KPS Technologies (The KPS Group Company)

How to Ensure Your SMS is Read, Not Deleted

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:56:00 +0000

The single fastest growing and most successful form of marketing today is SMS (or text message marketing). SMS snatched up the most opens, views and forwards from veteran marketing strategies including emails and faxes.

But, sadly, like emails and faxes, SMS marketing isn’t immune to deletions or other errant customer behavior. Though the numbers are extremely promising for the success of SMS, text messaging isn’t without faults.

Consider this your “booster” shot!

1. Avoid sending huge picture files and graphically dense messages.

If it takes too long for your message to download or if your customer is required to open up their picture reader program (like iPhoto) to see your images, then you’re just wasting their time and cell phone memory.

2. Include promotional codes and digital coupons in your messages.

Give your subscribers a quick and easy “take-away” from your promotion. Especially for SMS marketing, if you’re not giving something to your customers, then you’re just plain wasting their time.

3. Keep your message less than 140-characters to encourage forwarding.

The maximum character length for SMS messages is 160, and anything above that gets broken up into several different messages.

Further, if you keep your message small and tidy, subscribers are more likely to send your message along to their friends.

4. Send your text at the right time of day and day of the week.

Do a little digging through your SMS marketing data and figure out what time and day results in the most conversions, forwards and overall actions.

5. Keep your SMS immaculately clean.

Even accidentally sending a routine text to a customer who’s already unsubscribed is poor form, unprofessional and may lead other customers to abandon you.

Sure, it’s a pain to clean out your lists daily, but it must be done. Take the time to also delete bad numbers along with the unsubscribed.

6. Don’t let the informal nature of texting swallow up your campaign.

There’s a tendency among marketers that because texting is “everyday” and universal that they can get away with being a little less professional.

No! For example, write real words instead of made-up text lingo and always, always, include quick links to your customer service team.

&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;ilayer src="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=i&amp;amp;z=i&amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" z-index="0" width="468" height="60"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;a href="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=c&amp;amp;z=s&amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" target="_blank"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;img src="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=i&amp;amp;z=s&amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" border="0" alt="click here" /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;/ilayer&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;

How to Improve Your SMS Marketing Conversion Rate

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:09:00 +0000

In today’s world, SMS marketing is king. Not only is it the fastest growing method of marketing, it also boasts a surprisingly high success rate. As a marketer, that should be something that makes you sit up and pay attention.

However, with anything that appears to be a sure thing, there’s always something darker lurking underneath. SMS marketing isn’t perfect, and those who think it so, are fools.

Everything needs constant improvement and careful watching. Everything can afford to be better.

So, with that in mind, here are some tips to help you turn your fantastic SMS messages into more action, and above all, sales.

1. Know Where You Are, Before You Set Off Improving

With any improvement project, you must first need to figure out what needs to be improved. Get a clear picture of how your conversion rate has been acting over a couple of months. Look to the peaks and valleys. Look to the average.

From this data, you’ll be able to set a reasonable and achievable goal.

Further still, with a clear picture of where you’re starting from, you’ll be able to track how well you’ve been doing.

2. Time Your SMS Correctly

The beauty with text message marketing is that there isn’t much of a delay from when your message is sent and it’s opened by your subscriber. As a rule, text messages are opened faster than emails. Perhaps it’s due to the incredibly personal way of communicating: you’re message is in their pocket or purse.

Look to the time and day that your customers are most active with your SMS.

Though each business is different, in general, most people are more inclined to act on marketing messages later in the afternoon towards evening and often on the weekends.

So, send your messages at the top three days and times and watch your conversions soar.

3. Make it Easy for Customers to Purchase

It’s important that with any marketing strategy – especially, SMS – that cashing in on your promotions is quick and painless.

If you make your customers jump through hoops to get their 20% discount, they’ll just as soon turn it down instead of using it.

A note about promotional codes: ensure that they’re easy to remember. For example, SHOE20 is far easier to remember than SHOE4892034, especially if the discount is 20% off their next purchase of shoes.

4. Link to Your Other Promotions

As long as your message remains shorter than the 160-character maximum, you’ll be able to link to your online life. But, don’t overdo it because you’ll waste valuable space on the other end.

So, the best thing to do is offer links that are relevant to your promotional message. Further, set up a directed landing page that offers more information regarding your deal as well as additional links to your main website and social media pages.

8 SMS Marketing Tips Sure to Bring Results

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:05:00 +0000

SMS Marketing is about to explode (if not already). Are you already taking advantage of sending timely text messages to your customers? Well, if you are just starting out, here are 8 excellent tips that will surely bring in results.

1. Skip the Cutesy Text Lingo

If you think that sounding like a teenager will make you seem cooler, hipper and more in the know, then you’re sorely mistaken. In fact, most of the people you’re reaching out to aren’t teenyboppers but adults with expendable cash. Unless, of course, your products and services are entirely directed at the high school set, then by all means.

For the rest of us, however, talking like a Justin Bieber fan doesn’t offer anything to you to gain, but everything to lose.

