Do's and Don'ts of Sending an SMS

We all get hundreds of messages in a day, don't we? From promotional offers to notifications, there is a lot of information that flows in on a daily basis. Little do we realize that sending an SMS requires you to follow certain etiquettes else it could actually be perceived as an offence. Depending on the purpose of sending the message, you need to define the dos and don'ts of your SMS as well. This may not be applicable to all the personal messaging that happens regularly. But, you have to practice the etiquettes when it comes to sending commercial SMS's. While there is no rule book to give you the proper guidance, we can surely help you with a few suggestions.
1. Please see the time
The SMS will reach the destined receiver within a matter of few minutes. However that does not empower you to send the message at any time during the day. Ideally, you should send the SMS at a time your receiver is most likely to read it. Don't get us wrong, we are not asking you to predict the time when your receiver reads the SMS. Instead, you have to identify the generic time frame when mobile users are relatively free and therefore most likely to read the SMS. Also, strictly avoid sending your SMS's at unearthly hours else people are guaranteed to blacklist you.
2. Don't send lengthy messages
The very name SMS suggests that it is a short messaging service. However, people tend to misunderstand this acronym and end up sending really long messages from their mobiles. We would recommend you to refrain from sending such practices. Simply convey the gist of the story highlighting all the important details and your job is done. Once you have aroused the interest of the receiver, he or she will happily call you to get more information on the subject, if they want to enquire further.
3. State a clear point of action
People reading the SMS's don't have the spare time to analyze your text and identify the key message. Therefore, it is best advised to keep your message short as well as simple. Also, always conclude with a reliable point of contact or a call to action gesture wherein you can give a representative's phone number or a website address. This will ensure that people who are reading your SMS can easily get in touch with you for any queries pertaining to the details mentioned in the message.

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How Does an SMS Work?

Short messaging service or SMS is one of the oldest and most commonly used methods of communicating with people. After all, it is simple to send an SMS communication, isn't it? However, there is a lot of process and coordination involved in ensuring your SMS reaches the right destination. Operating on the fundamental voice controlled network, SMS continues to remain one of the most popular features on mobile. We are not asking you to get into the technical details of understanding how the SMS travels. No, that task is reserved for the engineers. But, you can still familiarize yourself with the basic process.
It's all coded!
Your SMS is not sent just as you type it. Once you have entered the message, the processor converts it into a binary code that the machines can easily understand. In simple terms, the words that you have typed become numbers. After this the message departs from the sender's phone and the journey begins.
Next stop: being accumulated at the central storage system
On leaving the sender's mobile, SMS's are accumulated at a central storage center called the short message center or SMC. The SMC forwards this message to the desired destination identifying the location of the receiver.
All details go together
When you send an SMS, there are a lot of other details that travel with your message. These details include the name of the sender as well as the time of sending the message so that the person receiving the message on the other end is able to proceed accordingly.
What happens if the receiver is not available?
There are times when the receiver is in a no network area or does not have sufficient connectivity to receive your message. In such cases, the messages are not left to wander aimlessly. Instead, the messages are carefully stored in the network until the receiver becomes available. As soon as the network identifies the availability of your cell phone, it promptly sends the message to the mobile.
It's a dedicated channel
Unlike telephone calls and the data channel, SMS travels through a dedicated medium. Therefore, the chances of the message delivery being interrupted due to the receiver being on a telephone call. In simple terms, this means that even if you are on call with someone, the message sent to you will be delivered.
The best part about the entire process is that all of this is completed within a matter of few minutes to ensure that your SMS reaches its destination on time.

