Early November, that peak time for sending holiday email campaigns, is already around the corner if you're thinking about adding text messaging to your email mix. It takes time to plan your mobile-marketing strategy, time to set up the technology and most importantly, time to build your list. Don't wait till fall, or you might fall short at the cash register.

A tantalizing opportunity

According to an Experian study, there are twice as many text-messaging users globally as there are email users. In the United States, nearly half of mobile users text message in any given month. And almost every cell phone shipped in the United States today comes equipped with Short Message Service (SMS) technology, the text-messaging communications protocol.

But you don't need statistics to tell you that you and I and most people we know are spending more and more time glued to our mobile devices. (Just watch all the people talking and texting at the grocery store.)

How text-marketing campaigns work

The basic components of mobile marketing are the short code, the keyword and the message itself.

• Short code: a number, usually five digits, that's the mobile equivalent of your company's phone number. It's how your mobile subscribers communicate with you.
  
  
• Keyword: unique word or number that users text to your short code. For example, American Idol fans text the keyword "vote" to a unique short code for each contestant.
  
  
• Message: SMS is short, sweet and painfully simple. You get 160 characters of plain text. No fancy HTML, no links, no pictures. One hundred sixty characters. That's it. (Many phones do come enabled with Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) that lets you send pictures, video and more, but SMS is more widely adopted.)
  
  

So how do you turn a short code, keyword and message into a viable marketing campaign? Coupons, tickets and offers that people can carry with them to brick-and-mortar destinations are popular. So are text-to-win promotions. For example:

• Starbucks stores across the United States gave away free coffee on a particular day. Consumers texted the word "Break" to Starbucks to get a day-of reminder.
  
  
• Office Depot ran a travel sweepstakes, and consumers texted "Win" to the short code. They also chose to opt in to special offers like “Office Depot 2 days only; save $30 on orders $150 or more” by texting the word "Yes."
  
  
• Vans Warped Tour concert-goers texted "Warped" to a short code to get the inside scoop on band line-ups and to take advantage of perks like skipping the admission line.
  
  

The importance of a good mobile marketing strategy

If you're noticing a theme here, it's that text alerts don't work as standalone "Hey, look at my message!" blasts. Users must find the text message relevant at the exact moment they receive it. And that generally means that the text has to be tied to a wider promotion or initiative.

We recommend that you take a tri-messaging approach to mobile marketing. In other words, that you consider email, social and mobile as a three-legged stool that supports your marketing program. For example, you can use email to introduce and explain a promotion, text alerts to remind your users when they're at the point of purchase and social to make it easier for recipients to spread the word about your promotion.

You won't come up with a mobile-marketing campaign that makes sense for your business overnight, especially if you're a B2B company that appeals to 35-and-older decision-makers who don't text as frequently as tweens, teens and 20-somethings.

Mobile marketing can require at least 4-5 months of lead time

Before you can send that first 160-character text alert, you have some groundwork to perform.

• Decide on your mobile-marketing strategy.
  This could take days, weeks or months, depending on how quickly your marketing department moves.
  
  
• Find the right technology partner.
  How long does it take your company to vet a vendor and sign contracts? Unlike the early days of email, you can't ask Joe in IT to create a homegrown system for sending out text messages.
  
  The giant mobile carriers like AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile work through "mobile aggregators," middlemen that provide short codes and connectivity to individual companies. So you can either go with an aggregator or go with an "application service provider" that offers a user-friendly tool like Lyris HQ Mobile Marketing.
  
  
• Apply for your short code.
  This generally takes 8-10 weeks if you want to use a catchy short code, known as a vanity code, that's unique to your company. You can shave a bit of time off the process if you're willing to use a "shared short code," which is exactly what it sounds like: an existing number that several companies use. You get short codes through your mobile-technology vendor.
  
  
• Get carrier approval for your program.
  Also handled by your mobile-technology vendor during the short-code waiting period, this takes about two weeks. Basically, the major mobile carriers must sign off on your program in advance. Each one has slightly different rules, but most want to review a sample message and test your opt-in processes.
  
  
• Build your list.
  Think you're going to upload an existing database and start texting away? Think again. In email, opt-in is an often-skirted best practice. In mobile, opt-in is a mandatory requirement.
  
  The mobile carriers come down – hard! – on companies that spam, and they consider it spam if the user did not specifically send you a text message from the mobile phone number in question.
  
  That means you need a plan in place to promote your mobile-marketing program on your Web site, in emails, in print, in store and anywhere else your customers gather, because unless they expressly opt in by texting your short code, you can't text-market to them without the risk of serious repercussions.

Mobile marketing in time for the holidays

It takes a while to deploy mobile marketing, but if you start putting the pieces in place now, you'll be well-positioned to text-message holiday deals and promotions this season. But if you wait until September or October, the normal holiday-campaign planning cycle, you'll already be a few months too late.

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