Sure, text lingo is today’s shorthand and it is quicker to type out. But, as a savvy professional, you have all of the time in the world to create your SMS message. You’re not communicating in real-time with your customers over text and because of that; you don’t need to chat as if you are.

2. Stick to a Single Message

With all of your other promotions running, it seems natural and almost mindless to stick in several different sales into your SMS marketing. Remember that you’re limited to 160 characters, and that, quite frankly, isn’t a lot of space to write.

Keep your focus on one message at a time. Not only are you using every character available to get across what you’re pushing, you’re also not confusing your subscribers with multiple messages.

3. Time Your SMS Correctly

Look to the time and day that your customers are most active with your SMS.

Though each business is different, in general, most people are more inclined to act on marketing messages later in the afternoon towards evening and often on the weekends.

So, send your messages at the top three days and times and watch your conversions soar.

4. Make it Easy for Customers to Purchase

It’s important that with any marketing strategy – especially, SMS – that cashing in your promotions is quick and painless.

If you make your customers jump through hoops to get their 20% discount, they’ll just as soon turn it down instead of using it.

5. Link to Your Other Promotions

As long as your message remains shorter than the 160-character maximum, you’ll be able to link to your online life. But, don’t overdo it because you’ll waste valuable space on the other end.

6. Start Your Message with “Action” Words

Action words are nothing more than verbs, and starting off sentences with verbs makes for more lively prose and cuts to the chase faster. Verbs save precious character space by replacing a whole bunch of unnecessary words. Also, verbs inspire action on the part of the customer.

Consider these action words to start your message with: buy, sell, jump, run, save, spend, purchase, and stop.

Whatever action you want your customers to take, start your message with that.

7. Write Short Sentences

By nature, text marketing doesn’t support long and winded descriptions of your promotions, products and services. You only have 160-characters to get in, get out and get it right.

If you tend to write nicely worded sentences, then try breaking them a part.

Short sentences do many things for your text messages. First, they give your subscribers plenty of space to forward your message to their friends and include a personal message of their own. Second, short sentences force you to get to the point quickly and efficiently. Third, writing short sentences actually improves the way you write.

8. Use “Sentence Case”

Writing in sentence case is like not writing in text lingo. They essentially go hand-in-hand. Why?

Typically, with text lingo, CAPITALIZATION comes along for the ride (think “UR”). There is a special place for capitalization in text message marketing, namely to highlight an action like a SALE. But, using capitalization throughout your message is poor form. Its exceedingly hard to read on a small screen.

Clean, Validate & Correct email addresses to improve email deliverability & avoid spam traps.

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:01:00 +0000

An up-to-date, clean email list can have a big impact on email deliverability, open and click-through rates, as well as ongoing compliance with spam laws.

Checking the quality of email data is a simple way to prevent unnecessary email broadcast failures which can dramatically decrease your response rates and sender score reputation. kps verify is our data processing solution that improves the accuracy and validity of email addresses from your customer database.

Benefits

Improve data integrity
Avoid ISP blocks
Ensure high inbox delivery
Maximize campaign profitability
Maintain a healthy sender reputation
Protect Brand image
Improve response rates

How Social Bookmarking can raise your visibility

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:54:00 +0000

What is Social Bookmarking?

Social Bookmarking allows you to bookmark a website or blog on the web, instead of on your browser. This is useful, because if you lose your computer or it dies, you also lose all the bookmarked websites on your browser. By having them on the web, you can always retrieve the websites that interest you.

But social bookmarking does more than just that. When your website or blog is bookmarked on a social bookmarking site, a back link is generated, which can help with the SEO for your site or blog. Additionally people can tag, share, and rate your website or blog, and even leave commentary. This can be very useful for sharing information about your website with other people, and consequently makes social bookmarking a form of passive marketing. You put a social bookmarking button on your website and let other people bookmark it and share it other people, which means they are marketing your website or blog for you.

Is Social Bookmarking important for raising visibility?

Social bookmarking is increasingly more important especially for bloggers. Bloggers use social bookmarking to draw more readers to them, by creatively using tags and notes to tell people about articles they’ve written. Also readers will sometimes tag articles they’ve come across when they really like the article. Additionally readers can, and will, rate the articles which can improve traffic to the blog, if it’s rated high enough.

Social bookmarking can also be applied to regular websites and it’s useful to utilize it as a way of drawing more traffic to your site. By tagging your site, you are informing people about what it is, what it offers, and at the same time drawing more traffic to it. Social bookmarking will become more important for businesses because it provides another way for people to find those businesses and even rate them.

How do I get started with social bookmarking?

There are a number of different sites that do social bookmarking. Some of those sites are focused on bookmarking specific types of information. Bibliomancy for instance focuses on scholarly sites and blogs, while newsvine tends to focus news articles and blogs. Obviously not just any social bookmarking site will work. So which ones should you look into and what should you use them for?

Google: You can bookmark sites on Google. Enter some tags, and notes about the website.

Delicious: this is an excellent social bookmarking site, which adds some buttons to your browser, which makes it easier to tag sites or articles you find.

