During the course of the game players use their own cell phone to receive text messages that give them intelligence (aka clues) to accomplish top secret spy missions in the game.

How totally cool is that? I love this idea. The messages are standard rate, so there is no additional cost to play with the SMS feature. (As long as you have a good text messaging plan. Which you do, don’t you?)


You may be wondering what this has to do with mobile marketing. It is an indication of how integrated mobile is becoming in our daily lives. The more aspects of daily life that are intertwined with mobile the more open consumers will be to communicating with businesses via mobile. It will just be completely normal to use your phone to interact with websites, companies, appliances, games, TV, radio and print media. And businesses that don’t have some sort of mobile interaction will feel old fashioned and get left behind in marketing. Just like any business now that doesn’t have a website feels positively ancient and out dated.

SIDE NOTE:
Be sure to also see my YouTube video about Woman’s Day Interactive – an example of a mobile interactive magazine.

I will let you know soon how much fun using text messaging with CLUE is. Don’t tell my daughter but this will be one of her birthday gifts this weekend. I will also let you know if there is a marketing aspect to it as well. I am hoping for a double opt in opportunity to stay on an SMS list for additional value. Fingers crossed. Oh and I also hope I complete the most missions before being discovered by Agent Black. My Palm Pre and I are ready.

Disclosure: The links to CLUE on Amazon are affiliate links. If you decide to purchase CLUE from Amazon using these links it will add a small amount to my affiliate commission from Amazon which I use to buy books from Amazon.

The Challenge:

This week I’d like to issue a challenge to you. It is to participate in mobile marketing from the consumer side. If you are going to work in mobile marketing, you need to CONSUME mobile marketing.

I challenge you to sign up for at least 2 text message campaigns and visit at least 2 mobile websites (from your mobile browser) this week. These should be new campaigns to you.

If you don’t have a text message plan or a data plan on your phone yet, go get them. There is no excuse for being in mobile marketing and not having a text and data plan.

As you do this I’d like you to stay aware of what caused you to sign up for campaigns. What were the factors that you had to see present to feel safe to give over your mobile number? What made you excited to get a message?

My Challenge Report:

To be honest I have to say that I was only able to accomplish half of the challenge – I used one text messaging campaign and visited one new mobile site. On a brighter note I did upgrade my mobile plan to Sprint’s Everything Data Family Plan. Turns out we get 100 extra minutes and unlimited texting and unlimited data on all three phones for $2 LESS per month. Check your plan – it might be cheaper to have unlimited now.

Anyway, there we were on a road trip driving across New Mexico. For those of you who don’t live out West, or even in the US at all, here is a visual image. It looks like this for hours at a time.

I had just about given up on being able to execute the challenge when we were wondering how to get to the restaurant we heard had awesome green chili in Santa Fe.

We were too far out in the middle of nowhere to get the mobile web to come up, but then I remembered I could text Google for the info. I didn’t have the Google short code memorized or programmed into my contacts so I had to bring up my on screen key pad to figure out the numerical equivalent to GOOGLE which turns out to be 466453.

I bring this up so that you know when you ask people with smartphones to spell out the short code, it doesn’t work. The number pad we use on our QWERTY keyboard doesn’t match the phone dialing numbers and letters combo. Just use the numbers.

Since I knew the name of the restaurant and that we were going to Santa Fe, I texted “Tomasito’s Santa Fe” to 46645. Yes, I accidentally left off the last 3 and it worked anyway. It sent me back the correct name (Tomasita’s) and the address with a click to call phone number.

Once I had phone call level cell service I clicked to call the restaurant and got directions off the freeway from the hostess. Worked like a charm. The best part was that my friend who was driving thought I was just brilliant and a Techno Goddess. Turns out that texting Google can impress your friends AND get you where you want to go.

Now about that mobile site…

I had decided that I wanted to be marketed a mobile site in the real world and not search for one on my mobile or find out about it from a mobile marketing oriented source. The only site that I saw with this criteria this week was the Disney mobile site, specifically one for the show called Phineas and Ferb. (Don’t get me started on the show itself. Suffice it to say that this is not one of the shows on Disney that I actually like.)

A full mobile site review is not in order here as I’m not sure if anyone reading this, myself included, actually cares how the Phineas and Ferb mobile site worked – which it did. Let me just point out a couple of things that were great about this mobile campaign.

