Using Short Codes to Engage with the Customer via SMS Polling and Contests
SMS polling is a distinctive way to get to know the opinions of your customers on various issues including your products and services. Another excellent way to engage your customers is through an SMS contest. Both the above methods will help you reach out to your customers, clients and potential prospects. For the instant success of SMS polling and contests some technological infrastructure and setup is required. Then, with the help of short code services, one can start polling and contests and get useful results that can be used to create a better marketing strategy.
Looking at the technological aspect, as a single mobile phone will not be able to handle a continuous and instantaneous flow of messages, one will require the use of a PC or number of PCs. An SMS server and SMS software available in the market would help in converting the PC text to mobile SMS, control the traffic and flow of bulk SMS to and fro, and ensure delivery of SMS from the PC to the mobile network. The SMS server will also act as a storage unit of data and the software will make it possible to convert this data into useful information. Because we have installed an SMS server that can process a lot of data at one go, we can send bulk SMS at one go and all will be delivered instantly to the recipients.
Now that we have completed the technological setup, let’s look at how we can conduct polls and contests using short codes. Short codes are 5 to 8 digits long numbers that are easy to remember as they help spell out a known word or brand. It is easy to generate a short code for your business and easy to incorporate it into your present technology, if it is not already there. So if you are into the text messaging business you can have a short code of 83986 which spells out TEXTM. Now suppose you offer 3 lucrative packages of group SMS and would like to know which one is the preferred choice of the customers. Simply giving A, B and C to each of the 3 offers respectively, you can send a poll asking the question to your audience. You can instruct them to reply with PACK A, B or C and send the message to TEXTM. Once all the responses are in, you can extract the data from the SMS server and analyse it. Similarly, you can make a few of your customers happy while at the same time engage with all of them through SMS contests. Offering prizes like free trips or brand new car or maybe discount coupons for your products will persuade the users to participate. Post a simple question and give them options to select from and just like polling they can text you their response to your short code.
Thus, using short codes for SMS polling and contests is an easy way to stay in touch with your customers, get new customers to join, find out opinions and perception of the consumer in regards to your product and what changes or innovations would be accepted by them and attain useful data that can be helpful in creating new products, promotions or marketing strategies.
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