Digg It: Another useful site for social bookmarking. It does seem to be more focused on blog articles, but I’ve used it to tag all of my business websites. Unfortunately you have to go to the digg it site to actually tag a relevant site.

Stumbleupon: This is probably the most popular social bookmarking tool. Not only can you tag a site but you can also indicate if you like it or not and even email the site to friends.

When you tag an article or website, include relevant phrases, names, and other information that will help people learn more about the article or site, as well as of course be searchable for people looking for something specific.

The notes section allows you to add relevant notes about what you are bookmarking. Enter a short description about the article or about the websites and services/products offered on it.

Why do I want to use social bookmarking?

It allows you to bookmark relevant pages, rate them, and draw more traffic to your articles and/or websites. It’s also a useful way of categorizing interesting sites or articles you find and sharing them with other people. It can help you raise your visibility and grab people’s attention in regards to your products and services. Since using social bookmarking, I’ve noticed a slow but steady increase in traffic to my blogs. When I check the Google analytic for my websites, I believe I will see a similar trend. While more traffic doesn’t automatically guarantee more business, social bookmarking does provide another way for you to reach out and connect with people interested in your services and products.

Getting the most out of your newsletter content

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:16:00 +0000

Do you spend time writing and preparing content for your email newsletters, crafting your newsletter, hit send – and then check it off as a finished campaign? If so, you are missing a big digital opportunity to reach beyond the inbox and use your content to draw attention to your company and attract new subscribers.

It’s referred to as a ‘splash and drip’ approach. After you’ve emailed your newsletter and “splashed” all the content out to your subscribers, you can take a few more steps and expand your digital presence. First, promote the newsletter to your own social networks. Then, give your readers the tools to post your newsletter content to their own social networks. Now, extend the life of your newsletter by “dripping” individual content elements of the newsletter.

This content includes links to your articles, and event alerts, videos, graphs, podcasts and presentations within them. Post these newsletters link in your own social profiles, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, etc. When the opportunity arises, use relevant newsletter article links in your posts on discussion groups, as well as in comments on blogs. As I say, make sure it’s relevant to the topic – or worthy of starting a discussion with! Also, take advantage of social bookmarking outlets such as Digg or Delicious as places to post your newsletter or links within it.

Don’t forget to conduct an subscribe form audit to ensure people coming across your newsletter content via all this social activity can sign up to your newsletter.

The Power Of Branding

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:38:00 +0000

I always laugh at people who think branding doesn’t make a person feel a specific way for a company or product. Take this very funny viral video made to discredit Apple’s iPhone and brand.

WARNING, this contains adult, vulgar language:

Let’s just say all these things are true and Evo’s phone makes the iPhone look outdated and behind technology, how does one explain the sales, loyalty, dedication and overall brand commitment to Apple?

One answer. Branding.

How Email Marketing Can Prove a Boon to Your Small Business

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:33:00 +0000

Email can be the most appropriate tactic for most small businesses. Even in India an increasing number of people are opening their own boutique shops or running a business from home. Email marketing for small business is unbelievably cheap plus it can be easily customized and personalized to compliment the business model of your small business.

A recent study showed that for the majority of Indians online – checking their email is the top activity on the internet. Email marketing can therefore be a great way to reach out to every demographic online for small business owners.

There are good reasons for small businesses to start email marketing.

Email Marketing for Small Businesses

Here’s why email marketing could do wonders for your small business:

Email marketing is cheaper than sending direct mails: A lot of small or local businesses have been sending out postal mail with special offers, promotions, and reminders to their customers. And since they are well-versed with a traditional form of mailing, switching to online email marketing can prove both easy and cheaper for small businesses.

Email marketing is measurable: It’s common for small business to be on tight budgets. Analytical codes make it easy to track the outcome of every email inclosing open rates and click through. For small businesses it means they know if or not and how much returns the money invested in email marketing is giving.

Email marketing is convenient: Small businesses often take up email marketing because it doesn’t demand a huge commitment. This means they can manage the work without having to hire new designers and coders or increase responsibilities to current staff.

Small businesses have an edge: Small businesses often specialize in providing tailored services. And thus manage to offer superior services as against their larger counterparts. A major outcome of this is that their email communications are frequently seen as more genuine. And since customers are more willing to hand over their email address to a small business, it becomes easy to grow the subscribers list.

Are you a small business? If yes, then:

1. The great news is that there are a growing number of emails marketing service providers in the market to help you start your first email campaign. eMail Blast is the leading email marketing company India.

2. Email marketing should be at the top on your list of where to contact your current and potential clients and customers.

3. You should consider email marketing because after the initial invest its costs are far less and ROI far greater!

SMS Marketing Among Top Mobile Marketing Trends In 2012

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:28:00 +0000

SMS is here to Stay!

