There are many reasons why SMS is considered an effective way of communication.
Some of them being:
SMS is cost effective.
It is the most popular tool of communication (connection) with a movable audience.
It can be sent at once to a large group, manually or automatically which reduces the time and labor involved.
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Large Audience |
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Statistics of mobile communication users is 8-9 times more, compared to other communication channels. It has advantages over telephone, fax and email. SMS is the best mobile communication facility today, as the person receives the message instantly no matter where he is. The only insignificant factor is the cost of delivering SMS i.e. the location of the person (receiver) and spacing interval are not taken into consideration. |
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SMS attention to the Users |
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As SMS is a personal communication facility, receiving it would not go unnoticed and it also grabs the attention of the receiver. Almost inevitably any message is read, and the transfer protocol of data is called by ease of the recipient's perception - because of this it is important to attempt to convey a message with the least possible characters i.e. 160 characters |
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Speed |
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Messages can be delivered to the recipient in seconds all depending on the following factor i.e. specific gateway used, route of delivery and coverage of the mobile operator. Messages can be sent to a large number of clients located abroad as well as an employee in the adjacent room making it easy and reliable to use. |
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Automation |
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To integrate SMS with a companies existing database and also enables the company to automate the dispatch of messages. UAE SMS Marketing conveniently integrates with any database on any framework under HTTP minutes, UAE SMS Marketing also allow users to import from Excel and CSV by means of a built in import functionality. |
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Reliability |
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In a short period of time, SMS has built up a reputation for itself as a reliable communication system, guaranteeing almost 100 % deliveries to the receiver. |
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Reports and Billing |
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UAE SMS Marketing allow clients to use all the benefits of a billing system and to draw reports, allowing complete management and to execute control.
Personalization SMS message departs from a concrete mobile telephone to the concrete person and is a personal communication facility that hardly distinguishes him from MASS-MEDIA. It is important to remember that because of a mobile phone being a private and personal item rather than public it is necessary to take into account that if the dispatch of a SMS is uncalled for, it would have a negative impact on the recipient and reflect badly on the sender. |
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There are many different kinds of SMS applications on the market today and many others are being developed. Applications in which SMS messaging can be utilized are virtually unlimited. We will describe some common examples of SMS applications below to give you some ideas of what can be done with SMS messaging.
Person To Person Text Messaging
Person-to-person text messaging is the most commonly used SMS application and it is what the SMS technology was originally designed for. In these kinds of text messaging applications, a mobile user types an SMS text message using the keypad of his/her mobile phone, then he/she inputs the mobile phone number of the recipient and clicks a certain option on the screen, such as "Send" or "OK", to send the text message out. When the recipient mobile phone receives the SMS text message, it will notify the user by giving out a sound or vibrating. The user can read the SMS text message some time later or immediately and can send a text message back if he/she wants.
SMS and MARKETING
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Definition of problems in marketing: |
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It is possible to consider marketing being successful, if it addresses the following
1. Increase efficiency with existing clients.
2. Retain existing clients
3. Increase profits
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Contents SMS from a marketing point of view |
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Irrespective of your selected means, the information transmitted is vital for success. There is no difference between the information displayed on a television, in the newspaper, via radio or with the help of SMS - if the message is not composed precisely, the goal will not be reached. It is important to understand that more doesn't necessarily mean better.
The maximum length of A message is 459 characters; enabling you to submit the information as clearly as possible. There is a number (series) of operational constraints of special characters and coding. For example, sending characters Unicode will be long, so the report is limited to 69 characters more often.
160 Characters - sometimes isn't enough for your message. Hence you should carefully formulate the MESSAGE and insert the most relevant information in it. Be convinced that the messages you write briefly mirrors the essence of the problem Though the number of characters is limited to160, it can be spanned to a 459-character however the SMS would be delivered as 3 SMS. There is a possibility to send much longer messages, but that isn't convenient for the receiver who would receive the message as separate messages. Fortunately, abbreviations can be used instead of complete words to send more information in a single SMS. |
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Client Database |
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One of the positives of SMS in using it as a marketing tool - It can be used anywhere you are and wherever you have access to the internet, and wherever you have your data available making your messages more directional to target audience.
By using UAE SMS Marketing's product it enables you to send messages to a specific audience. An important factor of using SMS as a marketing tool it requires a certain client database. |
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Sender Identification- Forms confidence |
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Some gateways has the capability and necessary space to fill in a sender ID, the space provided for sender ID can also be used for a company name, title or other informative information. Unfortunately not all networks provide this service. Having a sender ID space allocated ensures that you have more space for text. The presence of a sender ID is useful as it invokes confidence with the recipient, the receiver knows from whom he has received the message.
You should always try to include a company name, trade-mark name etc. in the body of the text message. |
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CRM
The CRM-systems requires a large budget sometimes exceeding the profit.
