PlusOne – Marketing Musings

When telling a good joke, timing is everything and so it is with SMS.

Timing of your SMS sending has various aspects, so lets explore just a few here:

Timing to take advantage of outside influences.

While many business take advantage of pivotal events like Christmas, Valentines and Mothers Day to focus sales points, the ease in which SMS offers can be devised and implemented using your online SMS portal means you have a daily smorgasbord of opportunity to tie in with daily events to boost interest. Sporting results, weather, local traffic can all be tied in to create an appeal offer to get people to visit, call or visit your SMS linked online deal. On occasions and with care, you can also participate in a  bit of gorilla marketing.

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In today’s marketing realm, there is a smorgasbord of of options available to marketers. Every one of them places claims about the effectiveness of their channel, but most have severe restrictions.

Email just gets lost in a sea of spam, Twitter suffers a flood of posts, so your message becomes just one more item in a river of data flowing by, unseen, unactioned. A similar story can be said about Facebook, plus the lack of immediacy. There are various apps, however they merely capture a small segment of your database who have the inclination to instal the app. In effect, marketing the app takes over from the real business of marketing product or service.

Despite the plethora of digital upstarts, as a marketing tool SMS   still remains one of the strongest forms of direct marketing, with ongoing strong growth in the market. Continue Reading»

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Here is an interesting article that looks at the rise of shopping apps for mobile phones that puts the power of comparison shopping into the hands of every shopper.

Who wins – the shopper or the retailer who can sell goods at the lowest price and still stay in business?

Who is the ogre….the Government and GST, the retailers who now compete solely on price, or the Hong Kong online retailers who can sell at prices that are unbelievably low?

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Every day there are people looking to import goods for their business. These can be for resale, or can be importing items such as machinery to improve business efficiency.

However, despite the seeming ease of importing and the easy access to manufacturers that has previously not been seen, there are dozens of pitfall to trap the unwary. While a simple internet search for overseas suppliers can result in many sites and millions of products, just how can you be sure that what you want to buy is going to be salable so you can make good profits?

Many overseas suppliers can supply good quality samples by post, but the importer can be dismayed to find when they open their container that the goods delivered are not the same quality.

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Here is a great short piece that outlines a sales process in the real estate industry and poses the question about if a similar system can be used in your business.

There will be very few businesses that cannot see the applications for them.

For years I’ve admired the real estate industry and their marketing systems.

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I have been following some interesting discussions in several web forums about prices we pay in regular bricks and mortar stores  compared to online and where the anti-online buying move and misrepresentation on both sides leaves the argument undecided.

Not surprisingly, methods to retain customers were raised, which of course raised the whole can of worms about pricing, how GST influences things so much, that items are cheaper to buy overseas, etc. Of course each of these factors has their merits and counter argument.

There were even proposals that traditional bricks and mortar stores needed to set up online versions of themselves – even to the extent that sales staff could be made redundant and stores operate merely as pick-up points. (Harvey Norman is moving to this is a very limited way – allowing online sales and in-store pickup.)

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While you know your does the best of any around, your store is competing with other store for customers, plus a whole raft of other similar product choices.

So how to get your offers in front of ready buyers?

We suggest SMS is an ideal method, regardless of whether you are an independent operator, a franchisee or a franchisor to distribute your offer direct to consumers, at just the right time – when they are wanting to buy – as a text message using SMS.

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With the favorable exchange rate it seems every second person is heading overseas on holidays or business travel.

All to often however, people come back and get a nasty surprise – and I am not talking about health related ones

Just as shocking can be the arrival of the next phone bill with a huge amount for global roaming costs, both for calls made and for those intrusive, well meaning relatives who just want to phone all the time to see ‘how things are going?’

It is not unusual for people to receive a phone bill of several THOUSAND dollars. This soon wipes any advantage of cheap holidays brought about by the high Aussie dollar.

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Another blatant spammer sending emails promoting courses is Enterprise Architecture Services.

I don’t know what a TOGAF course is, much less do I care. I care even less when I get the same emails (more than one) to several email addresses from a diversity of website I have – even ones not related to any business activity!

Here is a clue

You are receiving this e-mail because you happen to be either our client or were added to
our comprehensive database on account of your contribution in the IT domain.

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Sorry people at

Channel 1 Creative Media

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