If you think SMS text messaging is not a viable strategy for marketing, you may need to think again and think different. To say that SMS text message market is growing rapidly may be an understatement. The great news for SMS marketing companies is that SMS text will continue to thrive in the coming year. The surge in mobile SMS marketing is nothing short being called phenomenal. Don’t just take my word for it. Consider a few startling global SMS statistics:

Mobile Marketing Statistics 2011

• There are more people using mobile devices than toothbrushes
• 6.9 billion SMS were sent in 2011 across the globe
• That figure is projected to rise to 8 trillion in 2012
• 83% of U.S. adults are mobile phone owners
• A third of them prefer text message over a phone call
• Every second urban Indian acknowledges receiving a marketing SMS
• 37% of Indians receive ringtones, wallpapers or game SMS from businesses
• 95% of Text Messages are Read within 4 Minutes
• Only 6% of marketing emails are responded to
• SMS campaigns on the other hand have a response rate of 45%

In other words, SMS messaging has a higher response rate as a means of direct communication than telemarketing, email, or direct post mails.

The mobile text message statistics go on to prove that the demand for SMS short code, along with MMS and instant messaging, will continue to grow (even) with the steep increase in Smartphone purchases.

The SMS text message market means more fertile ground for businesses to experiment with catchy text messages and enticing offers. Here’s to happy SMS text messages marketing in 2012!

&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;ilayer src="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;z=i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" z-index="0" width="468" height="60"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=c&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;z=s&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;img src="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;z=s&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" border="0" alt="click here" /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/ilayer&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

Connect With Students via SMS Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:19:00 +0000

The possibilities of SMS text marketing in education industry are many. In a country like India where both school and university students are getting increasingly tech-savvy, reaching out with mobile text messages can strike a chord with them.

Text message marketing has inherent benefits that can be tapped by the education industry to communicate effectively with students.

What are the few key benefits of SMS marketing for schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutes? Read on:

SMS Solutions for Education Industry

1. 90% of SMS messages get read within half an hour of receiving. If educational institutes incorporate SMS for students into their marketing strategy, they can ensure important information is read by students promptly or without fail.

2. Mobile phones are one of the most closely held belongings today. And people often consider SMS as personal means of communication. With SMS marketing college management can connect on a one-to-one and very personal basis with the students which is not possible with bulletins, intercom or plain assembly announcements.

3. Phone numbers are important student data which can be stored in school/college database. This student data can not only be monitored in real time via an online reporting dashboard but also be used for future interaction with students, even after they pass out of the college or university.

4. With SMS marketing it is possible for college management to connect with students’ parents or guardians. It has common today for both parents and children to carry mobile phones to keep in touch. Educational institutes can use the power of text messaging to contact parents, local guardian and students and convey information in an extremely time sensitive manner.

5. School SMS system can be used to broadcast a variety of information to students including:
• Emergency alerts such as school lockdowns
• Registrations, Admission, Event notifications
• Class cancellations
• Alerts to parents in case of student falling sick or meeting with accidents
• Alerts to parents for delayed or rerouted school buses
• Notifications on off days due to weather conditions

Availing of bulk SMS services, schools and universities can create student database or lists organized by class, section, grade or batch. Using group SMS service it is possible to instantly send targeted mass broadcast messages to the relevant group.

Schools Universities & Educational SMS

Schools, colleges, institutes or coaching’s need not beat around the bush anymore. SMS marketing solutions for education industry allow for great flexibility, versatility and convenience in reaching out to the student base. With SMS services provider it is possible to send bulk SMS to Bangalore students, broadcast engineering student SMS or commerce student SMS and ensure timeliness of information delivery.

SMS and students gel together a lot. Online SMS service can provide schools and colleges with an immediate, reliable and cost-effective method to reach students instantly.

Email Marketing for Restaurants – Spice It Up!

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:14:00 +0000

Restaurants are one of the hottest industries in India today. And as more and more Indians are willing to spend lavishly in high-end restaurants for a great eating experience, restaurants are not leaving any stone unturned to meet their expectations.

Interestingly, an increasing number of restaurants are using email marketing to sell their business like hotcakes (idiom intended). Email is already a proven sales technique. Email marketing ROI in 2011 was $48 for every dollar spent on it.

How can restaurants benefit by sending online emails? How can restaurants ensure more number of returning customers from their mass email marketing campaigns? Restaurants are not in the sales business. Then why email marketing for high-end eating outlets? Read on.

Effective Email Marketing: 5 Benefits of Email Marketing For Restaurants

1. Promote special events or offers: Emails make a great way to inform your patrons about your next exciting offer or the event they can’t afford to miss. Email marketing is especially employed by restaurants during the holiday seasons, New Years, and on host of other special occasions such as friendships day, women’s day etc.

2. Making reservations: By sending bulk emails you can make it easier for your customers to make reservations. Include a link to your website or your phone number in the email.

3. Send discounts or coupons: You can make your offer too tempting to refuse by offering discounts, free delivery etc. on email acknowledgement or on presenting a print out of your email. As is with cuisine, the possibilities are many and you can always experiment.

4. Send information about your restaurant: Is your restaurant like none other in the city? Do you boast of the best chefs in the industry? Is your customer service or ambiance exemplary? Online email marketing can be effectively used to invite customers.

5. Ask for review or feedback: Customer reviews play a significant role in the success of any restaurants. Bulk email marketing can help you easily gather online reviews from customers regarding your catering.

