If you want your SMS Text messaging Mobile campaigns to be effective it all starts with being able to build an effective list. This campaign from Van Huesen is a very good case study .

Step One: Create a Good Offer

Getting a $5.00 discount on what you were going to buy anyway today makes it very easy for someone to say what the heck, I’ll bite

Step Two:  Clear Call to Action

The majority of people have not yet ever participated in a text campaign.  This sign recognizes that fact and clearly spells out if you text VH5 to 54989 you will receive a $5.00 mobile coupon good for use today

Step Three: Location, Location, Location

The best place to put up your signage to invite someone to participate in your mobile marketing campaign is where it will be both very visible and highly relevant. Besides having signage at the Register/Point of Sale this sign above was in the dressing room.  You couldn’t miss it but it was still small enough that it didn’t overpower the customer.

All in all some very good takeaways on how to properly promote your SMS Text Messaging campaign. Have you seen any other good examples of  someone doing it well ?

It’s no surprise that big brands and their marketing deep pockets have the ability to out spend small businesses.

Smart small business owners on the other hand, have been able to out-compete the big brands by forging close personal relationship with their customers.

By being able to speak directly, often face to face with real customers, small business owners have had an advantage. They can directly listen and learn from their customers and quickly adapt to provide better products and/or services.

I wonder how many small business owners are aware that the advent of mobile could threaten our hold on these personal relationships with customers?

I’m proud to have been a small business owner for 30 years. One of the great things I’ve been able to see in that time period is how technology has become a great equalizer between big and small business.

When I started out, big business had major advantages across virtually every technology platform. You name it: computers, software, phones a big business could and did invest the dollars while small businesses waited sometimes years for prices to fall. Yet today almost any kind of technology is affordable and accessible to any small business even a startup.

Recently, I’ve been wondering if too many fellow small business owners may be taking for granted that technology has helped level the playing field between small and big business ? But to paraphrase Heraclitus: nothing is permanent but change.

Take a look at this video and see if you had any of the same reactions I did ?

I saw this video and said to myself:
1) Wow- amazing ! It really dramatically demonstrates the unique personal nature of mobile: always with you; can’t be anywhere without it; my lifeline

2) It seems like Best Buy is making a major commitment to fully integrate Mobile into how they serve their customers . They are asking themselves some important questions: “How can we help our customers while they are mobile” “How can mobile help us solve (fill in the blank customer problem)?”

If you as a fellow small business owner, believe as I do that Mobile offers businesses a very powerful means to personally connect with customers, then this video should be a wake up call. The big brands also get it.

Who will win this race ?