MMS Marketing for Business

Marketing outreach revolves around four main elements: promotion, engagement, alerts, and reminders. SMS marketing is no different in this respect than other marketing channels. Therefore, when you develop your strategy for MMS marketing, it is important to keep these four ideas in mind.

Get your team together and build a strong foundation based on these principles.

You might decide that your texting program will focus on one area, while other marketing channels will focus on others. Alternatively, you might decide to use all four in your texting campaign for a more diverse program.

No matter how you use it, it important to bear in mind certain SMS marketing best practices to get the most out of the program. It is likewise important to understand the nuances of each of the four elements so you can expertly use them.

Promotion

Promotion is the way that you advertise your products and services to potential customers. It is about spreading the word about your company and increasing brand awareness and recognition. It is often the top part of the sales funnel, where you are taking in as many potential people as possible to eventually convert them into a customer.

There are many ways to utilize SMS marketing for promotion, but one of the best ways to use SMS marketing in your promotional efforts is as a call to action.

Any strong piece of marketing or advertising material requires a good call to action. This should be something that motivates the person to act while also being easy to get them to take immediate action.

You lose a significant amount of the power of advertising if it requires a person to have to remember to take the action at a later time. That is where SMS marketing really demonstrates its power.

It is easy to include your MMS marketing program on any existing piece of marketing collateral:

• Radio or TV spots
• Billboards
• Print ads
• Flyers
• Digital properties
• Social media accounts
• Email

You simply add a keyword and shortcode. Around 90 percent of people carry their cell phones with them at all times, so they can take action right away, increasing the efficacy of your marketing. Adding some incentive, such as an offer, increases the motivation for people to take the action.

This not only helps to strengthen the efficacy of your marketing materials, thereby increasing your brand awareness and pool of potential customers, but it also helps to increase the number of potential subscribers. Then, you have a pool of interested people to use the second element of a texting campaign: engagement.

Promotion combines well with other elements of marketing. You might use a texting program to send new product alerts, offers and deals, and other messages that promote a certain event, service or products

Promotion: Best Practices

When you use texting as a call to action, there are a few SMS marketing best practices to follow. First, add some terms and conditions when possible that are easy to understand. You want to let people know that they are signing up for a regular marketing program when they text the keyword.

This is easily done with a confirmation email that auto-responds when a person texts in the keyword. In this confirmation email, include some brief terms and conditions and a link to more information. Ask them to reply to confirm their opt-in to the program.

The great thing about texting is that people can take action from anywhere.

An example might be "Text CONFIRM to join our texting program or STOP to opt-out. Click here for terms and conditions [with link]."

Also, when you create a call to action, you want to use the right language to get people to take action. This typically includes strong motivational language. This works no matter where you include a call to action, including on any future texts in your texting program.

It is best to use action verbs along with some adverbs that create a sense of urgency. This should be done in as concise a manner as possible since you only have 160 characters.

A good example of a strong call to action that can be used to get people to join your program is "Text [Keyword] to [shortcode] to join our list and receive exclusive deals and offers. Get 20 percent off for texting today."

Engagement

The second main element of MMS marketing is engagement. Customer engagement has become an essential component of business because more and more customers choose where they buy products based on their experience of that business. They rely more on emotional reasoning rather than logical reasoning (such as price or location).

This makes it even more important to create excellent customer service and find ways to continually engage with customers.

SMS marketing is a great way to engage with customers. In fact, it has a higher engagement rate than email and other forums. There are several types of messages that you might send to garner more customer engagement:

• Surveys
• Polls
• Contests
• Information and tips
• Exclusive news
• Customer service messages
• Offers and deals

Each of these avenues of engagement provides something different for customers. Surveys and polls let customers tell you what they think. Contests are always fun and increase the number of people who choose to opt-in since customers love to win new things. Many customers will wish to learn information and tips, especially if it is exclusive news about your company, products or services.

Offering customers service via text improves your service to your customers since it is easy for them to contact you with questions or problems from anywhere at any time.

Some of the most common message types are offers and deals. These get people to come in and shop at your business, but you want to always mix up your offers so that they are not the same basic offer every time. This reduces the impact of your offers since people know they can use them at any time.

