Tag: cpaas

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

Missed Call Marketing for Lead Generation

Lead generation is a crucial component in businesses, without which we would be shooting in the dark. Collecting credible leads is serious business, and you don’t want to depend on a third agency to get this done.

If you run a small business and don’t want to invest in very taxing methods, we suggest missed call marketing. It is the most cost-effective way to gather quality leads without being intrusive.

This article will give you in-depth details on the successful implementation of missed call marketing for lead generation.

Why a Missed Call Campaign?

One of the best things about missed call marketing is the fact that it is the customer who has shown genuine interest without being pushed.

Any new or small business can go a long way with this process. All you have to do is put your message across various advertisement channels along with the number to prompt an interested person.

Getting somebody to call you is a classic case of pull marketing. This is of specific importance because several businesses often fail while trying to generate leads or attract customers via other mediums. On the other hand, missed calls are always solicited, and you know that you are dealing with a more informed and decisive prospect.

Kick-starting your Missed Call Marketing Campaign

If you want less hassle and significant leeway, SnapCall from Konnect CPaaS portal is your friend. It is a low-budget platform that quickly kick-starts any campaign

Now, imagine you are an agency with a new insurance policy eager to beef up your database with good leads. This is how SnapCall will help-

  1. Sign up for a trial on the SnapCall portal of Konnect CPaaS.
  2. Pick a number – long or short number – depending on your campaign requirements. This is the direct call-to-action (CTA) that interests the prospective buyer.
  3. Follow by advertising your policy message and the number across various platforms.
  4. Setup the automated SMS message that is sent to the user, as an acknowledgment of the missed call.
  5. Configure the active hours of the call. You can choose to keep the lines open 24 hours a day, or restrict it from 6 am to 9 pm. Remember that this feature allows numerous customizations.
  6. As soon as you receive a missed call, capture the caller’s number and continue the process.
  7. Send a confirmation SMS via Konnect CPaaS and get back to the caller with required details.
  8. Continue the exercise, and you have a comprehensive database of your clients. This can be further used to work towards more policies and products while generating new leads.

In conclusion, SnapCall is a fantastic inbound marketing tool for any business seeking to adopt a low-budget and high feedback approach towards lead generation. One has to remember that missed call marketing does not entail a hundred percent success rate unless we advertise across other channels. For the best ROI, utilize every possible means of communication.

Apart from lead generation, SnapCall also offers various other use cases. It is a single platform for multiple occasions. Sign up for a 30-day free trial and take your pick!

Related Pages-

Missed Call Marketing for NGOs and Charities | SnapCall | Missed Call Marketing | Missed Call Marketing for Voting and Elections