In this article I would be showing you how to effectively use Bulk SMS to engage your new customers and turn them to your loyal customers.
Every business owner must have heard about Mobile Marketing. If you have not heard, according to the Mobile Marketing Association, Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device.
As business owners not maintaining regular contact with your customers and giving them detailed and updated information about your business can be very detrimental. The Internet has taken half of your problems by providing you with solutions to help you reach your target audience more effectively and not harnessing those opportunities would be a waste.
How does Bulk SMS work?
Bulk SMS is more of a personalized and targeted promotional strategy for your business to reach a wide range of audience. Amazingly from your laptop, smartphone, ipads, etc your promotional message is sent to your target audience regardless of where they are as long as there’s mobile reception where they are.
BENEFITS OF USING BULK SMS
1. Mobile campaigns are easy to create and execute; messages are delivered to recipients within seconds.
2. Affordable: Prices are very modest and they decrease as volume increases.
3. Distribution: Reach out to people all over the world. Delivery is almost always guaranteed, unlike email, direct mail, and other forms of advertising.
4. Messages reach recipients wherever they are. No need to be by a TV, radio, computer, or mailbox; phones are within our reach 80% of every day.
5. Wide range of use: Mobile marketing can be used for an extensive array of purposes from announcing a new service, launching a new product, one-day sales and grand opening events—just to name a few. Recipients can be treated as an exclusive group for offers and information that only they have access to, increasing brand loyalty.
BULK SMS can be used for cross-selling, up-selling and direct selling and remember it’s COST-EFFECTIVE and VERY AFFORDABLE.

There are different Bulk SMS providers around but the truth is you need to be sure of the provider you are signing up with so that you don’t lose your money as a result of failed deliveries and irregularities.
1. Contact a Bulk SMS provider (for eg. http://www.nogsms.com)
2. Register and get your login details
3. Select the package you want.
4.Proceed
Now before you proceed there are some things you should understand and take note of.
DO THE FOLLOWING:
1. Create your Customer Database: Build a database of your customer’s details. This database should include (Customer’s Name, Customer’s Phone no, Customer’s Email Address, Customer’s Birthday). Ensure you get 80% of these details because some customers might not feel comfortable giving out details. You should seize this opportunity to build trust with your customer by providing valid reasons why you need these details.
2. As you build your database, you should make it a habit to do the following:
-Send your customers a ‘Thank you’ sms after every transaction. Provide a contact line in the sms that they can always reach you on.
-Send them concise details on arrival of new products, sales,etc
-Be sensitive: Send them messages on their birthdays, during festive periods, new month, etc
-Be Human: Send them messages to warn them of flood, traffic Jam, You might be wondering but yes you should send them such messages because it shows that your business is Human.
DO NOT DO THE FOLLOWING:
1. Don’t bombard your customers with messages within short intervals, it can be pretty annoying.
2. Don’t write long messages, make them short and captivating.
3. ALWAYS include a number that they can reach you on, never forget that.
4. Don’t send messages at the wrong time.
There are a lot of Don’ts to avoid but you really should put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
Be creative with your message, that’s the secret.
After you take note of the above, you can now PROCEED. Remember the way Bulk SMS works is from a computer to hundreds or thousands of mobile devices at once so when searching for a Bulk SMS provider, asides from pricing you should find one that you can trust. Like http://wwwnogsms.com

IN A NUTSHELL, as a business owner you can virtually use sms for the following

1. Full blown-promotion – Are you rolling out a new product or service or want to push your already existing products and services further into the marketplace to make more money? You can penetrate and dominate your market easily, quickly, and cheaply using bulk SMS.

2. Time-limited special offers – Is sales short in coming? Do you need a certain amount of money this week or by month end? Or you just want to meet a sales target, you can use bulk SMS to make one-time offers or any kind of special offer. And you know what? Offers with built-in deadlines outperform offers without deadlines any day, anytime.

3. Introduce your great business – You have a great business, granted. But how many of your potential customers know you exist… even in your community? You can use bulk SMS to get yourself out of marketing oblivion and into limelight and win more customers and become very popular in your niche and location.

4. Follow up on your top prospects – According to statistics from the National Sales Executive Association, “Only 2% of sales are made on the 1st contact. And 80% of all sales are made on the 5th - 12th contact.” Bulk SMS helps you to automate and personalize your marketing follow up professionally so that you can make all the money you’re capable of making in your business.

5. Customer relationship management – You can use bulk SMS to manage your relationship with your customer professionally thereby retaining your customers and reducing customer attrition rate. How? By informing them when you fulfill their orders, by using it to ask if delivery went smooth, by thanking them for their business, and so on.

6. Wish your customers Happy Birthday – It has been said that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. By celebrating customers on one of the important days of their lives, you will increase customers’ loyalty. And the more customers stay with you, the more money you will make. What’s more, you can even schedule the birthdays and it will be delivered on their birthdays without you touching anything.

7. Get your debtors to pay you quickly – You can use bulk SMS to remind your debtors that their debt is due for payment. This will increase your revenue and improve your cash-flow.

8. New prices announcement – Have adjustments in your pricing? You can use bulk SMS to inform your customers and use that opportunity to sell your products and services.

9. Make special holiday offers – We have a dozen holidays during each year, bulk SMS comes in handy to make special holiday offers with deadlines built into them to generate quick sales.

10. Refer prospects to your great company website – This will increase traffic to your website which will in turn contribute to getting you ranked higher in Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines and also help you sell your products and services. To make it very effective, you can offer them something for FREE if they visit your website.
http://www.nogsms.com

The importance of growing your business online or offline using the power of bulk sms can not be underestimated. After from Facebook marketing, email listings and others, you can wildly grow your business if you acquire the skills of bulk SMS marketing. Information is power. Unfortunately, many Nigerians ignore this vital truth and get their fingers burnt. It is never late to get knowledge.

The importance of growing your business online or offline using the power of bulk sms can not be underestimated. Apart from Facebook marketing, email listings and others, you can wildly grow your business if you acquire the skills of bulk SMS marketing. Information is power. Unfortunately, many Nigerians ignore this vital truth and get their fingers burnt. It is never late to get knowledge.