Have you considered using mobile marketing, text messaging, or push notifications to promote your health and wellness business? These services let you tap into your customers’ preference for using their phones to message, surf the Web, watch videos, and more.
Mobile Marketing Examples
1. A health club with a healthy lifestyles program uses mobile messaging to send a combination of reminders, inspirational messages, and “protocols” from wellness coaches. They also send links to online exercise videos for viewing on a mobile device.
2. A small pain management/rehab clinic uses a basic text messaging service to remind clients on the day before appointments and on the day of appointments.
3. An integrated wellness center promotes invitation-only events via text message. Recipients reply with a text message RSVP. The marketing manager then continues to promote the center and the event via email as the date approaches.
4. A mixed martial arts studio promotes bouts via custom t-shirts that allow people to text for more details.
One of the more creative marketing services, this approach combines mobile and viral marketing.
You create a t-shirt with a catchy message and keyword – say, “COLLIDE” – and the keyword “MMA”.
Anyone whose curiosity is sparked by the shirt can text the keyword to 41411. They then receive a message you’ve created – for example, the date/time/address of the next bout, or a web address for more info.
Permission Required
Your message recipients must give you permission to use their cell phone number to send them messages. Otherwise, you’re generally violating your service-provider’s terms of service.
Even worse, most people hate cell-phone spam even more than they hate email spam.
That’s why mobile messaging is often a better fit for marketing to existing customers. They already know and trust your business, so they’ll usually allow you to message them without hesitation. Persuading a prospect to give you a cell phone number and permission to message them can be far more challenging.
Choosing a Vendor
Use this five-point checklist to select a vendor:
- Look for a free trial, available from most vendors.
- Test their customer service and tech support.
- Get and check references.
- Check their record with the Better Business Bureau.
- Discuss your ideas with the vendor.
Have the vendor give you examples of customers with a similarly-sized customer list and similar message frequency. Ask them about customers who have carried out similar projects.
Do their other customers need to be health clubs or wellness-related businesses? No. But if you want to use surveys, for example, find out about the experiences of other customers who also used surveys.
Enjoy experimenting and let us know how it works out!