Through SMS, this cost is substantially reduced, in some cases by 85% if SMS is correctly and completely atomized in a system. In theory this seems difficult, but practically it is very easy to be incorporated into existing systems.
Often companies are on the look for solutions which are effective to clients when they are traveling, relocating etc. The biggest problem for them is the fact that potential buyers would be contacted too late. SMS individually manages that problem.
Lot of banks, financial institutions and large firms already started using SMS in their systems and successfully integrated them with the infrastructure i.e. databases, CRM-systems.
Information / Contents
SMS messages can carry binary data and so SMS can be used as the transport medium of wireless downloads. Objects such as ringtones, wallpapers, pictures and operator logos can be encoded in one or more SMS messages depending on the object's size. Like information services, wireless download services are usually not free and reverse billing SMS is a common way used by content providers to bill their customers. The object to be downloaded is encoded in one or more reverse billing SMS messages. The mobile user who requests the object will be charged a certain fee for each reverse billing SMS message received. If the mobile user is using a monthly mobile phone service plan, the download fee will be included in his/her next monthly bill; if the mobile user is using a prepaid SIM card, the download fee will be deducted from the prepaid credits.
Alerts & Notification
SMS is a very suitable technology for delivering alerts and notifications of important events. This is because of two reasons:
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A mobile phone is a device that is carried by its owner most of the time. Whenever an SMS text message is received, the mobile phone will notify you by giving out a sound or by vibrating. You can check what the SMS text message contains immediately.
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SMS technology allows the "push" of information. This is different from the "pull" model where a device has to poll the server regularly in order to check whether there is any new information. The "pull" model is less suitable for alert and notification applications, since it wastes bandwidth and increases server load.
Though it isn't guaranteed that the person will immediately read the message, it demonstrates that SMS is one of the most reliable sources of information to notify people.
Some common examples of SMS alert and notification applications are described below.
Email, Fax and Voice Message Notifications
In an email notification system, a server sends a text message to the user's mobile phone whenever an email arrives at the inbox. The SMS text message can include the sender's email address, the subject and the first few lines of the email body. An email notification system may allow the user to customize various filters so that an SMS alert is sent only if the email message contains certain keywords or if the email sender is an important person. The use cases for fax or voice message are similar.
E-commerce and Credit Card Transaction Alerts
Whenever an e-commerce or credit card transaction is made, the server sends a text message to the user's mobile phone. The user can know immediately whether any unauthorized transaction has been made.
Stock Market Alerts
In a stock market alert application, a program is constantly monitoring and analyzing the stock market. If a certain condition is satisfied, the program will send a text message to the user's mobile phone to notify him/her of the situation. For example, you can configure the alert system such that if the stock price of a company is lower than a certain value or drops by a certain percentage, it will send an SMS alert to you.
Remote System Monitoring
In a remote system monitoring application, a program (sometimes with the help of a group of sensors) is constantly monitoring the status of a remote system. If a certain condition is satisfied, the program will send a text message to the system administrator to notify him/her of the situation. For example, a program may be written to "ping" a server regularly. If no response is received from the server, the program can send an SMS alert to the system administrator to notify him/her that the server may be hanged.
Two-way Interactive Text Messaging Applications
SMS messaging technology can be used as the underlying communication medium between wireless devices and servers in a two-way interactive text messaging application. For example, search engines are two-way interactive text messaging applications. Let's say there is a dictionary search engine that supports queries in SMS text messages. It may operate like this:
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To find out the meaning of the term "SMS text messaging", you can type "find: SMS text messaging" in an SMS text message and send it to the search engine's phone number. After receiving your SMS text message, the search engine parses it and finds that it begins with the command "find" and follows by the words "SMS text messaging". The search engine then knows you want to find out the meaning of the term "SMS text messaging". So, it sends a text message, which contains the meaning of the term "SMS text messaging", back to your mobile phone.
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If the search result is very long and it cannot contain within a single SMS text message, the search engine adds "Page 1 of 2", "Page 1 of 3", etc, at the end of the reply SMS text message. The search engine also creates a session using your mobile phone number as the session ID and stores the term that you searched for (i.e. "SMS text messaging") in the session object.
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To request the second page, you can send a text message with the content "page: 2" to the search engine's phone number. After receiving your SMS text message, the search engine parses it and finds that it begins with the command "page" and follows by "2". The search engine then knows you want the second page of the search result. It retrieves the term that you searched for last time from the session object and finds that it is "SMS text messaging". The search engine then sends a text message that contains the second page of the search result for the term "SMS text messaging" back to your mobile phone.
Many other two-way interactive text messaging applications can be built using a similar way. For example, a company may want to build an SMS messaging application to enable its employees to query the corporate database while they are working outdoors. |