Engagement Best Practices

Many companies choose to use several of these forms in order to keep customers excited about their program, rather than deciding to opt out because they tire of the same, boring messages over and over again. The important consideration in terms of engagement messages is that you create content of value for your customers.

There are several ways to determine what your customers might want from your program:

• Perform market research
• Review the demographics
• Directly ask customers through a poll or survey

Many companies find it beneficial to create a persona based on their target audience that is created through looking at shopping behaviors, demographics, and psychosocial characteristics. You might have more than one of these personas. Then, create messages that are attractive to your target audience.

If you have more than one ideal customer persona, divide your subscriber list into groups based on their various characteristics and then send personalized targeted messages. This increases the efficacy and engagement of your program.

Although it is tempting to send out several messages to really take advantage of the benefits of customer engagement. However, people do not appreciate being inundated with text messages, even though they do wish to hear from companies via text. This means you need to find the right frequency of texts for your program to get the peak success rates.

If you text too little, then customers will forget about your program or decide to opt out. Alternatively, if you text too often, then customers will get annoyed and opt out.

Most companies find that texting between two and four times per month is ideal, but you might need to poll your customers and perform some testing to determine the ideal frequency for you.

Timing is also important, especially for offers and deals. You want to provide customers sufficient time to use the deal, but you also want to create some urgency. Because most people open texts within a few minutes of receipt, it is the perfect medium for flash sales and limited time coupons.

Alerts

Send out texts to let people know about emergency situations.

Another common type of MMS marketing messages is alerts:

• Emergency alerts
• Alerts about events
• Transactional messages

Educational institutions find SMS marketing a great way to alert their students, faculty, and staff of any activities on campus, including any emergencies that might arise. You might also use this to alert your staff to any emergency situations.

Because most people open text messages and have their phones on them, you can feel confident that they have read the message. That is why it is so great to use texting for important information, like emergency alerts.

Many customers prefer using texting for transactional messages. This might be for when they have bought something, it has shipped, it is ready to be picked up, or any other message that you might normally send via email or mail.

When it comes to alerts, there are not too many unique best practices. You want to avoid sending them more often than you need to do, and you want to be careful about the timing. Emergency alerts might be fine to send outside of business hours, but any other messages should be sent during the day at convenient times that are not disruptive to the customer.

Reminders

Reminders are similar to alerts in that they send specific information to your customers. Their purpose is to simply remind customers about something they already know about. For businesses that sell products or offer services, this might be reminders about sales or events in store. Businesses with many events might also use it to send a last-minute reminder about events to boost attendance.

Medical professionals, service-oriented businesses, and other appointment-based business find that sending appointment reminders via text leads to fewer no-show appointments, reducing the financial loss when that happens.

When you send appointment reminders, you want to find the right time. It should be close enough that people do not forget, otherwise, you have missed the purpose of the reminder. However, you want to provide sufficient time to let the person alert you if they need to change the appointment.

Most people send out reminders about 24 hours ahead of time, but you might choose to send them closer to the time. The same SMS marketing best practices apply to event reminders as well.

General SMS Marketing Best Practices

The above discussed certain best practices for each of the central elements of marketing. There are some additional ones that should be used for every single text you send out, no matter the intention behind it.

Make sure to get permission before you start texting customers.

First and foremost, always get permission from your subscribers, especially if you plan to send marketing messages. This ensures that you remain in compliance with texting guidelines and rules.

If you send out several types of messages, such as reminders, transactional messages, and marketing messages, then you will need to have permission to send all three types of messages. You cannot assume that someone who signed up for reminders will also want to receive your marketing messages.

Make it clear to them what the program will provide, and then adhere to this contract. Also, make it easy to opt out. Keep track of all opt ins and opt outs in case you need to review it at some point.

MMS marketing is a unique channel that needs to be utilized as such. Do not simply reproduce the same content to send to your subscribers. Remember that several of them will follow you on social media, regularly read your blog, receive your emails and otherwise engage with you through several channels.

Therefore, they will have no incentive to join your texting campaign if it does not have its own unique enticement. This might be special offers and deals, exclusive information, early access to sales or other motivations for joining.

Ready to get started with your text message marketing campaign? Sign up for free.

Need to generate buzz for your upcoming community theater production? Do so with MMS marketing for community theater. MMS marketing for small businesses is helping many a company gain the attention it wants, thanks to consumers reading text messages almost immediately after receiving them among other benefits. Review a few options for using MMS marketing in community theater promotion efforts and see if they don’t make a considerable difference.

