4 Lessons from a Mobile Marketing Mini-Case Study

Focus of this study surrounded the use of SMS text messaging as a list building tool.  I attended two events in recent weeks, and decided to integrate SMS messaging technology with my list management software.  The objective?  Get a feel for how the audience would respond to both the offer, and the medium for getting the offer.  These were thrown together pretty quickly as to just get some hands on experience with mobile marketing.  As the saying goes, the priority wasn’t to get it perfect, rather to get it going.  In doing so, I learned some lessons, 4 of which will be shared here.

4 Lessons from a Mobile Marketing Mini-Case Study

Mobile marketing is all the talk, but what if you are a small business owner who actually wants to implement mobile marketing in your business, and don’t have a lot of time to do it?  Having been in that position, I used 2 technologies (details below) to integrate with my list management software, which took about 90 minutes total to get them both setup, and another 45 minutes to test and dial them in.

Disclosure: The author of today’s post is a Certified Marketing Automation Coach (CMAC) with Infusionsoft.

Where – 2 Different Events, 2 Different Offers

In the span of a week, I attended 2 different events, and created two different offers, as the audience had unique needs.

Event 1 – 150 Person Seminar

The first event was a smaller seminar.  The great thing about this event was I felt as if I met nearly half of the people at the event, including speakers, and was able to have meaningful, not hurried, conversations (more my style).

Offer – Special Report

Specialized Business Card: I had a card developed for each event, with unique offers on each.

Results

I gave roughly 40 of the business cards away, and only 4 people actually Texted in for the special report I was offering (it was backdoor access to the report offered at one of my other sites here).  Two of these texted in with my help…unimpressive to say the least.  More on ‘why’ in a moment.

Event 2 – 850 Person Conference

This was a well attended user conference, InfusionCon where I got started with Foursquare, and the offer was more targeted.

Offer – Video Training

Again, I used a specialized business card for the event.  It was access to a video training series on the software everyone at the event uses.  Here is the screenshot of the card:

Result Impacting Event: I was a panelist on an “ask the experts marketing panel” session at InfusionCon on the last day.  A question was posed to the panel asking if anyone had experience with mobile marketing.  I mentioned my experiment, and was asked to share the details so session attendees who wanted it could optin for the video training.

Results

• 113 total texts in from the event (most from the session)
• 3 texted in no info whatsoever
• 2 texted an improperly formatted email
• 70 received the email and clicked the link to the video series
• Several responded to followup emails asking if the series was any good, resulting in 3 testimonials thus far.

4 Lesson’s Learned

Lesson 1 – Business Cards = LAME: In both cases, while the custom business card is unique and targeted for the event itself, alone it was ineffective.  The card was lost in the stack with all the other cards to be forgotten when people departed the event.

Lesson 2 – Poor Instructions: The instructions on the card were confusing for many,  text messaging hasn’t become main stream for that target market.  I observed several people who took the time to follow the text instructions, and half of them did it wrong.  Next time I’ll test them out on my 8 year old.

Lesson 3 – Outside US: I had several come to me at the first event saying they never received anything after texting.  I discovered they were using a cell service in Canada.  I hadn’t setup a Canadian number yet.  This was fixed with my provider (below) in time for the second event.

Lesson 4 – Captive Audience: *Biggest Lesson* This made all the difference, and saved the value of this case study.  Having a platform to speak to several hundred people combined with a relevant offer to InfusionCon attendees offered the biggest results. It was a quick way to add subscribers.

Optional: If you are an Infusionsoft user and would like access to the video training, 7 Super Simple Infusionsoft Productivity Tips Most Users Never Learn here are the instructions:

1. If using a US carrier, draft a SMS text message on your phone to 411247Canadian providers use 32075
2. Type tips yourfirstname youremailaddress(Example: tips Travis travis@gmail.com)
3. Send message.  You’ll get a confirmation text and an email.
   

SMS Technology Used

There are quite a few providers out there and more surfacing all the time. The combination I chose was because it came recommended and was pretty easy to implement. 

• BoomTexts.com – Text messaging service for small business. Reasonable rates, have a generous trial, integrates with Infusiontxt.com
• Infusiontxt.com – Service for Infusionsoft users to funnel Text messages from their BoomTexts.com account into Infusionsoft.  This allows users to create new contacts and perform actions for following up.  15 Day trial available, $7.99 and $14.99 (PRO) per month.

Overall it was a very positive experience, however for it to be worth the effort I will need to be more involved in events where relevant offers can be made to a large number of people at the same time.  I would modify the instructions on the card, and perhaps go with a different sized card altogether.