Irish Marketing: Using SMS marketing to promote your business

On Friday I received the following SMS message from Crunch Fitness Gym in Clonsilla, Dublin that I used to be a member of. It said "ST PATRICKS SPECIAL. Rejoin Crunch fitness before 7pm Mon 19th and receive a free Nike Rockstar course and no membership joining fee. Ltd spaces avail. 01 8025906"

This message was a good use of SMS marketing to contact and try to persuade past customers to start using their gym again by utilising direct response marketing. Reselling to old customers is more cost effective than identifying and selling to new ones. If they once had a need for your service then chances are likely that they will be candidates to use it again. When compared to direct mail the cost of sending a SMS message is far less. Typically a SMS message can be sent for 5 cent whereas a direct mail piece including postage would cost around 80 cent.

At present response rates for SMS marketing in Ireland can sometimes be as high as 40%, I think people are much more likely to read an SMS message than they are to sift through the junk mail at home. Receiving a SMS message is still something that is very hard to ignore as opposed to receiving a 'junk' mailing piece.

This SMS message was also good as it made some attempt to give a reason for the promotion. People like to know the reason why you are making them an offer and a St Patrick’s day offer is as good as any.

By including a free offer and having no joining fee the offer is strengthened and there is one less barrier for people to take up the offer and try out the service. Perhaps the offer could have been made even better by offering the first month for free to allow people to try them out for nothing with no risk.

Incorporating a deadline into the SMS marketing message is also another good idea. By giving a deadline of when the offer closes prospects know that they need to act fast. It gives a powerful call to action.

So having seen this example of SMS marketing by a business in Ireland hopefully it will give you ideas of how you could incorporate text message marketing into your businesses marketing plan. In addition to using it to reactivate old clients it can also be used in lead generation. For example with your existing advertisements you could add instructions for those interested to send a text message with their email address to a particular number. This type of process could be automated very easily and the brochure could then be delivered by email.

SMS marketing is also very well suited to offers that are time sensitive in nature, for example if you were a bar owner you might wish to notify customers that you have a special poker night running. Other businesses such as alternative therapists could use SMS marketing to try and promote unfilled appointments that they may have on a particular day. They could send a SMS message to all their clients offering a discounted treatment to all those that take the slots.

Article Source: http://www.articles.ask-me-about.com

About the author: Matt Eve is a author and owner of a specialist marketing company in Ireland.See more of his writing at his irish marketing blog
Click here to get your own unique version of this article from the Unique Articles Submissions Service