The key to gaining new customers and to keep them coming back is to engage with them on a personal level. The best way to start to do that is to ask a question. It doesn’t have to be a complex question — in fact, shorter, simpler and easier are much better. The best method for asking is to take advantage of the communications medium customers take with them everywhere they go: their smart phones. Questions to ask by text While there are some questions that you can ask almost any time, a...

The Cambridge Analytica controversy has raised a lot of questions about collecting and using personal information for business purposes. Companies, clubs, churches and other organizations that use text messaging as part of their communications strategy routinely collect information from customers as well as prospects. Mobile numbers, names and sales records are just the tip of the iceberg. A new law in the European Union called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will affect...

You’ve probably seen or heard the statistics many times by now: texting is the No. 1 use of smart phones, and millions of texts get sent every minute all around the world. But you may be surprised by who’s sending and receiving these messages, and why. Back in 2015, 85 percent of teens in the U.S. had a smart phone, and Pew Research noted that it was their top choice as a way to get in touch with friends. Today, it’s more than teens and millennials who are using smart phones and texting...

The WordPress marketing blog recently reported that 92 percent of Millennial consumers are more likely to buy products from “ethical companies.“ What exactly is an ethical company? An ethical company is one that makes decisions based on business principles, or whether it will result in a profit, as well as moral principles — whether it’s the right thing to do. For some companies, this can mean buying inputs that are produced in a sustainable way, or giving a percentage of their revenues...

Social media platforms are under scrutiny and receiving more criticism for allowing users’ data to be mined and used for purposes they didn’t agree to. Marketers need to look at their practices to make sure that they’re not crossing the same ethical lines. Ask for phone numbers or addresses Ask your audience’s permission to send them text messages. Just because you have contacts’ cell phone numbers, doesn’t mean you should automatically add them to your text messaging lists. Get...

Marketing requires a careful balance between broad reach and narrow targeting. For your marketing communications campaign to succeed, you have to deliver the right message to the right audience. You need to motivate your market to take the action you want: buy your product, come to your shop, show up for your event. Getting people to take action requires that you know as much as you can about what motivates them. Why should they care about your product, service, business or event? In short,...

Language changes constantly. Words change meaning — sometimes, a word can come to mean the opposite of what it once did. Did you know that “resentment” once meant the same thing as “gratitude”? Now, it means the opposite. And consider “snowflake”: at one time, if you called someone a snowflake, you meant they were unique. Now, it describes someone who’s over-sensitive, whose feelings are as delicate as a snowflake on a sunny day. The same thing happens in text messaging. The...

Each day around the world, people send — and receive — 22 million text messages. Did you know that 60 percent of Google searches are done with a mobile device such as a tablet or smart phone? People are using their mobile devices more than ever before. And that means businesses can use text messaging to reach target markets and build relationships. Even in the workplace, people are starting to use text messaging to communicate instantly, conveniently and efficiently. It makes sense, then,...

You know the importance of the call to action in text messages. When text messaging, you need to spur recipients to action. And since you only have 160 characters, every word has to count. What words should you use? Let’s explore the words that are more likely to make your audience want to respond. Keywords are words that your audience is interested in, and search for on Google and other search engines. But in text messaging, they have an additional meaning: they’re associated with...