Discounted Show Tickets

Add texting opt-in information to all advertisements—flyers, billboards, print ads, etc.—and stress that anyone who signs up for your text list will receive discounts to shows. Offer discounts to every show of the season if it is within your budget, or select shows only. If promoting the latter, let consumers know they can choose which shows they want discounted tickets for.

VIP Party Access

Run contests through your MMS marketing campaign that result in VIP access to post-show parties. People never tire of backstage passes, so make it easy for them with a campaign that grants access to the first 10 or 20 subscribers who respond to the message. Note that the backstage pass includes free food and drinks, as people never get sick of those things, either!

Show Updates

Keep your subscriber list updated about your company’s latest shows via SMS. Inform them of show dates and times, any featured performers appearing in the production, and anything else that is relevant.

Contests

Alert subscribers to upcoming contests via MMS, and send images of the prizes. Run any type of contest you like, such as a costume contest where participants send in photos dressed as their favorite characters from the show season. Prizes can include vouchers for free drinks and snacks at show concession stands, the aforementioned discounted show tickets, and more.

Videos

Get your subscribers excited about an upcoming production by sending links to video clips of dress rehearsals. Show your subscribers why they must attend the show by including snippets of songs if applicable and the best scenes from the production. Think of the videos as your very own trailers that pique viewer interest and encourage them to learn more.

Donation Appreciation

Send texts with links to donation web pages. Go a step further by announcing that your company will recognize those who donated the most at your next show or community event. Reward them with special show packages that include ticket discounts and other perks for the duration of the season.

Fundraisers and Parties

Make performances at fundraising events and similar parties work better for you by handing out flyers at the end of the song/scene that feature texting opt-in information. If you have a booth at the fundraising event, include a code or old-fashioned sign-up sheet that encourages attendees to subscribe to your text alerts and subsequently learn about exclusive offers.

Take full advantage of MMS marketing for community theater to increase show season awareness, audience numbers, and ticket sales. Text messaging is an inexpensive yet highly effective way to improve business.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is less than two years old, but it’s not equipped to send emojis without first converting them into picture messages - costing unwitting senders hundreds on their phone bills. Older handsets - including the Galaxy S, S2 and S3 - are also thought to be affected. 

Picture messages are also known as MMS messages, and can cost up to three times more than an SMS. Once upon a time, the high cost was somewhat justified, as MMS was the only way for people to exchange rich content between phones. Now, with a slew of apps designed to send and receive rich data (often, as with WhatsApp, for free) the MMS is anachronistic. 

A recent article in the Daily Record reported the case of a woman from Airdrie, Scotland, who ran up a £1,200 bill in just four months after sending emoticons that automatically converted to emojis which, in turn, were sent as MMS messages.  

Similar reports have appeared on internet forums, with many claiming their iPhones are affected by the problem. HTC phones are also affected, but they at least send a warning message to users that the SMS they think they’re about to send is in fact an MMS.  

UK mobile phone network provider O2 have been quick to point the finger at manufacturers, saying the issue is ‘down to the handset and not as a result of the O2 network or the settings used for the O2 service.’

O2 also said that some apps - including Facebook - that integrate a contact list from the handset may result in MMS charges as well. People are advised to disable integration between such apps and their contact list. 

There’s still no complete picture regarding which handsets are affected, but Samsung told moneysavingexpert.com that every device launched since April 2014 has a default setting classifying emojis as SMS and not MMS. For the Galaxy S4 and earlier devices, emojis will continue to be converted from SMS into MMS. Apple has declined to comment on the susceptibility of their handsets to the problem. 

The problem is one of transparancy. Are operators doing enough to inform their customers how their pricing structures work? That remains to be seen. According to Ofcom, the UK’s communications watchdog, 4% of people said they had received a high bill caused by unexpected charges for emojis, but it’s likely to have affected significantly more. Like the SMS-MMS conversion itself, not everyone will have noticed. Take a careful look at your next bill to see if you’re being charged for a service you didn’t know you were using. If it was not made clear to you when you sent the message that it was converting it to an MMS, it’s well worth complaining.

