Looking for expert PR and marketing advice

[Txtlocal]

Hello and thanks for stopping by. Please, if you have any feedback, ideas or suggestions than get in touch!! I wish to have an open discussion about my business and appreciate any feedback. There are so many great business minds here - and I hope to find some inspiration

Well, it has now been 2 years since I founded my startup SMS marketing company. We are certainly no longer a small bedroom business, but a leading light in the online SMS communications market, award winning and with an extensive array of clients and services. We send hundreds of thousands of SMS messages each month - for all sorts of businesses, services & community groups.

The "problem" (well, that's not really the right word..) is that 99% of our customers come looking for us, find us and love us. What we want to do is reach out and inspire the mass SME community of the UK who have not considered SMS text communication.

Our customers truly love what we do - and really appreciate our obsessive support (there is always someone at the end of the phone to discuss ideas). Have a look at our testimonials.

I am now looking for new and exciting marketing ideas. Ways to take the dream of local, opt-in SMS communication to the small town high street. We want to show local businesses (chip shops, football clubs, small accountancy firms, plumbers...) that they too can harness the power of SMS to deliver news, offers and alerts instantly to customers & staff - from around 5p per message and no setup costs. It is simple, incredibly low cost and very very powerful.

People appear to be sceptical and unresponsive to our direct mail and newspaper advertising - they believe that SMS is spam or intrusive - that there must be some hidden prices or a catch. This is not the case - if you grow an opt-in list of local people who WANT to receive your news and offers then you are guaranteed a highly positive response which beats most other forms of direct communication.

Where else can you run an instantly marketing campaign to 100 people for £4?? People who have CHOSEN to hear your news and promotions - existing customers who want to be kept informed? Surely that alone should at least spark some interest with many local businesses?

What we provide at Txtlocal is a way for many businesses to radically improve the way they interact with customers - but how can we directly approach businesses owners & convince them that it is worth joining our website?

So, I would like to pick your brains. Should we trust our marketing to a PR/Marketing company who are unlikely to share our own passion for the business.. or do you have some ideas which could quickly drive business forward?

What about PR? How can we get journalists to be interested in what we are achieving at Txtlocal - without looking like we are advertising?

Perhaps your have marketed similar products before and have experience marketing to businesses? What works well... can you see some obvious approach that we have not considered?

Perhaps you have skills or services that could be offered to Txtlocal - or can refer us to people who you beleive would have good ideas?

Many thanks for your time.

Alastair Shortland
Director - txtlocal Ltd, +44 (0)845 0093182
Simple Low Cost SMS Marketing - Txtlocal.com

[paulroman]

Hi Alastair,

I found your post interesting, as we have had similar problems at Media Logistics in the past.

Like yourselves we sell a marketing service to SME's (In our case email marketing) and for a number of years we have sold on the basis of cost, price per email, just like you guys selling on price per text.

You could say (To quote an old sales phrase) that we've been guilty of selling the "Sausage" and not the "Sizzle".

We now sell on a package basis, selling email data and email delivery on a cost per email basis is difficult, mainly because it doesn't turn customers on and since changing our "Pitch" we have seen a 400% growth in sales over the past 12 months.

At Media Logistics we now package up our email marketing product so that we sell the "Total" service, data, design and delivery all in one, so that customer is now buying a package that is resulting in responses and sales leads as opposed to sending out emails at the lowest possible cost.

We've also done the same to our pay per click management service

Our biggest problem was getting customers to understand what we do, the acid test for me was when people used to ask me in the pub "What do you do for a living?" I used to say we are an email marketing firm that sent emails for businesses (You can imagine the lack of interest that generated) now I tell people that we generate sales leads for small business users (And like magic I have their ear!).

One project I've been researching for the past 12 months (Which links into SMS Marketing) is to rent and install Bluetooth broadcast servers for SME's and retail outlets (No doubt you've read recent tests run by HSBC Bank).

Once the customer can answer the question "How do I generate a targeted opt-in list in the first place?" then the rest will follow. If a sandwich shop owner in a high street can invite passers by to join their "Meal Deals" marketing list - then the rest will follow.

Any way, I'm beginning to waffle, so I'll leave it there for now, but please drop me a line if you wish to talk more.

Regards,

Paul Roman
Media Logistics (UK) Ltd.

[T_H_G_H]

Possible Ideas'

***Form some sort of business arrangement with Advertising agencies do use your text media within an overall campaign they might be doing for a client. You would have to show them stats.

***As for PR, Submit press releases to newspapers/ magazines and put a positive spin on it that it is a new technology, electronic marketing and they way of the future. Try to educate people about the type of medium it is rather than pushing your business. Get businesses interested in this type of E-Marketing to allow them explore using this when they do their direct marketing.

***You have to make these small retail shops aware of the benefits of doing these text campaigns.