To too many people marketing equates to one of two things:

- Selling: with all that entails such as the dreaded double-glazing or financial salesman.
- Advertising: with all that entails such as the slick young creative and smarmy account person.

Of course marketing also encompasses these functions – though, hopefully not as in the stereotypes that are in so many minds – but marketing is about a great deal more than just selling or advertising.

Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you’re continuing to meet the needs of your customers and are getting value in return.

It includes:

- Finding out what groups of potential customers or markets exist
- What groups of customers you prefer to serve – your target markets
- What their needs are, what products or services you might develop to meet their needs
- How customers might prefer to use the products and services
- Who competitors are and what they are doing
- What pricing mechanism and approach you should use
- How each of target markets might choose to access the product, etc.
- How much customers / clients might be willing pay and how.
- How to design and describe the product such that customers/clients will buy from the organization, rather than from its competitors – the unique value proposition
- How the company or products should be identified – personality -to be most identifiable i.e. naming and branding
- Ongoing campaigns, which can include advertising, public relations, sales and customer service

All of this was characterised many years ago by Dr. Philip Kotler as the 4Ps:

- Product – making what customers want
- Place – delivering it via the channels they want to use
- Promotion – making them aware of its existence
- Price – making it available at a price they will pay

At the end of the day marketing is really about not losing sight of the basics. You have to be focused on what customers require as the outcome and then find out how to get there by
meeting customers needs over a period of time, in a socially responsible way, whilst making a reasonable profit.

Marketing is really a philosophy and attitude about customer focus that has to run through the whole organisation. If you get that you get marketing.

Since text messaging first became available in 1996 it has a mass market communication platform and a cultural phenomenon of the 21st Century.

The use of SMS will continue to grow as companies turn the service into a critical business function. Text messaging’s ability to immediately reach a customer anywhere and its low cost offer the ability to reach customers (external and internal) with a personally targeted message delivered “into their pocket in real time”.

Used properly SMS marketing is really effective Customer Relationship Management as it goes a long way to giving information, knowledge and empowerment to customers and the understanding that “my supplier is really looking out for me”. For example: an insurer or broker sending details of local emergency numbers such as hospitals and consulates.

It’s not all about ring tones and logos. There are many different uses for SMS including notification, emergency advisories, scheduling, news and information and staff collaboration.

SMS can generate very high levels of response, but a campaign must leverage the medium’s strengths and minimize its weaknesses. The key element of a successful campaign is value and entertainment. To market to someone effectively you must provide them value and / or entertainment in each SMS message.

It is also important that your campaign targets recipients who have expressly given their consent to receive messages from you. You must also provide them with a simple and free method of opting out from further messaging.

Successful SMS marketing is about:

- Saying the right thing.

- To the right person.

- At the right time.

The greatest strength of SMS is its immediacy. Examples of how to use it are:

Voting

Voting is an exciting way to engage your audience and let them have their say. Big Brother 3 created 3 million votes.

Instant Win

Instant win prizes where customers can find out if they have won a prize straight away really work.

Timed Vouchers

Timed vouchers drive footfall into your store, bar, club, theatre, cinema, petrol station etc and if you want user interaction then using a viral campaign where vouchers can be sent onto friends and family increases response. The SMS advises time the voucher becomes invalid.

Customer Service

Daily recipe ideas, special promotion alerts, diet tips, cocktail recipe ideas, music reviews, release dates, Top 10 charts, in store promotion alerts.

You are only limited by your imagination!