First, the domain name was great. I saw the site promoted on the Disney Channel while we were getting ready to head to the competition. I was literally tying my shoes when the commercial aired. It caught my attention because I was trying to find a mobile site and I worried that I might not be able to remember the domain name. Not to fear. It was www.disney.mobi/pf which I successfully remembered without writing it down or using it for 4 days.

My daughter also got excited initially but then remembered she doesn’t have internet access on her phone so she turned away from the TV and kept getting ready. Now that we have that new unlimited plan she can check it out for herself.

The other great thing about this campaign was that it was being marketed to the right audience (Phineas and Ferb viewers) from a trusted source – the Disney Channel. Keep these concepts in mind when you start marketing your mobile site. Start with your current customers who already know and trust you. Build from there.

OK, what about you? Did you accept the challenge? What text campaigns did you participate in and what mobile sites did you visit? What did you find interesting and/or noteworthy?

Choosing a text message company can be daunting. There are so many choices with a wide variety of services available by each vendor.

Once you have eliminated any company that only offers SMTP email based texting (see why here) you can move on to choosing a provider based on the types of features a particular company offers and whether or not their service will work for what you want to do.

Need help getting started with text messaging? Want to be sure you are developing a smart campaign before you hire the vendor to get it done? Check out my Mobile Marketing Launch Kit which includes a module about creating a successful text messaging campaign.

Listed below are several text message companies that I have either personally used or have gone through an in depth tour of their platform.  Full disclosure: In some cases I will earn a referral fee if you choose to do business with them. However, no company is listed here that I wouldn’t personally do business with myself or suggest to a dear friend.

You will find companies that are Self-Service, Specialty Self-Service and Managed Service.

SELF-SERVICE

The following text message companies are set up so that you can sign up and handle your own campaign. Whether that means you are doing it yourself or have your in-house marketing team taking charge.

Texting Forward
Texting Forward is owned by Jerson Daganzo, a very smart and savvy marketer who also owns a Cold Stone Creamery franchise. His real world business experience translates into a very powerful text message platform that includes mobile coupons, a loyalty club with automatic tracking and reward delivery and the ability to create a variety of sublists for smarter marketing.

All campaigns are created and monitored in the easy to use campaign control center. Reports are built with a business owner mindset. It is easy to see what is working with your text campaign and what needs attention. The Texting Forward platform includes a coupon redemption module that makes every campaign trackable in a very easy way.

I highly recommend TextingForward, especially for businesses doing mobile coupons with staff who will be responsible for redeeming them. It is the business owner’s dream program because the reporting is so detailed. The easy to use user interface and powerful campaign features (including a social networking component) and robust reporting make this a knockout platform.

More Info

markUmobile
markUmobile is run by Kathryn Rose, a smart businesswoman who understands that it is technology’s job to do what we want and then makes it happen. Her platform is set up to work for any type of business but she has specialty platforms for realtors (HomeSearchMobile), mortgage lenders (RateWatchMobile) and banks (Mobile Banking).

The admin panel is easy enough to find your way around in to get done what you want. Plus, Kathryn will walk you through it in your demo, so you’ll know what you’re doing.

There is an online widget available that you can use to capture text message sign ups from your website. This allows for the markUmobile platform to help you build your subscriber list from multiple sources.

More Info

TxtWire
TxtWire, run by CEO Doug Moss, has txtdispatcher which is their service for schools and universities to send text message alerts (emergency and otherwise) to their students and faculty. They also have txtnet which is a network that lists participating schools, businesses and organizations in a given geographic area. Consumers sign up to receive information from only the entities of interest to them.  They also offer custom solutions for businesses.

One really great thing about TxtWire is that through txtnet consumers get to choose exactly what they want to receive – event alerts, coupons, other offers – and from whom. It works well for everybody.

More Info

Mobivity
Mobivity is an excellent platform for small businesses that need a cost-effective way to get started in text messaging. The Mobivity platform has a lot of features, but is not as user friendly as it could be. Mobivity 2.0 is said to be coming out shortly which should solve that issue.

Campaigns are created in the admin site, but there is not much that can be monitored there.  (This is ironic because the Mobivity team is also responsible for Mobilytics, the best mobile web analytics available.)  Within Mobivity you can do SMS autoresponders, text clubs, mobile coupons, polling/voting and contests.

The best feature of Mobivity is its small business friendly pricing and variety of features. If you are open to figuring out how to use the admin panel, then Mobivity is a solid, smart choice. I use Mobivity for my Mobile Marketing Text News Brief and am very happy with their service.