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Applications of SMS That Ease Life

Short messaging service or SMS as most of us know it, is a revolutionary invention that has changed the way in which we can stay connected or communicate with people. However, the usage of SMS is not restricted to enhancing connectivity. In fact, SMS has been useful across a diverse category of communications and believe it or not, the SMS facility has simplified life in many ways. From getting updates to forwarding urgent information, you can do all of it in a matter of few minutes thanks to the SMS feature available on our mobile phones.
Here is a brief preview of how SMS has helped us simplify life to a great extent.
All bill notifications are instant!
There was a time when people ended up missing the last dates and paying hefty fines. However, with the coming of SMS or short messaging services, this situation has improved in a major way. From the telephone bill to the electricity bill as well as the amount due on your credit card, every notification arrives on your mobile phone as an SMS ensuring that you don't miss out on the deadlines. Amazing, isn't it?
Get urgent reminders
These days we receive reminders on our mobile telling us about health check-ups, path lab tests and a lot more through the SMS. For people who find it difficult to remember such details, SMS's are a boon. The reminders are auto scheduled and allow the service providers to update their customers on regular basis.
SMS alerts from banks
Even banking institutions alert their customers about transactions and account status through SMS. Here again, the SMS is auto scheduled and allows the banks to send regular updates to the customers also making it easier for account holders to keep track of their transactions.
Emergency alerts
Yet another interesting use of the SMS, this facility allows the organization to inform its customers about any type of change in the existing schedule so that they are not inconvenienced. A good example of this usage is seen in colleges and universities where administration notifies its students about changes in the lecture, exams, availability of notes, etc. through SMS.
Keeps you updated about the on-going marketing offers
With an increasing number of brands relying on SMS marketing, it becomes easier for you to keep track about the on-going offers, promotions, etc. in your neighborhood. The information helps you in planning your monthly shopping in a more effective manner, doesn't it?

To get a free list of Good Night SMS, please check our website.

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Using SMS As an Effective Marketing Tool

Short messaging service is a facility that allows you to reach out to a thousand consumers at the mere click of a button. Realizing this potential of the SMS, marketers are gradually planning their advertising campaigns to include more of message based marketing. After all, messages are the easiest and most effective means of communicating with your audience in a personalized manner. From seeking opinions to asking for feedback, marketers are using the power of short messaging service to engage their customers like never before. Apart from the increased engagement, SMS or short messaging service is also an excellent option for brands wanting to initiate a conversation with their stakeholders.
For those of you who are still not sure about the effectiveness of SMS as a marketing tool, here are a few interesting facts.
SMS is more effective
To put it simply, SMS is an effective medium. There are studies and extensive researches that prove the effectiveness of SMS as a marketing tool. In fact, these researches clearly indicate that people are more likely to read an SMS than watch an advertisement. After all, none of us like our favorite TV program or song to be interrupted by long ad breaks, do we?
Its awareness driven selling
Any business is all about selling ideas. Using the effectiveness of SMS, marketers are able to achieve awareness driven selling that is long lasting and also brings in more profits. Additionally, the awareness driven selling ensures that your customers develop a stronger connect with the brand and keep coming back for more.
You are talking to one customer at a time
Unlike most of the traditional methods of advertising, SMS marketing allows you to talk to one customer at a time. The message is a personalized approach ensuring that your customer feels more important and connected with the brand. For any type of organization, it is this involvement that brings repeat business for your brands.
It's cost effective
When you talk to marketers about advertising campaigns, they always freak out at the idea of investing huge amounts of money. However, with SMS marketing money or budget is never a concern. Given the minimal effort required to design an SMS campaign and the high returns on investment, it comes across as one of the most cost effective options. Also, there are several brands who have achieved big targets by relying solely on the magic of SMS driven marketing.

To get a free list of Good Morning SMS, please check our website.

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Use Hangouts+SMS

Do you have an Android phone? You should be using Hangouts for SMS!
It has been a while since SMS was enabled in the Hangouts app for Android. In some devices like the Nexus 5, it now is the only SMS app that comes installed.
Hangouts+SMS offers numerous benefits over the typical stock messaging apps - and you would be missing out on a lot if you're not using it. With just a few simple steps, you can derive much from this versatile messaging powerhouse.
However, this remarkably versatile combination seems to be rather underused, with many users disabling the feature after seeing annoying double notifications, going back to the "Stock" messaging app.
Have a look at some of the benefits:

• Hangouts automatically detects which contacts are online and automatically switches to Chat from SMS and vice versa = potential savings on your SMS bills.


