Gigs Media SMS Guide
We at Gigs Media want to assist you in your marketing campaigns. We offer video, email, and phone support from our website www.gigsmedia.com and have tips available to you within this guide and on our web site. This SMS Guide is designed to walk you through getting started and offers some best practices and tips that should assist you in implementing your campaign.
First Things First
The first thing you want to do is sign-up and then we can talk about getting a keyword. If you are wanting to SMS Marketing for marketing purposes, you want your keyword to reflect your business to maximize branding.
1. Provide us a 145 character message that you want all new subscribers to see when they opt in. When a subscriber opts-in for the first time, they will receive the opt-in confirmation message including the following mandatory information:
- the business name
- the message frequency
- HELP for help
- STOP to cancel
- message & data rates may apply
Once this confirmation message is sent, the auto-responder message you customized will be sent to them. *Keep in mind, by defining an auto-responder message to be sent with the opt-in confirmation message, you are using 2 messages per opt-in.
2. Customizing the alternate message for users who try to re-opt in after already being in your subscriber database. If no message is provided, nothing will be sent to the subscriber re-opting in.
3. Next you should have an idea of how many messages per month that your subscribers should intend on receiving. Again, this information is passed on to both the subscriber and the carriers as part of the provisioning process and must accurately reflect the maximum number of messages a subscriber will receive per month. The next step is to create any groups that you may want use. Our groups feature allows you to group contacts together to better target specific people with your marketing campaign. You can create and delete groups at any time, but creating any necessary groups before advertising your keyword will make things easier for tracking purposes and separating contacts. Any groups that are created will include an extension that will be added to your keyword, separated by a decimal (e.g. demo.ad = demo being the keyword and ad being the group).
You can add contacts to your database that you have already collected as long as they know they will be receiving text messages from you.
Note:
Any contacts your provide us either one-at-a-time, or in mass by CSV file, will automatically receive the opt-in confirmation message giving them the opportunity to opt-out of receiving these messages. These messages sent count as sent SMS.
Next, you will need to promote your keyword to your prospective clientele by adding your call-to-action to your current marketing (e.g. text gigsmedia to ##### to receive 10 % off).
Opt-in Tips
Signing up for a text message marketing platform is the first step of starting your campaign, but the most important part is gaining opt-ins! The goal when starting a SMS campaign is to grow the list of subscribers over time. Considering the popularity of text messaging, lists can quickly grow from a couple hundred to a couple thousand subscribers, and larger. These tips are to assist you with ideas for gathering a database that can then be marketed to.
Tips:
- Promote, promote, promote! In order for your campaign to be effective, people need to text your keyword to the shortcode and be entered into your database.
o Add your call-to-action to ALL of your current marketing campaigns including:
- Table tents
- Menus
- Fliers
- Billboards
- Marquees
- Yard signs
- Window paint
- Newspaper ads
- Newsletters
- POS signage
- Receipts
- Packaging
o Business cards are a perfect, low cost form of advertising. Add your call-to-action on your business cards and hand them out freely to make them more effective. (Many business cards are just thrown to the side after they are received; by adding a call-to-action, it gives the recipient a chance to opt-in before discarding it or placing it into a wallet or purse and forgetting about it.
o Promote it with your email campaigns by putting the call-to-action in the subject line.
o Name badges, buttons, or hanging neck badges for employees with direct customer contact can include the call-to-action. Also have them mention it to everyone they speak with and run a competition with employees to see who can get the most opt-ins.
Important!
All print and web advertising must contain the following information to be compliant with current industry regulations:
- A declaration of what they will be receiving (e.g. you will receive coupons)
- Message frequency (e.g. you will receive X messages per month)
- HELP for help
- STOP to cancel
- “Message & data rates may apply” (cannot contain additional verbiage)
- A method (phone #, URL, link, email, etc.) of obtaining your terms & conditions
Tips:
- Incentivize your call-to-action and give a reason for people to opt-in. Just adding your call-to-action to a flier is not enough to get someone to opt-in. In your call-to-action,you need to entice them with:
o Information
- Information about special events
- Company news
- Changes in company business
- New product or service
o Coupons
- A coupon code that can be redeemed online or at a location
- An actual coupon that can be redeemed by showing the text message to the clerk/waiter
o Prizes
- For opting-in they receive a prize, product or service
o Drawings
- Opting-in enters them into a drawing for a prize
o Voting
- Ask for votes on a position (political, sports teams, favorite meal, etc.)