More Info

i2SMS
i2SMS is an Australian company with a U.S. branch office run by Giff Gfroerer. Their program handles text blasts, text clubs, mobile coupons and mobile originated information requests. I2SMS is the best text company to go with if you have a database of information that you want to serve up to customers via text messaging upon their request.

The admin panel is easy enough to figure out and there is some level of reporting you can see. When you sign up you will get a complete walk through of the system by someone from the company. That is one of the best reasons to go with i2SMS.

You also get unlimited secondary keywords that can be used to crate sub-lists and make campaigns more trackable.  A very cool feature of 12SMS is that you can send messages to your subscribers by using your phone.

More Info

mobileStorm
The most robust and multi-channeled platform presented so far, mobileStorm helps you pull out the big guns. You can do mobile coupons, autoresponders, scheduled texts and text clubs. You can even use their platform to create a Text to Screen. Additionally, the mobileStorm platform does so much more than text messaging. It handles email, voice, faxing and also video promotion. They even have an RSVP Manager that is wonderful for clubs & restaurants who can use it to get more people in the door.

Customer service is high touch at mobileStorm. You will likely get a personal call from someone there when you sign up to make sure you are getting started OK. There is a lot of data and information about your campaigns you can access in the admin panel.

I highly recommend mobileStorm because their platform is more than text messaging and so it gives you more marketing channels in one. Plus they are a top of the line company with affordable introductory pricing to get started.

More Info

SPECIALTY SELF-SERVICE

PhindMe / EverywhereIGo
EverywhereIGo is a mobile site building service with integrated text messaging. This is very smart to combine the two mobile marketing tools. The website builder is fairly robust and easy enough to use. As with all mobile site builders it feels a bit like wearing new shoes.

The user interface is mostly intuitive and you can certainly get at least a preliminary mobile site built in less than an hour. It will help to have a clear cut idea of what you want to create before you start using the site builder. Integrating in the text messaging component is super easy. Most of it is built in for you.

If you need a mobile site with a text messaging component, I highly recommend EveryhwhereIGo, especially because they have a fully functional free version so you can try it out.

More Info

JitterGram
JitterGram is a local-oriented mobile coupon provider. You can very easily set up a mobile coupon offer and then send out coupons via this service. Their back end software takes care of everything you just plug in your initial offer and then you can send text message on a set pre-programmed schedule or whenever you want to send one.

There is a basic report for each JitterGram sent but you have to manually input the redemption numbers. JitterGram gets huge kudos for being super easy to use. Another bonus is that consumers who are signing up to receive JitterGrams from their website will see all the offers in a particular area.

If you need the easiest, fastest way to create a basic mobile coupon campaign, JitterGram is it. They offer the first month free as well, so there is no risk to give it a try.

More Info

MANAGED SERVICE

The following are companies that actually do the text messaging for you. They work with your marketing team to create the campaigns and then they implement it for you. The minimum budget you need to work with a managed service company is $10,000 plus you need marketing support for your campaign.

Blast Companies / Smart Reply
If you are looking for a company that will handle the text messaging campaign for you, instead of you doing it yourself, then Smart Reply is the place to go. They will take care of every detail of your campaign from start to finish. In addition to text messaging they can also help you with a voice campaign.

More Info

Confused by how to get started with text messaging? Want to be sure you are developing a smart campaign before you hire the vendor to get it done? Check out my Mobile Marketing Launch Kit which includes a module about creating a successful text messaging campaign.

Not Listed Here?
If you are an SMS text message company provider and would like to be listed, please contact me to set up a tour of your platform. I am open to reviewing companies worldwide even though right now I only list U.S. companies.

There is No Free Lunch in Text Marketing

Undoubtedly you have discovered that there are tons of text message companies to choose between when you are ready to dive into text marketing. While there are a large number of terrific options available you may also come across some that are downright bad for your business. This post will help you to tell the difference.

Let me start off with some basic text messaging knowledge.

There are two ways to send text messages – SMS and SMTP. SMS is true text messaging that utilizes short code technology and there is a fee charged for each message that is sent. SMTP is essentially sending an email to a cell phone number and it arrives looking like a text message; there are no fees for sending SMTP messages.

To many people it will seem like the same thing. Using either method a business sends a message and a consumer gets it on their phone. No difference, right? Wrong. In fact, the SMTP method might seem better since there is no fee per message. Free is always better, right? Wrong.

To be blunt, SMTP text messaging is DANGEROUS for your business for three reasons.

1)
Your messages sent via SMTP are likely not getting delivered to your customers.