• You can log in to an multiple devices with the same Google ID - and your Hangout chats will be replicated across all of them, including Android, iPhone and even iPad. This is something very few messenger apps provide (Whatsapp and WeChat - I'm looking at you!), and is super convenient, especially since:


• A Hangouts desktop app is also available, with the Google Chrome browser

Consider this:

You start a chat on mobile and suppose you need to send a photo which is currently on your PC. You can just open chrome -> hangouts, and send it to the same chat thread, which will be instantaneously synced with the desktop app, and then come back to mobile to continue the rest of the chat! And you can do this with any combination of devices, to which you have logged in with your Google ID.

But to achieve all this chat mojo, there are a couple of additional steps you need to do, in addition to enabling SMS in Hangouts:

• Disable the notifications in any previously installed SMS app. The option should be available in its settings menu. This will prevent double notifications.


• Open the Google+ app in your Android device at least once, and allow when it asks permission to sync contacts to your device. Hangouts works with Google+, and once sync is enabled, it will get automatically updated with contact details from your Google+ account, which is perfect.

In addition,

• To continue chats on desktop, open the Chrome web browser and install Hangouts from the Chrome web store.

I am a Neurophysician/Developer from the beautiful city of Calicut in Kerala, India. My interests include computers, music and spirituality. My software projects are featured at http://www.sasyabook.com.

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Introduction to Bulk SMS

Bulk SMS means sending quick and short messages to a large number of people. The number may vary from hundreds to thousands. The same message is sent to all recipients contained in a list. This service is frequently used for sales promotion and for advertising products and services. For instance, you could inform people of a forthcoming event, like a concert or the launching of a new gadget. However, generally these messages are forwarded to consumers who volunteered to be among the list of clients of any business or company. Voluntary messages may irritate prospective client and could be interpreted as harassment.
The purpose of sending SMS in bulk is to inform people of the local events like musical concerts, movies, club opening and sales announced by prominent stores in the local area, allowing those interested to attend the event. Any business wishing to promote its products or services need to compile a list of telephone numbers of its prospects and clients, and forward that list to a provider of bulk SMS service, who types the suggested message. The message is then sent to all the people whose telephone number is contained in the list. When receiving the message, the may respond to it, if so required, or just make a note of it and discard it subsequently.
The service providers generally charge on monthly basis. Most businesses consider that fee as an expense towards advertising, saving them the bother of sending hundreds of messages on their own. It also saves them of the expense of investing in proprietary software designed for sending SMS messages in bulk.
Cost effectiveness
Compared to other available options for sending messages to prospects or already existing clients, bulk SMS service works out to be very affordable. Imagine the expense of making telephone calls to hundreds of people and the time it would take doing the needful. Then, you can't be sure if the called party will receive your call and thus get informed of the forthcoming event. So, you save a lot of man hours and also the expense of making calls. By making use of the services of a provider of bulk SMS, you can send your message to clients even if they happen to be in different parts of the world. Well, calling people on phone could be more successful than sending SMS, especially when you are looking for new clients, but recipients would find an SMS to be less intrusive and not so time-consuming too. The most helpful feature of an SMS is that the message gets recorded in the telephone of the receivers, allowing them to go through it at their convenience.

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6 Ways to Use Mobile Marketing to Build a Solid Business

