The mobile phone has revolutionised everyday life as well as way we do business. A less well-known fact is that it also opens up fantastic opportunities for interaction between companies and their customers.

The following statistics clearly demonstrate fantastic take-up of Text Messaging, or SMS (Short Messaging Service), in consumer market:

-Over 20 billion text messages were sent in UK in 2003 (Mobile Data Association) -Over 25 billion text messages were sent in UK in 2004 (Mobile Data Association) -Expected growth for 2005 to reach 30 billion text messages (Mobile Data Association) -56% of direct marketers are planning regular SMS use this year (Forrester)

Over past few years, text messaging has become by far most popular mobile data service, and mobile marketing has established itself as an attractive medium in terms of entry cost, response rates and interactivity. We will see it become an increasingly important element in communications mix in future.

SMS as a Marketing Tool

For marketers SMS opens up completely new opportunities. Provided recipients have actively opted-in to a service or promotion, an SMS campaign is very well received. The results speak for themselves: recall rates of 60-90% and response rates of 5-20% are often achieved. This is why SMS is becoming incredibly popular to use as one of many components in an integrated marketing campaign. Still, this medium is very much in its infancy, and sky is limit. The following factors will drive future growth of mobile marketing:

-Further adoption of text messaging among older age segments -Introduction of further content and services available only on mobile phones (ring tones, alerts, logos, pictures etc) -Introduction of new standards and formats that offer a richer user experience and further interactivity (MMS with colour and sound, polyphonic ring tones etc)

The bottom line is, mobile phones are becoming an integral part of social fabric. As such we strongly believe in power of mobile marketing!

Case Studies

An East-end Pub using SMS to market theme nights

A small east-end pub wanted to increase turnout to their pub during week. So they decided to create theme nights for both Tuesday and Wednesday. During weekend they had membership sign-ups to SMS TXTing service.

Using a web-based interface, pub owner would prepare a text message night before event and send it to his database of members, usually offering a 50% off discount if member would show up with that text message. It proved a great success with 27% of those who received text message showing up at pub.

A London-based security company – Off-site SMS timesheets

A London-based security company, wanted to centralise and automate their timesheet system for all of their off-site security officers. At each site a supervisor was provided with a mobile phone with an allocated monthly amount of SMS text credits.

Many companies have invested in CRM systems to retain customers who demand more and better services by day, but why? Due to recent trends, consumer behavior has changed dramatically in last couple of years, and even more with current market conditions. According to a study made by The Center for Customer Strategy, consumers are less concerned with minor price differences, but choose companies based on their value-added services. They want to be able to get what they need, quickly. With tools like Internet, it’s now a lot easier for both consumers and businesses to compare offers, and switch over if their needs aren’t met. This is especially true of high-value customers that produce most profit for business.

Businesses are scrambling for ways to retain these customers, and attract new ones in process. So how is CRM an answer to keeping up with these trends? CRM is a strategy (no, not software) to transform your business to be customer, not product, focused. The CRM software is just a tool that helps company carry out this strategy. Depending on its implementation, it can help your business identify who your customers are, what they need and anticipate what could want. It allows businesses to tailor offers to their current customers, building closer relationships that make them feel valuable. It can help eliminate contact and data overlap between departments and improve consumer service. For example, Leah Holzman, Marketing Manager of TradeCard Inc, explained how marketing and sales departments in her company had problems tacking each others’ progress and customer data. They spent “hundreds of hours managing disparate data across multiple systems. That is, until they implemented a CRM initiative with help of Salesforce.com. Overall, CRM can make your company more efficient and customer-friendly to capture greater market share, increase customer loyalty, and attract more customers.