5 ways of mobile marketing via SMS

Even though SMS messaging has been around for quite some time, businesses of all kinds are still finding new ways in which sms marketing can help carry out day to day tasks, reach out to customers, and add greater value to outreach campaigns. Even webmasters who may be more naturally inclined to make use of email and instant messaging can benefit from services that offer web to SMS and email to SMS functionality. Here are five potent ways in which webmasters can turn mobile marketing via SMS to their advantage.

1. Get SMS notifications when a server goes down

Being able to receive email notifications from your server regarding important system events and failures is invaluable for any webmaster, but what do you do when you’re not able to receive emails? Email to SMS services can enable you to automatically forward all notifications from a particular email address to your mobile phone, keeping you in touch with your servers wherever you are. Not only can this help to keep you in control, but it can also minimise and even prevent any costly downtime.

2. Incorporate mobile marketing into your promotional strategy

By capturing people’s phone numbers through a sign-up form on your website, you can add another element to your promotional strategy. Using web to SMS to send marketing messages in bulk, you can reach right into the pocket of users. For example, if you operate an online retail website you can send customers a special offer code via SMS which they can redeem by typing the code into your site to receive a discount on purchases. This can help to build customer loyalty, generate plenty of repeat business and provide additional sales opportunities.

3. Use SMS for user support

Another useful way which you can use web to SMS functionality to improve the service you offer is to send user support messages. To use the example above once more, if you have an online retail website you can use such services to send despatch and delivery notifications, keeping the customer up to date with their order to the minute. Not only can such a system reduce the quantity of phone and email queries that your support staff have to deal with, it can also add further value for users of your website. You might also use it for providing technical support when users are unable to access the Internet.

4. Receive important emails while on the go via SMS

If you need to keep up to date with your emails wherever you are and you don’t have a smartphone capable of receiving emails, or you are likely to spend significant lengths of time in areas with poor mobile data coverage, Email to SMS can help you stay connected. Such services make it possible to easily set up a forward between one or more email addresses and your mobile phone number. Effectively, you will be able to receive your emails via SMS, even in areas relatively lacking in network coverage. It is also possible to set-up a two-way system which allows you to send emails via an SMS for your mobile handset too.

5. Integrate SMS messaging into your website and applications

Some web to SMS and email to SMS services offer SMS gateway API’s (Application Programming Interface), making it possible for you to seamlessly integrate SMS functionality into your websites and web-based applications. SMS can be worked in dynamically to providing greater functionality to apps and sites, often making it possible to instantly send texts from any computer to mobile handsets around the world, in virtually any language.

This guest blog post was contributed by Pavel Webb, the affiliate manager at TextMagic, a bulk SMS gateway based in United Kingdom.