What are the ingredients for an effective email marketing recipe?
It’s important to follow the general best practices while your restaurant undertakes email campaign:

Do not abuse your email marketing database. Permission based email marketing is a must.
Send no more than one email per month. Include easy unsubscribe options.
Avoid promotional emails. How does your restaurant’s unique feature benefit your customer?
Offer true value and service via your emails. People have a lot of options today.
Encourage social sharing by integrating Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus

Want to start bulk email marketing for your restaurant, café, hotel or eatery?
For India email marketing Contact eMail Blast @ +91 82857 58627 to know more about email marketing for restaurants, templates for restaurants and to get the best deals on email marketing solutions.

In an industry like restaurant, where 20% of customers make 80% of sales, email marketing can go a long way to ensure maximum number of repeat customers. Online email marketing can be advantageously used not only to improve customer loyalty but also to reward loyal customers

Email marketing benefits for restaurants are too mouthwatering to resist. With email marketing restaurants can create an experience that customers can savor for a long time.

Businesses Using Mobile Advertising Soars to 79%

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:16:00 +0000

It used to be that businesses using mobile advertising were in the minority. This has changed recently though, and changed dramatically. Now if your business is using mobile advertising, you are part of the majority, with 79% of advertisers and agencies in North America engaging in some form of mobile advertising.

The key for any SMS provider right now is to figure out how to capture that 21% and introduce them to mobile advertising. I would bet that most businesses have avoided mobile advertising because of the confusion regarding launching, managing and tracking any type of mobile advertising. We feel at Messagewala the best way to introduce this 21% of businesses to mobile advertising is with product simplicity.

By keeping our product, feature set and functionality simple, Messagewala allows businesses to quickly setup, manage and monitor any SMS marketing campaign by only taking up a few minutes a week. Want to see how easy SMS marketing is with Messagewala, setup a free trial today.

How to Do Anything Better: SMS Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:11:00 +0000

Though it seems that SMS marketing is pretty straightforward and simple, there are some easy ways to instantly improve your strategy.

With something that’s as textually limited as SMS, you’d think that there aren’t that many ways to screw it up.

It doesn’t matter what way you shake it, there are some quick and easy things to do that will propel your SMS marketing campaign to another level.

1. Skip the Cutesy

If you think that sounding like a teenager will make you seem cooler, hipper and more in the know, then you’re sorely mistaken. In fact, most of the people you’re reaching are not teenyboppers but adults with expendable cash. Unless, of course, your products and services are entirely directed at the high school set, then by all means.

For the rest of us, however, talking like a Justin Bieber fan doesn’t offer anything to you to gain, but everything to lose.

Sure, messagewala is today’s shorthand and it is quicker to type out. But, as a savvy professional, you have all of the time in the world to create your SMS message. You’re not communicating in real-time with your customers over text and because of that; you don’t need to chat as if you are.

2. Stick to a Single Message

Keep your focus on one message at a time. Not only are you using every character available to get across what you’re pushing, you’re also not confusing your subscribers with multiple messages.

3. Always Link

It’s important to remember to link to your online life in your SMS marketing.

SMS marketing messages are three times more likely to be opened than an email promotion, and that means that you have three times more chance to increase your click-through and conversion rates.

But, with SMS, linking is a bit tricky. The inclination is to include all of your online sites. Avoid that. Try to direct traffic to a landing page that has more information and details about your SMS message. From that landing page, link to your other sites, like social media and main company page.

3 Reasons to Start Your Mobile Marketing with Text Messaging

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:04:00 +0000

What do you think of when someone says “mobile marketing”?

Smartphone apps? A mobile website? QR codes?

While these may be the first thoughts that pop into your head, they may not be the best first steps in mobile marketing.

What about good old fashioned text messaging? You know, that technology I’m guessing you probably used at least within the last 60 minutes.

Why start with text messaging?

Here are three good reasons:

1. Cost-effectiveness

It’s not news that in many marketing departments these days money isn’t always easy to come by. Coming up with the budget for a mobile app, on one platform let alone two, is not always easy.

Creating a mobile website, depending on size, scope, and content management system, is not cheap either. Text messaging marketing can be extremely budget friendly, especially if you’re already printing signs for something or running traditional media. Just revise the creative to add a “text-in for this or that” call-to-action and you’ve just started a mobile marketing campaign.

Best of all, almost all SMS marketing providers charge based on the number of messages or subscribers in your database. The cost starts small and when it increases that means your campaign is working!

2. Biggest Audience

When marketing dollars are tight everyone likes to see “good numbers” at the end of the campaign. Because text messaging is available on essentially every phone and used by just about everybody (over 70% of adults), you’ll have the best opportunity to reach the most people and build the largest opt-in database.

Every other mobile marketing technology has an inherit “audience-limiter”. Mobile websites; must have an HTML-capable phone. Apps; must have a Smartphone. QR codes; must have a Smartphone and a QR reader installed. The more things your audience needs to participate, the smaller the numbers get. Start with the biggest audience and then target the more technology capable groups later.

3. It will “launch” the other ones

At the end of any text message marketing campaign there will be a database of mobile phone numbers (the people who texted-in). Launching a mobile app or website? Send out a text and tell them.

