Mobile messaging with mobile marketing

Mobile messaging and mobile marketing are a great way to market. The majority of consumers have mobile phones, and these days, more and more people are using them to access the web, gain information, and even shop. The point is, mobile marketing is on the rise, and learning how to catch this trend, and make the most of it is key to surviving in today's market. The following are some things to look for when choosing a mobile marketing service, and when setting up your mobile marketing plan:

- Subscription groups and alerts- This is a feature that allows people to opt-in to groups via web, phone or software to instantly receive coupons, offers, promotions, discounts or breaking news. This is great for you because it creates a group of people who want to hear about your company on a regular basis.
- Mobile coupons- This is exactly what it says it is, a mobile coupon. The benefit of mobile coupons is that they can help to attract and engage new customers, as well as reward existing. These mobile coupons usually come in the form of codes, and these can help you track the effectiveness by being specific codes for specific campaigns, or have URL's that are easy to track.
- Scheduling- You want a system that allows you to schedule messages for future delivery so that you do not have to instantly send out everything, or spend every day working on your mobile marketing campaign. This will automate the delivery of your messages, allowing you to schedule them for when you want them delivered. This frees up your schedule.
- Auto-responses- Auto responders are important because they will help customers want to take action, thus you should create an auto responder for both the subscriber mobiles, and one-time content responses.
- Personalization fields- Look for a service that allows you to insert data fields into your messages to give them a personalized touch. This way you can customize them to fit the target market you are hitting, to include fast action responses with short deadlines or expiration dates, etc.
- Keywords- Keywords are a big deal in mobile marketing, so look for a program that allows you to use keywords to run multiple programs. You can then take your keywords, and use them to set up groups, contests, voting, auto-responses, messages, message forwarding, and more. Keywords help you segment your marketing plan, and create more powerful messages.
- Contests/ Voting/ Polls- Look for a system with easy to run contests, voting, etc. to help engage and reward loyal customers and drive traffic.
- Send alerts- This is a great feature to look for, you want to be able to send secure text messages from your phone to the whole list of a segment of your list wherever you are. This is great for flash sales, news updates, etc.

There are a lot of things to look for, just remember, mobile messaging is succinct, to the point, and should include metrics, tracking, codes, redemptions, auto responses, and more. You want it to be fun, easy, and engaging.