spot for SMS marketing. A to-the-point, short, relevant and timely SMS can score where social media lags.

Related Pages-

SnapCall | Missed Call Marketing for Voting and Elections | Missed Call Marketing for Lead Generation | Missed Call Marketing