How many emails do you get every day that you delete without even opening them? If you’re like me, you probably delete at least 50 emails per day, even though you may have signed up to receive many of them. According to Bob Bentz, our guest this month on the SkillBites Show, roughly 80% of emails get deleted without being read. In contrast, 97% of text messages are read, and are read almost immediately as soon as they are received!

Bob is President of Advanced Telecom Services, which has been in business since 1989 and has offices in Philadelphia, Toronto, London, and Prague. One of Advanced Telecom Services’ companies is Purplegator, which provides everything mobile marketing from apps development to SMS text message marketing to mobile advertising. Bob is also an adjunct professor at the University of Denver where he teaches the graduate level course in mobile marketing in the Communications department, and he is the author of Relevance Raises Response: How to Engage and Acquire with Mobile Marketing.

Bob explained that there has never been a marketing medium that is better suited for small businesses, particularly those with local clientele. Virtually everyone has a cell phone, keeps it on them and checks their phone constantly. Moreover, even if someone moves, they keep their cell phone number forever, unlike landline numbers or even email addresses. With the immense amount of information available now about one’s prospects, a small business owner can laser target their text messages to their ideal prospects. There are programs that can determine where someone is, and can send text messages out to those who are within a few blocks of your restaurant or store. Similarly, these programs can send text messages to people who are searching on the web for a product or service that you sell, or who have mentioned something on social media that pertains to your business.

To start with, you need to have your website optimized for mobile. If a prospect goes to your website on their phone and your site doesn’t look good, they probably won’t buy from you. Then you need to collect people’s cell phone numbers. You can do that a number of ways. You can have a promotion on your website or in your marketing material for anyone who provides their name and mobile number, such as a discount, or buy one get one, or a free consult or eBook. You can have a radio or print ad that if someone texts to a certain number, they’ll receive something.

Once you have built a database of mobile opt-ins, you can use online SMS marketing tools such as PromoTXT (http://promotxt.com) or 84444.com to send broadcast text messages to your customers. There are lots of steps to these SMS messaging campaigns, so it’s not something you want to tackle yourself. A key part of the campaign is determining the right keywords to have in your message. Another key aspect is the message itself – your message should be valuable and exciting, so people want to continue opening messages from you.

Bob advised that just like most marketing efforts, you can’t expect immediate results. You need to plan at least a 6-month campaign and keep at it every day to attain significant results. Bob discussed in depth various other mobile marketing tactics besides SMS text marketing in his book, which is available at www.relevanceraisesresponse.com or on Amazon.com. If you want to contact Bob, he can be reached at 610-688-6000.