Sen Ze’s Business In Your Pajamas! Blog

You can increase the impact of the marketing offers of your business SIGNIFICANTLY by using SMS, short for Short Messaging Service.

If you already own a cell phone, you’re probably already familiar with SMS. Some smash-hit TV shows like American Idol are created to take advantage of this technology to generate millions of dollars of extra revenue directly from the SMS votes that will be used to determine the winners.

SMS use is more prevalent in certain parts of the world than others. The Phillipines is one of the leading countries in its use, where it played a leading role in bringing down an unpopular political regime (that’s a lot of SMS messages, for sure).

Here are 4 reasons why:

1. SMS messages almost always reach the recipient
Unlike e-mails where up to 50% or more of your subscribers may not receive it due to spam filters on their end or e-mail broadcast restrictions on your host server (to combat spam) or the unreliability of e-mail relaying through the Internet, SMS messages almost always reach your intended recipients since you’re charged for every SMS message sent.

The few times when your SMS messages don’t get through are when your intended recipient is overseas and he does not have a Roaming facility with his cellphone network, or when he has turned off his cellphone for a considerable amount of time (like a few days). These are rare cases, however and it’s safe to say that the majority of your recipients will receive it.

2. SMS messages almost always get read by the recipient
There’s nothing more irresistible than the tone indicating to a cellphone user that a SMS message has arrived for him on his cellphone. He doesn’t know what the message is, and he’s used to getting and reading personal SMS messages from his friends. This reason alone almost always guarantees that the SMS message that you send will be read by him.

Not only that….

3. SMS messages almost always get read WITHIN SECONDS after it’s received
Cellphones are carried by their users wherever they go – even in the toilet. Thus when they receive your SMS message promoting a marketing offer from your business, they can’t resist checking it out and they will do this within SECONDS – and sometimes within a split second!

4. SMS messages can get you an immediate response
Cellphone users are a sad lot – they’re slaves to the gadget, whether they would like to admit it or not. If you have crafted your marketing offer well, with an incentive to respond quickly via return SMS, they’re more likely to respond to your offer quickly than via e-mail marketing.

In short, SMS can greatly increase your bottom line but only if you know how to do it right – as I have done.

Stay tuned for more mind-busting business concepts right here that you rarely find anywhere else.

Sen Ze

When you e-mail your mailing list with a special offer as discussed in my post below, you can increase the chances of many more of them taking advantage of it with just 2 extra things that will cost you nothing and just a little extra time (maybe a few minutes) to implement:

They are the following:

1. Have a DEADLINE for them to take advantage of your offer after which it will lapse;

2. Send a REMINDER or a SERIES of reminders via e-mail prior to the deadline.

That’s it.

People are busy. No, they’re really, really busy and they’re normally not thinking about you.

So when you can provide them with a great offer, make sure they remember it by imposing a deadline for them to make use of it.

A good deadline could be about 7 days from the date your offer is emailed to them, which isn’t too soon that they can’t plan for it nor too long that it loses its impact altogether.

Just be sure that once the deadline is over, the offer LAPSES. Do make sure you follow this rule STRICTLY as if you don’t, your list will not take your future offers with a deadline seriously.

Reminders should be sent because they WORK, and work VERY WELL. People can’t stand missing out on a good offer and if you can remind them that they will soon be missing out, many will try not to.

You can send a reminder every other day including the day of the offer itself. With a 7-day deadline, this would mean about 3 reminders, which isn’t too many. You’re making a great offer to your list, so don’t be shy about reminding them what it is because you’re in fact doing them a favor.

If they don’t appreciate your reminders, however – they can always get off your list with a single unsubscribe click at the bottom of your reminder e-mails. For this reason, always provide a way for them to get off your list.  You’ll never please everybody, so don’t even bother trying to.

In my next post, you’ll discover an even more powerful reminding mechanism that will increase the impact of this marketing of your special offer further. You’re about to be a part of your Prospects and Customers’ lives using things they already carry with them all the time.

Stay tuned!

Sen Ze

The stickers on a credit card variation of your business’s Loyalty Card Program as discussed below can be made even more powerful through the use of E-Mail marketing.

This is how you can do it:

When you’re returning the credit card to the Customer (with the sticker in place), you can, in addition to explaining to him the benefits of coming back to the outlet, ask the Customer to provide an e-mail address so that you can e-mail him special offers in the future.

This can be made even more effective if you tell the Customer that the special offers are only offered to those on your mailing list. You can also say that the special offers are in addition to the benefits provided by the sticker.

Now the Customer may or may not agree to give out his e-mail address. If not, you’ve lost nothing compared to if you haven’t asked him. If he agrees, you’ve just taken a simple step to compiling a mailing list of your Customers.

You can then e-mail this list again and again to bring your best Customers back to your outlet. E-mail is free to use, so take advantage of this by getting a domain name for your outlet and setting up a simple web site and all the e-mail accounts you require at this domain.

You can use the following service to easily set up your web site and e-mail accounts for the domain name of your choice at a very reasonable fee per month. Just one returning Customer from the use of your web site and e-mail in combination with the credit card Loyalty Program as discussed below will more than make up for its fee:

Easy Web Site Builder
Comes With Unlimited Hosting Space And Unlimited E-Mail Accounts

You can come up with all sorts of reasons for them to come back. For example, he may get a special offer if it’s his birthday, or the birthday of someone close to him. Or it could be Valentine’s Day and only your loyal Customers on your mailing list will get an additional 10% off.

All he has to do to claim this additional discount is to quote the special promotional code you’ve listed in the e-mail to him. You can get him to print out the e-mail and bring it to your outlet to claim the discount and some Customers will do that too, but you don’t have to insist on it as long as he can mention the offer to you.

This is easy to do, yet how many outlets do you know that actually e-mail you special offers exclusively for simply being on their mailing list?

In my next post, you can further enhance every e-mail offer that you send out to your mailing list with just a simple tactic that will cost you absolutely nothing to implement. It’s so simple to do but it’ll make you more money than if you were to send out a special offer alone.

Stay tuned.

Sen Ze