From the Mobile Marketing Association’s Consumer Best Practices Guidelines:

Carriers, at their discretion, make available SMTP gateways so that subscribers may receive SMS messages originated via email. Example: A mobile subscriber can be reached by sending an email (SMTP) message to [10 digit number]@[carrierdomainname].com. The carriers that support such gateways do so with the intent that they are not utilized for any commercial traffic. To that end, carriers actively monitor and filter against these connections to protect subscribers from unsolicited messages (spam) and utilize a variety of mechanisms to do so, including spam keyword filters, throttling against questionable domain or IP addresses suspected of abuse, and the like.

That’s right. The cell phone carriers are actively monitoring these gateways for commercial traffic and abuse of the system. They can and will shut down your messages with a flick of a switch. All your hard work to build a text message list will be wasted as the carriers shut down your messages.

You will receive no notification that they have done so. You will have no recourse to get things moving again. Your text messaging will simply stop working one carrier at a time.

When your messages don’t get delivered you will see your results plummet and may incorrectly think that mobile marketing doesn’t work. It will be worse if you have signed up for an SMTP service that charges a monthly fee because you’ll be paying money for nothing. A marketing tool that you may be counting on to bolster your bottom line will fail you.

2)
If your messages do get delivered you are opening yourself up to legal action.

Because messages sent by SMTP are sent via email, they are subject to Section 14(b)(1) of the CAN-SPAM act and anyone sending unsolicited messages can and will likely be prosecuted. If you think people are fussy about getting spam in their email, just imagine how quickly they will report spam text messages coming to their phones.

Even if you have gotten permission and think you are not spamming, it is entirely possible that customers will think that you are. Or report you as a text message spammer just because they want to opt out of getting your messages.

Using true SMS messaging with short codes there are systems set in place to protect businesses from unfair accusation of spamming – there are opt-in audit trails and built in opt out mechanisms (support for HELP or STOP commands).

3)
You risk your company’s reputation and customer good will by doing text messaging wrong.

There is no other media that is so personal as the mobile phone. When you send a message to your list you are going directly to your customer wherever they are and interrupting them with a personal message. This is a very powerful communication channel and must be used responsibly. Your customers will not tolerate anything on their mobile device that is not relevant to them and gives them the ultimate control over the communication. SMTP messaging does not.

Bottom Line:
Do not use SMTP text messaging for your business mobile marketing efforts or you will ultimately regret it.

How to tell if a text message company is using SMS or SMTP technology:

Side Note:
Not all of the companies who have built services on SMTP platforms are scammers. They may think they have built a viable service and are offering an affordable option to fee-based text messages. Regardless of the intent behind it, you should steer clear of their services.

Many of the text message companies that are using SMTP technology will have the words SMS messaging spread widely throughout their site. Simply seeing the phrase “SMS” is not enough to ensure you are getting the right kind of service.

The only way to tell if a particular company is using SMS technology is to see if you will be using a short code (a 5 or 6 digit number) in your messaging. It might be a shared short code where all customers of theirs utilize the same number but are distinguished by keyword or they may work with you to lease your own short code.

Your messages will come from that code and your customers can send a text message to opt-in to your messages using it. You will pay a fee for each message you send. There is no such thing as free SMS messages. There are some SMS companies that allow you to send messages free, but their revenue model is to include advertising within your messages. Still, not free is it?

Still Confused? Need Help?

If you are not certain if a particular company you are considering working with is using SMTP or SMS technology, please email me and I will be happy to check it out and let you know. I’m also happy to refer you to a selection of text message companies that you can choose between knowing you are in good hands.

Just think how powerful it is to have your Twitter messages being delivered instantly to the mobile devices of your followers, not just waiting in the Twitterstream to possibly be noticed. You now know with almost certainty that your messages are being read.

When using Twitter as a mobile marketing tool you need to change your posting strategy just a bit knowing that each time you send a message everyone on the receiving end of the message is looking at their cell phone. No posting about what you ate for breakfast. Instead you need to keep your posts to only important items and ones that truly add value to your followers’ lives. It certainly can be done.

Without a doubt Twitter can be an excellent mobile marketing tool.

The only downfall of this strategy is that if anything ever happened to Twitter (beyond the fail whale) you would lose your list of followers. After all, without Twitter as a platform, you have no way to reach this group of people ever again.

So, if you like the idea of having a group of people you can send SMS messages to on a regular basis I suggest that you start your own text message list. In essence you would be creating your own Twitter stream direct to your groups’ cell phones. I suggest starting right away before everyone else is doing it.

