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Knowledge

Textlocal believes that opt-in mobile marketing is vital for all businesses. With this is mind, we have developed a knowledge centre to keep you informed of latest news within the mobile industry, to share important facts and figures, helping you to stay ahead of the competition

Top ten tips

  1. 1. Call to action Ensure that the reason for the text is made clear. You want the recipient to act on your text, so tell them what they need to do to benefit from the information they have been sent.
  2. 2. Good timing Pick the time you decide to text your customers carefully. If you want to generate an action or response then make sure you leave your customers enough time during the day to do so. You can also use the Textlocal scheduler to prepare your messages for sending in advance.
  3. 3. Keep it short A single SMS message consists of 160 characters. For the most cost-effective campaign you need to choose your words carefully. Get to the point straight away, the benefit or reward to the recipient should be clear. ALSO, TRY NOT TO SHOUT AT YOUR RECIPIENTS, USING CAPITALS IS A TURN OFF. Stick to normal text for winning campaigns.
  4. 4. Avoid repetition Make sure you manage your database properly, and avoid texting the same mobile marketing messages to the same people consecutively. Keep your communication fresh and engaging.
  5. 5. Cleanse your database It can be costly to continue sending messages to old numbers. Be sure to regularly check and delete the numbers that can't be reached to save time and money. 'Three strikes and you're out' is a good principle.
  1. 6. Track your progress Make sure you measure how effective your mobile marketing campaign has been so you can improve it further next time. How many responses did you get? What was your return on investment? Try texting different offers, at various times of the day, days of the week, or target different groups of customers, to find which works best for you.
  2. 7. Grow your audience with opt-ins Use an SMS keyword (e.g. text FISH to 60777 to receive the latest news and offers from Jim's Fish Shop) to grow an opt-in list of customers that choose to receive your SMS alerts. Print this everywhere and you will easily grow an opt-in list of followers. SMS marketing can be intrusive if sent to somebody who hasn't given their permission. Protect the reputation of your organisation by ensuring all recipients have allowed you to communicate with them.
  3. 8. Respect the opt-out mechanism Include a simple opt-out option regularly in your texts. Always ensure you make it clear to your customers that they can stop receiving messages from you at any time.
  4. 9. Send relevant messages Make sure that the recipient is going to be interested in what you have to offer. There would be no logic in texting a football team a 2 for 1 offer on nail varnish.
  5. 10. Get personal Use our mail merge feature and insert names, appointment times or other details into your messages for that extra special message. You can also brand your text by setting the Sender Name on the SMS message as your company name for maximum impact.

Top 5 FAQs

1. How much does it cost to send a message?

The cost depends on how many credits you want to buy; one credit equals one text message (160 characters). Credits last indefinitely. The cost of our credit bundles can be found on our prices page.

2. Will my credits expire?

Your credits will never expire.

3. Can the sender name be my business name, rather than a number?

Yes it can, as long as it is 11 characters or less. Sender names are a great way to enhance your business SMS activity. You can create as many sender names on Messenger as you wish, at no extra cost. The sender name could also be a mobile number, be that a virtual one that we can provide, or a handset of your choice.

4. How can I buy credits?

You can purchase bundles of credits up to 25,000 online with a credit or debit card or PayPal. Alternatively we can invoice you for 1,000 credits or more

5. How secure is my data?

Textlocal do not share or pass on any of your data, including the mobile numbers you upload. Your data will only be used for your SMS marketing. For further information see our Privacy Policy. Textlocal provide a secure 128bit encrypted service - equivalent to online banking security.

If you have a question, chances are we have the answer! Take a look at our comprehensive FAQ.

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Benefits of mobile

  • Nearly one in three adults in the UK now uses a smartphone, according to a report by the telecoms regulator Ofcom. The report also found that surfing the internet via mobile phones is the fastest growing mobile media activity with 1 million new users during the first quarter of 2010 (taking the total to 13.5 million, compared to 9 million in the first quarter of 2009)
  • Data from network operators showed that 16 million people in the UK accessed the Internet from their mobile phone in December. They viewed a total of 6.7 billion pages and spent 4.8 billion minutes online. Source: Reuters
  • Research by the Mobile Marketing Association and Lightspeed Reseach shows that almost 50% of respondents noticed advertisements in July 2010 that were delivered to their mobile phone. 32% of people who had seen an advert interacted or responded to it in the last month. Almost half of consumers who responded to Mobile advert reported purchasing its product or service.
  • According to the CTIA / The Wireless Association (www.ctia.org) over 96% of phones in use in 2009 were capable of receiving SMS messaging. It is not surprising that Short Code campaigns are proven to be more effective than traditional marketing methods such as email or banner ads. SMSbased campaigns achieve over a 90 percent opt-in rate, compared to 22.1 percent for email.
  • Response rates are significantly greater than the traditional forms of advertising with the average SMS response rate typically ranging between 15 to 30 percent, compared to 5 percent for email and 2.61 percent for direct mail.
  • Ofcom figures suggest that 97.5% of all text messages are read within five seconds of being received.
  • Despite the increasing use of internet-based communications services such as social networking sites and instant messaging, the numbers of text messages sent by mobile users continued to climb, growing by nearly one-third to 104.4 billion messages in 2009 (representing an average of over four a day for every person in the UK), a faster rate of growth than in 2008 (24.8%) but on a similar level to annual growth between 2005 and 2007 (See below). Meanwhile, the volume of MMS grew by just 5.8% during 2009 to around half a billion messages.

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Legal compliance

Keeping your marketing activity legal and compliant is more important than ever. We've created a useful guide to help you.

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FAQs

If you have a question, the chances are that someone else has already asked it. To save your time, we've compiled a list of questions and answers.

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Poll

Did you know that 97.5% of all text messages are read within five seconds of being received?

You can find us speaking at

The Business Growth Show in Birmingham on 29th March 2012

Textlocal in partnership with DMA - Making Mobile Work on 28th April 2012

We've also handpicked some up and coming events that you may be interested in.