Although social networking is still relatively new when compared to the Internet in general, businesses within this medium operates by the same rules businesses have always operated by, only with a few significant features that you should be aware of. Using mobile marketing to tap into the social structure of online marketing, will enable you to exponentially grow any type of business. Here are some tips to help you get started.
Keep Mobile in mind when designing for the web.
No matter what you're designing via the web, whether it's a business site, a fan page, an email message, or even an ad, you have to keep mobile devices in mind. The greatly reduced real estate means that mobile devices view the content differently to the way that regular computers do, so you have to make sure that you're catering directly to your mobile market by offering them something that still looks and operates great on their smaller devices. The extra work now will pay off later.
Keep your customers preferences in mind when sending text messages.
You should always be aware of when your contacts are available to receive messages and when they actually want to receive them. This means avoiding certain times of the day that your leads may be at work or eating dinner with their families. And this definitely includes weekends and holidays. No one wants to receive a Sunday morning message from you. Save your messages for times of the day when they're not intruding on your customers. This will help you to gain their respect.
Vary the tactics used to persuade your prospects to sign up to your lists.
There are many different tactics you can use in order to entice people to sign up with your list. Either on your website or on one of your social networking pages, you could always offer different contests and other rewards for people who opt into your list. This is a tried and tested way to develop a large list of contacts. Some may end up opting out again, but it's important that you build your network.
Identify your prospects needs and wants.
No matter what the niche is, a customer has a specific problem that the product is going to provide a solution to. Obviously, you need to think of ways to identify this problem so that you can present the solution. The better you're able to do this, the more customers you're ultimately going to have. You need to illustrate with your messages how what you're offering can solve that problem for your customers.
Don't overdo the messaging!
You must be mindful of the fact that, if not used properly, mobile messages can be more of a pain to your customers than something great that's going to help them. This is because it's very easy to overdo it with messages. You should keep your messages to around only a line or two, and you should always limit your number of messages to one message every other day or so.
Give those that want to an easy opt-out from your list.
Working to gain trust doesn't guarantee that every person in your network is going to trust you. Some are going to want to opt out and to stop receiving messages from you. Supplying this type of option and making sure that it's easy to use is going to give your customers more confidence in your business. They will feel as if they're in complete control of the exchange.
You should find that mobile marketing is rather easy once you get the hang of it. And if you do it correctly, you'll also find that it's very beneficial to your business.

I hope you found this article useful and it whetted your appetite to try mobile marketing. For more great information to help grow your business come over to my blog at http://www.chasdemain.com. I look forward to seeing you there soon.

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Mobile Marketing - 3 Questions to Ensure Success

1. Will the visuals still display properly on mobile devices?
Will your marketing visuals--text color, text font, image resolution, etc.--retain their intended messages when viewed on a mobile platform? Many people disregard this question and assume that, based on their own high regard for a particular visual, the visual will be effective despite the necessary changes the ad may undergo when converted to a mobile view. However, consider the following scenario. If you have text in an ad that is spaced out so as to emphasize a certain word, for example, "Make today a day for POWER!" with the word "POWER" separated from the rest of the sentence, that particular word could be cut off unless a user zooms out on his/her mobile. This would render the ad far less impactful as the consumer would initially only see "Make today a day for," possibly losing his/her interest already. In this case, you may need to consider creating a whole new mobile specific ad in order to get the same message across.
2. What happens if your customers can't connect to Wi-Fi?
Will connection speed and/or data caps affect consumers' ability to interact with your marketing materials? Consider that, on the go, consumers may not be connected to Wi-Fi and, thus, may want or not want certain things. For example, having a mobile only option could keep a consumer on a page that they otherwise would have abandoned if it took too long to load. Mobile companies are also starting to cap the amount of data their subscribers can use and so they may not want to always watch videos, download large files or visit sites with a lot of images. If you include data-intensive materials in your marketing, they should always be accompanied by text that describes and/or complements their messages.
3. Have you considered "fat thumb syndrome"?
Will users have difficulty navigating, entering information or interacting with your marketing with imprecise finger tapping? Unlike a mouse, fingers can be awfully clumsy, and if objects are placed too closely to one another, require fast/consecutive taps or otherwise require the sort of precision that comes with a mouse, you may want to redesign certain aspects of your marketing to make them more mobile-friendly.
Conclusion
Facebook has said time and time again that it is going to focus on the mobile platform as a pathway to further profitability. This strategy is being echoed throughout many industries and clearly indicates the importance of mobile phones to reach consumers. Your marketing efforts can be made more effective if they are mobile-ready or have mobile versions readily accessible. Ask yourself the questions listed in the above article to get started with some of the fundamentals of mobile marketing.

I hope you found this article useful and it whetted your appetite to try mobile marketing. For more great information to help grow your business come over to my blog at http://www.chasdemain.com. I look forward to seeing you there soon.

