What is SMS Software and Why Do I Need It?
This is part 2 of 6 in the series: A Mobile Marketing Crash Course for Small Business Owners
Surveys show that approximately 42 percent of adults ages 18-34 and 33 percent of 35-44 year olds are interested in getting opt-in mobile alerts from their favorite places.
This of course is great news for marketers. You could question these numbers like you can for all studies and surveys, you could even question why people are so interested and willing to receive mobile alerts, but the fact remains that right now your customers are active on the mobile web and want to hear from you and there is no indication that this will decrease any time soon. So why not be part of the conversation?
To be part of the conversation you are going to need SMS software which gives you the ability to collect subscribers and send and schedule text messages to go out to individual subscribers and groups of them. All SMS software has a few core features and some will have more sophisticated features. The basic features include:
- Ability to create and manage multiple lists, a.k.a. keywords.
- Ability for people to opt-in and out of your lists.
- Ability to send group text messages to people on your list.
- Ability to send text messages to any phone or device that supports SMS.
- Ability to create auto responses for each list.
- Ability to schedule text messages to be sent at a future date and time.
- Ability to create Bar Codes, or QR codes.
Plainly put, SMS software gives you the ability to do text message marketing. The way it works is this…
Short Codes
Your SMS system, or software, is associated to one or more short codes. A short code is like a phone number, except that it contains far fewer numbers. But nonetheless, a short code is the “number” that sends and receives text messages. An example would be “41513″ or “63277″. When you lease SMS software, a short code is assigned to it and you might share this short code with other lessors.
Keywords
Keywords are your lists. You might create one list, or keyword, for customers called SPECIALS, one for prospects called FOOD, and one for employees called TEAM. Therefore, to opt in to your customer list one would text the word SPECIALS to your short code. To join your employee list employees would text TEAM to your short code.
When you have SMS software, you typically have one short code that permits you to run multiple keywords, or lists. The only caveat is that because you share your short code with other companies, the keywords for your lists are first-come first-serve because the same keyword can not be supported on a single short code.
Auto Responses
In most cases you want to send people a text message immediately after they request to opt in to your list, or keyword. So, just like with any email list-building software, you are able to set an auto response text message in your SMS software so that when people opt-in they receive a text right away.
Scheduled Messages
Likewise, as a marketer you might also want to schedule text messages to go out. For instance, at the beginning of the month you might want to set up a text message a week to send out your weekly specials. The ability to schedule text messages is something you want to look for when considering your SMS software.
These are some of the basics of SMS software. Some, if not all will give you the ability to generate bar codes of some sort, which we will explore in the next segment. Some SMS systems may also give you the ability to create mobile websites or at least landing pages where you can direct people to that receive your text messages. Of course, you do not have to link people to pages built by your SMS system, but you would likely have the ability to do so.
This blog series was also put together in the form of a White Paper which dives into these issues and offers solutions for small business owners, which you can download free by clicking on the button below.
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