As wireless text messaging (SMS) has grown into a mainstream communication tool for consumers, reaching them via SMS marketing has become increasingly important strategy for businesses. Whether between two people planning to meet up or a broadcast message to thousands of users, more and more customers are becoming converts every day, and savvy marketers realize text messaging is a great way to quickly communicate with their audience.
However, thanks to surcharges and restriction imposed by the carriers, such campaigns are often difficult to justify economically and even more difficult to manage. This is especially true when trying to use short codes to allow people to sign up directly from their phones as well as more advanced text messaging features like polls and Call to Action campaigns.
mobileStorm SMS allows you take advantage of these mobile marketing strategies by:
Using a short code to generate subscription without having to pay a high monthly fee to own/maintain it.
Enabling people to sign up to your mobile club directly from their cell phone as well as via Web forms.
No longer requiring subscribers to give you their carriers as this is automatically determined by the new mobileStorm SMS service.
Experiencing improved delivery and much more detailed reports about your SMS marketing campaigns.
Engaging in a 2-way interaction with your subscribers, such as asking them questions or prompting a call to action within the message.
Account Management
mobileStorm SMS gives you full control of your account from setting up other users to creating automated responses for new subscribers welcoming them to your list(s). Specific features include:
SMS Test Accounts
- Add up to 10 cell numbers to test your text messages prior to sending out a major campaign. Test different carriers for character restrictions and display to make sure your message is received correctly.
Autoresponders
- Create automatic messages for all notices to subscribers such as confirming their subscription and editing their profile. Autoresponders provide you with another method to keep in touch with your subscribers and help reinforce your branding.
Short Code and Keywords
- Use our 38714 short code along with a chosen keyword, like PLAY, to capture subscribers both via text messages as well as off-line branding campaigns, such as radio, TV and print advertisements.
Lease Popular Keywords
- If you wish to have a common word like dance or play as your keyword, you must lease the word from us for a fee of $50.00 (discounts for contracts and pre-paid options). This will give you exclusive rights to use the keyword until you cancel the lease.
Campaign Creation
mobileStorm SMS has a variety of options and features to help maximize your SMS campaigns. Some of the main features include:
Text Message Builder
- Create your text message within a couple of minutes with our streamlined SMS creator. Make sure that your message meets the 160 character restriction with our character counter.
Personalization
- Add a personal touch to your SMS campaigns by inserting tokens such as First Name, Last Name and City into the body of your text message. This can be especially useful for special offers in order to ensure that only the owner presents the message for validation purposes.
Campaign Management
Once you’ve created your text campaign, mobileStorm SMS offers many features to help manage your campaign and to ensure maximum delivery:
Direct Carrier Connections
- mobileStorm SMS delivers campaigns via direct carrier connections (SMPP) with all of the major US cell companies, including Verizon Wireless, Cingular, Sprint and T-Mobile. International carrier support coming soon!
Targeted Sends
- Segment your campaigns by implementing targets, such as Males 21-34 or Los Angeles Females, to narrow your reach and hit only those selected subscribers. Targets can be used to minimize a larger list as well as create a highly specific group of subscribers that meet a number of exact criteria, such as Females 21-34 who live in Los Angeles and have an income level of $50,000 or more.
View All SMS Replies
- The SMS Inbox is a list of all replies that have been received from your campaigns. It shows the Keyword that used, the List attached and if you have tracked your campaign via Track Response, the campaign will show up as well. You can sort by all of these fields as well to better manage the results.
Campaign Analysis
Tracking Responses
- Get detailed tracking information about a specific SMS marketing campaign during a chosen amount of time. Selecting this will indicate that you had a number of responses during this timeframe. This is particularly helpful if you intend to send out multiple campaigns within a short period of time so that you can accurately track to which campaigns people are responding.
Opens Reporting
- Find out who is opening your text messages and even look at their responses with our SMS Inbox feature.
Carrier Reporting
- Find out which carriers are the most receptive to your campaigns and diagnose any potential carriers that are blocking your messages.
Subscriber Management
Keeping track of subscribers can be a real pain. Let mobileStorm SMS take care of this for you with our wide range of subscriber management features including:
Suppression Lists
- Scrub your database against Do Not Mail list as well as our Global Permanent Removal List to prevent unwanted numbers from receiving your campaigns.
Abuse Removals
- Subscribers can remove themselves via the STOP option that is part of every text message that is sent. Batch unsubscribe users either via copy/paste as well as uploading a file.
Bounce Removal System
- Automatically remove permanently failed numbers (hard bounces) as well as temporary fails like mailbox full (soft bounce); technical issues with the carrier (unknown) or spam triggers (spam bounces)
