There are plenty of creative ways one could use simple SMS/text marketing for various business industries. For this month’s mobile marketing spotlight we look at those in the event planning or trade show industry.
Event Planning
Event planning can range from wedding or birthday parties to corporate retreats or events. Today’s RSVPs are via email. Any event changes or further announcements would have to be handled via email too. But who reads email any more? While the ROI for email is still pretty high, the event planner would still have to battle the spam filter, the timeliness and the possible apathy that can still hover around email – especially if the individual is receiving masses of email.
How cool would it be as an event planner to offer your clients the added feature of doing contest, hyping the event, or communicating event changes via text marketing? The database can be maintained for future events or scrubbed for the next client event.
Trade Shows
Have you ever been to a trade show? Or maybe you’ve actually been the person with a table or display. They’re usually a combination of education and lead generation. The attendees are there to learn about new industry tools and the exhibitors are trying to collect contact data for follow-up after the event.
Bingo.
Old ways of doing it were collect business cards or having the attendee fill out little forms. Some shows have gone electronic and boiled it all down to swiping a registration card (albeit an extra fee for the exhibitor).
Text marketing allows an easy way for exhibitors to collect cell numbers, choose one or several numbers for raffles, and still leaves the door open for communication after the event. And with that 4″ of real estate always being within arms length, the immediacy and effectiveness of communication makes it more alluring. Even the event host can use text marketing to hold contests, alert the audience to any important information and announce future events.
Mobile marketing is not the way of the future – it is NOW. The event planning and trade show industry has the ability to utilize the basic mobile technology of text messaging to differentiate themselves from the competition and open a channel of communication that is instant and relevant.
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Shameless plug:
If you are interested in brainstorming creative ideas or starting a SMS/text marketing campaign business, call us at 419-318-9881 or fill out the form on the Contact Us page.