To find out how to do this, you can sign up for my How to Build a Text Message List teleseminar here.

At the Minnesota State Fair (going on August 21st to September 1st) , The Scion Chicago Region is using text messaging to give away Garmin TM GPS navigators to people who can guess the number of Scion-branded Skulls placed inside a Scion vehicle. Participants guess how many Skulls are in the car and text in their vote. The person who guesses correctly wins the GPS unit. (The number of Skulls inside the car changes every day.)

Each day 20 people win a free T-shirt and are notified of their winning by text message. This is a really smart use of mobile marketing because they are likely still at the State Fair and have their phone on their hip. When they are notified they win it is easy to get back to the booth and claim their prize.

The Scion folks are thrilled with this mobile campaign that Encompass Advertising and Marketing has developed for them. And they should be. It is easy to participate, it provides value to the people who participate and engages them in a smart way around being mobile.

Encompass is a full-service agency, but instead of working to be the “agency of record” they work to be the “go to” agency, providing unique ideas and thinking that stands out and gets results. Sounds like they’re doing just that.

Congrats to both Scion and Encompass for a great mobile marketing campaign.

However, people DO want things to be convenient and accessible when they need them.

They want to know about things that are important to them. And they are especially grateful to anyone or any company that makes their life easier.

Making life easier for someone is one of the six ways you can provide value with mobile.

Here are a few ways you can make your customers life easier with mobile:

• Build an easy to find mobile site that has commonly sought after stuff like your phone number, directions/map and hours right up top. Unlike your desktop site, if they need this information they need it NOW.

• Offer a text message reminder service for your customers. If there is something your customers want to be reminded of as it relates to your products or services, set up a way for them to be reminded.

• Provide a mobile alert system for things are extremely timely about which your customers want to know. This could be an open appointment or available seating. It could be a pricing alert or an availability alert. Anything for which email is too slow is a good match for text messaging alerts.

• Create a mobile loyalty program. Don’t make people carry around another card in their wallet. Honestly, it is too much to ask people to do.

With mobile marketing it is so important to focus on the end user because their mobile device is so personal to them. Really anything that is sent to it or seen on it has the potential to either interrupt and annoy or provide value and delight. Focus on delighting your customers and your mobile marketing campaign can succeed beyond your expectations.

I’m on Redbox’s email list so I can find out what movies are coming up and to get my free Monday rentals. However, I rarely use the free Monday offer because I never have the free rental code with me when I need it – on Mondays when I am already out.

This week I got an email from them telling me about their Free Wednesday offer and the offer will be sent to me via SMS. YES! This is great. Now I will get the offer and have it with me for when I need it – Wednesdays when I am already out.

Bet I will use this offer a lot more than the ones emailed to me.

So, here’s what Redbox did right:

1) Offered me something I really want – free movies.
2) They sent me the offer via email – integrated marketing.
3) Let me sign up on the computer from a click from email – made it easy.

I hope when I go to Redbox next they have signage on the machine itself to get people to sign up via text. After all at that point they will be standing there waiting for the person in front to finish getting their movie and will have their cell phone handy.

Good job, Redbox!

In marketing you can push your message to your customers or you can pull them to you. Because mobile marketing is 100% permission based you have to use pull tactics with mobile.

For people to come toward you when you are marketing to them you have to make your customers’ lives better in some way for them to accept mobile marketing from you. Otherwise, they will ignore your campaigns just like they ignore anything that is irrelevant or annoying to them.

In this blog post series I will cover the 6 Ways to Provide Value to Your Customers via Mobile. Here is the second of six ways to add value:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Timely Information

If there is something that your target market needs to know in a very timely manner, when even getting it via email might be too late, this is the perfect value to provide via mobile.

An example of this could be a pricing alert (gas prices are going up in 4 hours), an availability alert (your favorite hair stylist has an opening in 3 hours or the hard-to-find item you have been waiting for is now in stock) or a combination of the above (we have open tables tonight and if you come in before 7 pm, you get a free dessert).

This could also be a readiness alert (when something you need to pick up is ready) because once you are home to check your email or retrieve your phone messages you don’t want to head back out again. Getting a text message on the way home would be ideal.

Travel alerts are a perfect example of timely knowledge. If a flight is delayed or gate is changed and you can find out about it instantly wherever you are, that is very valuable information to know immediately.

Other Posts in this Series:
What Your Customers Want via Mobile