A fair few myths surround Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and these MMS marketing myths are preventing many businesses from getting involved with this exciting communication medium. Unfortunately, despite the billions of messages sent and received by consumers every month, MMS is still misunderstood. 

Let’s check out the most common MMS marketing myths: 
 

Myth #1: MMS Is More Costly Than Regular Text Messaging

Today’s consumers know their SMS texts are usually covered by their plans, but are frequently concerned MMS messages are not. If you have a text messaging plan (which you probably do, c’mon now), you’re charged the same amount for text and multimedia messages. Most major U.S. wireless carriers bundled the two together some years ago, meaning brands, media companies, and advertisers may deliver 30-second videos to customers for the same price as regular text messages. 

Myth #2: A Smartphone is Required to Receive MMS Messages

One of the biggest and best advantages of MMS is you don’t need a smartphone to enjoy multimedia content sent to your mobile device. There’s over 2,700 unique mobile devices in today’s market with the support needed for MMS, and many of them are not “smart.” 

Myth #3: Most Phones Don’t Support MMS Video

The aforementioned 2,700 mobile devices capable of receiving MMS messages? They’re also more than able to handle MMS video content. 

Myth #4: MMS Requires a Data Plan

Just because your service plan doesn’t include an internet or data plan doesn’t mean you can’t send or receive MMS messages. All your device needs is MMS functionality, which it can easily feature minus so-fancy apps and data service. Additionally, it’s entirely possible for mobile marketers to craft and send detailed mobile marketing campaign messages to non-smartphone users via MMS. Nice, right?

Myth #5: Only Those Crazy Kids Do the Text Message Thing 

Hardly. Pretty much everyone, from tweens to teens to young adults to older adults utilize text messaging. It might originally have been considered a “kid thing,” but that’s sooo not the case anymore. All age groups text, which explains the photo of your kids that your parents sent you while on a grandparent-grandkid excursion. 

Myth #6: MMS Is Popular in Europe and Asia, But Not the United States

Not true. MMS has been on the same usage level as SMS for years, and is currently eclipsing it. There were 10 billion MMS messages sent in the first half of 2009 in the U.S.--yes, 2009. 

Consumer fascination with MMS presents a variety of exciting opportunities for media companies, as mobile messaging is a billion-dollar industry that shows no signs of slowing down. MMS provides the chance to reach consumers anywhere, anytime--in other words, it’s one heck of a marketing asset. 

For companies that aren’t sure about how to integrate MMS into a mobile marketing campaign, the first step is to understand MMS capabilities then realize those through useful cases that haven proven effective in various enterprises. Taking a creative stance, positioning the right use of MMS in a marketing campaign is virtually limitless.  

First, let’s understand what Multimedia Message Service (MMS) allows an enterprise to do. An MMS message can send rich media content directly to mobile devices anytime, anywhere. It’s a powerful and effective tool that strengthens customer loyalty by keeping them informed with time sensitive information. An MMS message speaks consistently to branding throughout all marketing channels, with messages that are equipped to handle image, video, audio or mixed SMIL. It’s truly a 21st century marketing solution that engages customers via mobile device, which they are likely to have with them at all times.

MMS Use Cases 

MMS communication utilizes these capabilities to increase revenue by upselling customers with unique offers, special services and more. Recognizable applications of MMS are used by millions of people already in the form of useful services, like providing a boarding pass for a more efficient check-in at the airport. Financial institutions also provide useful applications by providing bank statements and security warnings. Further, important emergency alerts can be sent via MMS, warning users of dangerous weather or traffic. 

Now let’s consider the creative uses of MMS messaging to connect with customers. Shipment notifications would allow users to receive speedy information from a local shipment station. Customer service providers can communicate with customers by trouble shooting common problems and sending helpful video/audio messages. The result of providing this improved service would reduce the contact center costs. 

Wellness centers and pharmacies could continue a discussion with customers long after they leave the store by updating important medical information, providing healthy living tips or special offers on new products or services. What’s more, brick and mortar stores of every variety can more effectively engage customers by offering product information with QR codes placed on shelf locations. Once the code is scanned, a customer could watch a video featuring additional product information.  

MMS messaging works best when it provides useful information and services to the end user. The more a user increases their engagement with the message, the more likely the they are to build the kind of lasting brand relationships all enterprise should seek with their customer base and audience.