They’ve already had one mobile interaction with you so there’s a good chance they would be open to another. Instead of counting on the app store or mobile searches to drive traffic you can generate that initial burst of activity on your own. Think about it, it’s a lot easier to drive traffic to a new website when you already have a big email list of people who would be interested.

Ok, so you agree text messaging might be a good place to start mobile marketing.

But where do you start with text messaging?

Helpful ideas continue to come in threes –

1. Traditional media

As mentioned above, this is an easy one. Instead of telling your audience to “call now” or “visit our website”, have them send a text message. Maybe they’re entering to win something or getting an instant “show this message on your phone for something” coupon.

2. Events

Are you still using clipboards and signup sheets to gather data at your events? Still putting out that plastic fish bowl for business cards? Try having your event attendees get out their phone and text to vote, answer a question, put a message up on a screen, sign a petition, win something, or get a discount. It’ll be more fun for you and your audience, and in the end you’ll get a valid mobile number instead of an email address you can’t read anyway.

3. In-store

Many businesses have more people passing through their doors everyday than visits to their website. Those people also have phones in their pockets and purses. Print out a sign and create a mobile loyalty club by having visitors text-in for a discount on their next visit. They’re in your location so you know they have an interest in your business. Give them an easy way to offer up their valuable mobile phone number so you can bring them back later.

Mobile Email Design: Do's and Don'ts

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:40:00 +0000

&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;ilayer src="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;z=i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" z-index="0" width="468" height="60"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=c&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;z=s&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;img src="http://www.s2d6.com/x/?x=i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;z=s&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;v=3385018&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;r=[RANDOM]&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;k=[NETWORKID]" border="0" alt="click here" /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/ilayer&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;

The Best and Worst Times to Send an Email (infographic)

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:36:00 +0000

12 Common Email Marketing Mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:32:00 +0000

1. Blatant Lack of PermissionCompanies still try to get around the permission issues in search for the quick buck. That’s a big mistake.

2. Utterly Deficient Segmentation
Content relevancy is the number one issue for the email marketer. Without segmentation, you have no real relevancy.

3. Lame ‘Welcome’ Messages We still receive far too many lame welcome messages. What a wasted marketing opportunity.

4. Frequency Decisions Made for the Wrong Reason
Marketers are in a constant battle on the matter of frequency.

5. Institution-to-One Messaging
The debate on how to personalize company emails is ongoing. It’s all about testing.

6. No Real Interactivity
Interactivity is not only for social media. Email was once the relationship building medium, and it still can be.

7. Deliverability: Content, Formatting & Lack of Self-Advocacy
If anything, deliverability is even a bigger issue than it was two years ago.

8. Designing Images That Appear as Red Xs
Getting HTML images to appear for those who have images turned off still requires that they turn the images on. It’s the text vs. HTML debate.

9. Disregarding Your BlackBerry and Mobile Readers
The number of mobile readers has exploded since 2008. Thank you Iphone and Android. It’s more important than ever to make your email mobile reader friendly.

10. Repeating Ad Types
Banner blindness in email newsletters is more prevalent than ever.

11. Collecting Bad Response Rates
You need good analysis to determine the effectiveness of your email. That’s always been the case.

12. Relying on Email Only
This last mistake of relying on email only was written during the dawn of the social media revolution. It’s the only one that feels a bit dated, but it’s still worth noting that relying on just one tactic alone is never a good plan.

Source: MarketingSherpa report "Dirty Dozen: Email Newsletter Mistakes Nearly Everyone Makes"

HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2012

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:24:00 +0000

Make Google Places Work For You

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:21:00 +0000

Local business owners (and many SEO companies too) were severally worried by the fact that black hat Seo sites and sites, that are not really in the particular location were ahead of their sites in organic listings and was hoping Google would get rid of this situation one day. The local listings earlier were actually running in the second place to organic though physically it appeared on top. They had to wait for nearly 13 years from the date Google was started and at the end of October 2010 their long waited dream became a realistic fact.

Google Places – A blessing for local business

The local business owners did not believe their eyes when they saw their sites on top pages that are far behind positioned in organic listings in a local organic feature called the Google Places . All the irrelevant location sites that were on top were thrown out of the competition.

Business owners experienced a dramatic change in their website enquiries . SEO experts say “ Most of the local business owners were on a sabbatical from their usual work and spent the whole day on just gathering the enquiries they got due to Google Places on the launching day itself. They were all flying high in the sky”. Some business owners got nearly 30-40 percent of the enquiries through Google places compared to organic from which they were getting from the start and this was within few days of the launching of Google Places. On the other hand black hat and other websites were clueless on what had happened within hours.

Google Places – A simple and powerful marketing protocol

Google Places is a user-friendly marketing tool, which does not require any technical skills but how effective the business is projected makes the difference. All it needs is the physical location of your business with your location integrated on the Google map. Business details such as your phone number, business working hours, website, blogs, videos and photos can be added in the Google places. When you project your business in such a way (ofcourse the details should be original, should not be just made for the sake of Google places ). One of the other main aspects in Google place is when you have a website which is well optimized under the Google guidelines and your location based keywords are on top then you have a better chance in doing well in Google places too. Apart from the business details reviews and ratings can also be added to your Google places business page, which makes the visitors get a very good opinion about your business but again they (reviews and ratings) should be genuine.