- Ask for votes on a change of business (new ideas)
- Word of mouth! Ask your current subscribers to forward a message to friends, asking their friends to opt-in. Give incentive as a reason to send it. These types of messages can look like this:
o Have your friends text gigsmedia.1 (space) your # to ###### to receive discounts and ten opt-ins gets you an MP3 player
o Forward this message and if ten friends opt-into gigsmedia.1 (space) referring # to ##### get a free MP3 player
Sending Your Messages
As your subscribers opt-in, they will receive the message confirming that they have opted-in and your auto-responder message. Any opt-ins will automatically be placed into your database and corresponding groups, if any.
Note:
Text-4-info accounts will not send the confirmation message as they are not enrolling for any further messages.
You can send messages to your contacts in one of two ways:
- Sending a one-time message
o This type of message will allow you to select who you would like to send the message to and queue a time of the day to send the message out.
- Scheduling
o The scheduling allows you to set dates recurring messages to go out:
- Daily – will send the message daily, at the time you select, to the contacts you select.
- Weekly – will allow you to select the days of the week to send the message.
- Monthly Days – sends out the message within specific months and on specific days of those months.
- Monthly On – gives you the ability to send out your messages on specific weeks and days of those weeks.
Note:
- Any messages that are queued to go out will not be sent from 8pm to 8am.
- Your message plan can be upgraded as your subscriber database grows and as you need. When you start out with us you can have 2k SMS sent per month, That is saying you have 500 subscriber’s in your database, you can upgrade to increase your messages to 4000 per month and so on. We are here to keep your cost down and your ROI high and ready to grow your business with you.
- Another option is to purchase an additional bundle of messages. These messages are extra on your account and this basically means that if you have 500 subscriber’s and you sent them each 4 SMS Messages in the first 3 weeks and yet you have one more SMS Message to send in week4. You Do not need worry about your month to month bill going up, you can just buy credit to send to your subscriber’s that 5th time.
Best Practices
These best practices are put in place by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) in conjunction with the tier 1 carriers and top aggregators. For all carrier best practices download our “Best Practice Guide” available from your control panel.
General
1. At a minimum, programs should be run in a manner that is congruous with the letter and spirit of the MMA Global Code of Conduct for Mobile Marketing. The Code of Conduct is located at: http://www.mmaglobal.com/codeofconduct.pdf
2. At all times, programs must be in accordance with applicable federal and state laws, rules and regulations.
3. Content providers must always be cognizant of the number of messages they are sending to participants in their programs to avoid a poor user experience.
Advertising Messaging Program
4. When promoting programs, content providers should ensure that their advertising in all forms is clear and conspicuous regarding all terms and conditions associated with offers and adheres to all state and federal regulations.
5. Use of the word “free” varies by carrier. However, when there are no fees or charges other than standard messaging and data charges, synonyms (i.e. complimentary, promotional, no charge) are supported by all carriers and must be used with the phrase “Msg & Data Rates may apply”.
6. The verbiage around the placement of “Msg&Data Rates May Apply” should be clear and conspicuous on the call-to-action/promotion/advertising and should NOT be deceptive in any nature nor lead to an indirect subscription of services. Illegible font sizes or presentment (including scrolling or moving graphics) and obscuring of the disclaimer “Msg&Data Rates May Apply” are prohibited.
7. Advertising must include a resource (such as a website or phone number) where subscribers can reference all terms and conditions.
8. All advertising and promotional material should clearly display the opt-out information.
9. Program advertising or its placement should not be deceptive about the functionality, features, or content of the underlying program.
10.When promoting programs, content providers should ensure that their advertising in all forms is clear and conspicuous regarding all terms and conditions associated with offer and adheres to all state and federal regulations.
Opt-in
11. Content providers must obtain approval from subscribers before sending them commercial SMS.
12. Regardless of type, the goal of any opt-in is to clearly communicate to the subscriber the financial obligation they are about to incur by entering the program.
13. Upon entering a program, the subscriber must be told how to opt-out of the program.
14. Beyond violating the subscriber opt-in policy, sending messages to third-party lists is not an effective interactive mobile marketing tactic.
15. Selling mobile opt-in lists is prohibited.