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SMS Wishes: Are You Following the Etiquettes?

The short messaging service or SMS as we know it is an invention that completely revolutionized the way we talk. Previously, conversations were restricted to telephones and mobile phones but with the coming of SMS, things have changed for the better. You can now have discreet conversations without people hearing you. Amazing, isn't it? From birthday wishes to the regular greetings, SMS has become an important platform for conversation in the present day scenario. In fact, business owners are known to establish a stronger association with the numbers listed in their contact book by sending SMS's on a regular basis.
However, what most of us are yet to figure out is that there are certain etiquettes to follow when you are sending SMS wishes. Here is a brief preview of the same.
Keep it short and simple
So, you want to convey a birthday greeting through SMS. Well, that is excellent but you must avoid sending extra-long messages for the same. Yes! While sending SMS wishes, make sure your message is short and crisp because the reader may not have all the time in the world to go through the entire message.
Send the wishes on time
For birthdays, anniversaries, etc. the best time to convey SMS wishes is at the time the reader is most likely to read his or her phone. But, for other occasions like Diwali, Dussera, etc. make sure that you send the wishes a little in advance. After all, the festival days are bound to see a rush on all network providers increasing the chances of your message getting delayed. In some cases, the messages are lost and never even reach the destined user simply because of the overloading of network.
Shuffle your categories
When you plan to send SMS wishes for any occasion, you have to start with identifying the category of message. For example, you can convey your good wishes via the medium of inspirational quotes, funny jokes, etc. However, we would advise you to keep shuffling this category so that the reader gets to enjoy more variety.
Don't expect an acknowledgement
If you are using SMS to convey your wishes, it is not important that you will get an acknowledgement for every message that you send especially if the person is not a close contact. Your delivery report option is the best way to figure out whether or not the receiver has got the message. Nevertheless, you should continue your effort if you are planning to leverage the power of SMS wishes to strengthen your contact list.

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4 Tips for a Successful SMS Marketing Campaign

SMS marketing can prove very lucrative. Yet, for it to be fruitful, you need to respect four basic principles that govern the SMS industry.
1. Market Segmentation
Mobile devices are close to 7.2 billion and they're multiplying five times faster than we are. Most of them - if not all- are SMS enabled. Bearing this little piece of information in mind, every marketer needs to know that unless the audience targeted is segmented, any SMS campaign  is condemned  to failure. It is of paramount importance to distinguish your campaign's texts from spam SMS. All you have to do is integrate your SMS marketing campaign with the needs of your clients and carry out different strategies for every group.
2. Customer advocacy
The concept of focusing on what is best for the customer is not new to the marketers. As far as SMS campaigns are concerned, the client needs to know that he/she consented to receiving SMS online and was not just picked at random. For this reason, opting-in must be very clear and direct to the client. Usually, it involves either employing a short or long code to opt-in or subscribing via a web form. Client consent makes you trustworthy towards your customers and enhances their loyalty and responsiveness to your 2-way SMS campaigns.
3. Personalization & timing
Sending text messages is not a privilege granted indefinitely. The customer must not feel intrusion or disturbance, while receiving a text message. On the contrary, the message needs to be anticipated. The best way to make sure positive reception is to keep up a not-so-overwhelming frequency and make the client feel unique when receiving a message. For example: "Ben! Tomorrow is your lucky day! Take advantage of the discount coupon for your favourite restaurant before it expires!". This way, the message is conveyed, you client feels special and you cut the risk of your message being labeled as spam.
4. Be pretty!
Like any other media-related campaign, your web to SMS message needs to be appealing and easy to remember. The use of slang or abbreviations will undermine the value of your brand and long or complicated messages may avert the customer even from reading through the entire SMS. URLs are not good-looking either, so in such cases where they are necessary, it is strongly recommended to use a URL shortened. Remember! A message that is easily retained to the memory, increases the responsiveness and positive reception of the next message.
In practice, there are far too many ways of utilizing SMS marketing to list, but to give you an example, here are a few case studies of SMS marketing campaigns potential implementations.

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