You can also track your visitor analytics under the Google Places control panel.

When your business is genuine Google Places is the best marketing source to boost it, if not even the Google Places can’t give a helping hand.

Is Email Dead? Nah...

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:12:00 +0000

Email Continues To Be An Essential Part Of The Online Marketing Mix

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:09:00 +0000

Emailvision released the results of a survey revealing interesting insights regarding perceptions on and use of email as an important part of the marketing mix.

The research was conducted by Emailvision in November 2011. 700 organizations from 10 countries (UK, US, France, Germany,Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Scandinavia and Switzerland) were surveyed.

Key findings:

Email continues to grow in importance to the overall marketing mix: 89.2% of respondents stated that email remains the same or more important to their overall marketing strategy versus 2 years ago
Customer data is still underutilized: While marketers perceive email as a strong, high-ROI channel, 85% recognize that they are not fully leveraging the available customer data provided by their campaigns
While targeting and personalization are perceived as essential, few are fully implementing them into their campaigns: 97% of survey responders believe these are the most important factors in achieving the best response rates yet only 20% of those questioned said they were personalizing all of the emails they send

Emailvision has found that use of customer intelligence drives up to 30% higher click-through and response rates, in turn increasing ROI for each campaign.

The survey data confirms that marketers are ready to stop sending ‘one size fits all’ campaigns to their entire customer base, realizing that more targeted and relevant online marketing campaigns will increase their success rates.

Do You Want To Blog?

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 08:06:00 +0000

So you want to blog. But why?

“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.” “ Says Herman Melville.
When you want to link your thoughts with others, when you like others to learn from you or others to make you learn “ the good way is blogging. You have a though on personal, business, or social “ and you need know what's others view on it. Blogging helps you to do this – you share your thoughts, and make others to share their thoughts on their thoughts.

Read below, if you need a blog for you:
You need to choose the right blogging tool first, as all are not same, and all doesn't provide the same. Most of them are Open source scripts or free services, so you pay a little or nothing.

1. Hosted services:

If you want to start blogging right away, hosted services are the best bet. If you do not have your own hosting space, if you do not know how to install your own blog application, hosted services like blogger, Livejournal or Tyepad would be the right choice. You can straightaway register with them and start with them. Typepad charges a little as monthly fee but the others are free services.

2. Installable scripts:

You need more control with your blog, and want to host under your domain name (eg.blog.yoursitename.com) check with your hosting provider first. Many hosting solutions comes with some default preinstalled blog scripts – with their support manual you should be able to configure it easily.

If you do not like the installed scripts you should evaluate scripts like wordpress (PHP based), Movable type (Perl based), and install them in your server.

I personally recommend wordpress, Reasons:
1. Its free, ever.
2. PHP 4.x based, and most of the hosting supports this.
3. Easy to setup with simple mySQL setup. Again most of the hosting should support mySQL.
4. You do not need to be a big programmer to install, configure or change the designs which you like.
5. Hundreds of free themes are available – You have to just upload and enable/disable them.
6. Easy to configure plug-ins – which are additional features you would like
7. Easy to backup – just back up your database and keep a copy of your data
8. Good SPAM blocking (I like the plug-in akismat)
8. …and many.

We will post regular blogs on blogs, Visit here after some days to learn how a blog can help you to promote your site business.

If you still prefer someone to get your blog ready for you, Just write us. We charge a minimal fee to make your own blog ready under your domain, contact us for more details. In 3 days you will get your blog ready to shout.

Using twitter for SEO

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 07:55:00 +0000

Twitter, one of the top free social messaging and micro-blogging site, which helps users send and read text-based posts, is also known as tweets. In twitter, text-based posts are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have registered themselves to receive them.

Not only can users obtain updates through the Twitter website, but they can also get information through RSS feeds, emails that are sent and replied by third party companies; through SMS for users from the US, Canada, the UK and India. The UK number caters to the international audience. Also, applications like TwitterFon, Twitterrific, Feedalizr or Facebook are also available to circulate the updates.

Am sure you would want to promote your business site or blog among 3 million users and more.

Start registering at twitter.com and add a link to your profile page from your website or blog. Initially you need to perform some ground work like adding your twitter profile page to some top blog post giving some valuable comments, also follow users related to your field. Once users notice your twitter profile page, several users will automatically follow you.

Also the search engines easily index Twitter status pages, and we can see many of them have been getting good Google Page Ranks individually.

In addition, the user pages in Twitter are created as sub directories, for example twitter.com/username. When seen from the SEO point of view, the sub domains are handled as separate sites altogether, but the sub folders are processed as a component of the original domains itself. This way we get SEO benefits of Twitter to its sub folders that also include the tweets and the user status pages!

Each time I post a link on my Twitter status page, all my followers and friends pages get to display that link too. Also statuses links can be found in blog were they use my tweets; by this I get thousands of new inbound links and clicks towards the link I just posted.

So start building natural links through twitter and drive traffic to your website without straining too much.

Optimize Your Google Plus Profile for Higher ROI

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 07:51:00 +0000

Social networking has become a huge source of traffic for business websites as much as the conventional traffic from search engines. So optimizing in social networking sites in the current situation will definitely increase your ROI that you are spending for your Internet marketing campaign. Several statistics in the period between 2010-2011 strongly claims that social networking marketing campaigns has generated almost 40 % of the revenue in comparison with search engine marketing campaigns. Facebook currently is the most powerful player in the social networking arena. Commercial business owners were able to retain their clients through continuous engagement with them on the business offers and latest deals. With this social networking sites client retention has become easier. Hence social media marketing now have become an integral part of any Internet marketing campaign. This is great news for business owners and marketers but for one firm and guess who? . Its none other than the search engine giant Google.

Google never may have expected that Facebook would emerge as its biggest nemesis in Internet marketing and search industry. Though Facebook need not be Google’s direct competitor, its started bothering Google from early 2009. Google sensed danger and came out with its own social networking website in 2011 known as the Google plus.

Lets us overview Google plus’ overview and its impact on SEO.

Features of Google plus:

Like Facebook, Google plus has all the basic features such as chat, adding comments to friends’ status updates, sharing photos and videos etc but in an enhanced manner. Additional features such as multiple videos chat have caught the attention of people who were starting to feel the monotony of Facebook.

But on having a closer look, Google plus is social networking product from a company who is the leader in search industry. So Google plus will definitely have some factors supporting SEO. The proof is when any business firm’s name is typed in Google, the Google plus page appears in search results. (It should have a Google plus page). In the near future Google may bring an algorithm update like engagement with Google plus may bring more favorable results in search rankings for businesses. And the above said factor provides a solid proof. So as a proactive approach, the Google plus profile pages should be optimized.

Title of the page:

The one major advantage of Google plus infact any social networking site is that the brand name of businesses can be established. Business owners can use their Firm name as the Title and Google plus itself recommend doing that. When your business network in Google plus grows the brand name gets registered strongly with the clients and retention becomes half done.

“Title is like a label and if it goes wrong everything will go wrong”.

Business Information:

Business owners can enter their business name and descriptions about their business in the name, about you and employment columns. There is a 160-character limit and hence the business descriptions should be crisp and information rich. They should be in such a way that the whole crux of your information should be covered within that. Incase of personal profiles restrictions can be done but case of businesses make sure they are public.

The Midas touch In Google plus:

Google always has the habit of doing things that will literally stun anyone on the planet. And in Google plus, Google has brought in its core factor of “dofollow” straight into the picture. All the text, names and business are dofollow and the get indexed in search engines especially in Google. So keyword rich (anchor text) can be added in the business info and it will make difference in both organic SEO and SMM. And again, they should be done in a polished manner so that your profile does not become an awkward one to view at.

Compendium

Overall Google plus has emerged as a great platform for internet marketers and the combination of conventional SEM and Google plus will be great combination of business development and stabilizing it respectively. Also, Google plus is brand new to the picture and as the time goes by we can expect more from Google.

10 Things you must know before doing SEO for your Site.

noreply@blogger.com (KPS Technologies) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 06:30:00 +0000

1. SEO is not a onetime process – Like your conventional marketing (Eg. Paper ad), you cannot stop SEO by paying onetime, see results are stop. Remember you have your online competitors working with another SEO team like what you do.

2. You need to allow your SEO person to optimize content – The content and the keyword should be maintained proportionately. Your SEO team should know how to manage that. Help them to do what they are supposed to do with the content.

3. SEO is online marketing, not a replacement of offline marketing. If you are already doing offline marketing (Eg. Paper advertisements), you need not stop it. You may still need to continue, till you get enough visitors and business through SEO.

4. Consider recommendations from your SEO team – Listen to what your SEO team asks for, trust them They may suggest content changes, keyword changes, design changes, layout changes etc – they are certainly doing good to your business.

5. Discuss and finalize the right keywords with your SEO consultant – You might be getting great traffic from wrong audience with wrong keywords. So decide the right keywords first. Your SEO team will guide you to choose them and let you know about the keywords and its popularity.

6. Show interest towards and trust on SEO – Watch your site visitor analysis, spend time in understanding that along with your SEO team. Enjoy the improvements which will keep you move forward and help you to see great results. You must see the SEO reports regularly, if not at least once in a month.

7. Keep adding content – Find the right content, one way is sharing your experience to your site visitors and feed them with free resources. Think about it, every business has something to make their customers learning.

8. More the link building more the ROI – You need link from other sites, if possible with sites which has better ranking than you. One way to bring links to your site is discusses in the last point.

9. No hurry! SEO is a long term process – Do not chase your SEO team immediately after you pay them – You need to be patient enough to see great things happening.

10. Do not change the site without discussing with your SEO team – This is a big mistake which will spoil what was done so far, and will bring great loss.