In our monthly newsletter our customers will learn about using this feature, but we also wanted to make sure that we inform all potential users of Opt It Mobile 3.0 of this cool new capability.

Now our system is automatically able to check each individual number on your list to make sure it is still a good, working number that can receive your messages. If the system identifies a non-working number, it will unsubscribe it from your keywords in real-time. You can track this within the system very easily. No numbers will be deleted from the list; instead, you will see the number on your list without a phone icon next to it. This means the phone number is no longer subscribed to any keywords in your account, and you can still track the history of the particular number.

So, what about all the people that switch network carriers because they purchased an iPhone? Good question. If any number on your list does what is called “number portability” (switching carriers but keeping the same number), the system can recognize this and update it within your list so that it stays subscribed.

This new feature benefits you in many ways. You will have up-to-date, accurate information that is easier to analyze. You will have the peace of mind knowing that you are only sending messages to working numbers, which in turn leaves a few extra pennies in your wallet each month. All of this equals more bang for the buck, which is always good.

Check back for news about other cool new features!

Messages will be sorted in your account as usual, and you’ll have the ability to export this data or sort it based on any particular field. This way, it is very easy to keep track of your messages and responses per person while also having the ability to update each of your customer’s preferences within the software.

There are a number of ways in which this new feature benefits you, as well as creates new opportunities for your marketing mix. First of all, the tool is now better than ever for use amongst employees, making it easier to communicate with everyone on your staff, yet still allowing for individualized responses. This acts as a great motivation tool in terms of feedback. On a day when one of your employees is performing particularly well, send them a quick text stating a job well done (this type of message can also easily be sent to an entire team!).

In terms of customer interaction, this new feature provides you with a multitude of new ways to engage. You can use the replies tool as a market research or quick survey and receive individualized responses. You can receive RSVPs to a guest list or ask questions regarding the location of an event (which you can now answer directly!). You can also ask a big group for feedback on a particular experience, and get individualized information.

In addition, users can now use the “@” symbol to reach your Inbox directly. Users can text “@KEYWORD this is my message” and this message will reach your Inbox directly. Again, this is a great way to gather data and communicate with your members.

Log into your account today and try it out!

In order to find this new option, simply click on the grey Send Text Message button in the top right corner of your screen. This will bring you to the screen where you can customize the message you would like to go out. Once you have chosen which keyword the message should go out from and the interest and recipient groups, you will find the Delivery options. Click on SCHEDULE Message for Future Delivery, and below the date and time options you’ll now find an option that reads: Add all new subscribers to message. By clicking on this option, all new members added to your list between the time you hit send and the future date that the message is sent, will be added as recipients of this message.

When should you use this new option? It depends on the content of the message and your intentions. For example, if it’s a Thursday morning and time to schedule all of your weekend messages to go out, you’ll want anyone that joins on Friday or Saturday to receive these messages as well. In this case, by checking the new option, you’re allowing all new members to receive these messages. However, if you are scheduling a message to go out to a select group of individuals that have been on your list for over a year and the message you are sending them contains an extremely valuable coupon, avoid checking this option in order to reseve this special message for long term, loyal customers.

It’s now easier than ever to pre-schedule your text messages, making your text message marketing campaign a portion of your marketing and business efforts that requires little effort, yet obtains great results. If only all things in life where this simple.

We have updated the ability to add a new keyword on your own, in seconds, within the software. The software will immediately check to see if your desired keyword is available, and you will be able to start sending text messages from the new keyword in minutes.

How do you do this? Scroll over the Mobile option in the menu bar and click on Manage Keywords. A list of your current keywords will be displayed. Above the list of keywords, you will see a button that says Add Keyword. Click here and a screen will pop up containing all of the options associated with adding a new keyword. You’ll have your choice of adding an internal name and adding the keyword to a campaign. You can also choose the billing plan type for your keyword, either per message or unlimited. You will be asked to select your keyword type (Contest, Forward, Response or Subscription).

Besides adding a new keyword and all the options that go along with it, you can also choose how it will remain or be changed. When you go into the Edit Keyword field, you will now see the option to edit the plan type that you are on. This is useful because as your list grows, the plan type that best fits your needs might change as well.

These new enhancements were added to create a more seamless interaction with your Opt It Mobile 3.0 account. Please don’t hesitate to share your ideas with us for improving Opt It. We value your thoughts!

Within your home page, you’ll find this new tab next to the Top Active Keywords tab. It is called the “New Inbox Messages” tab, and it provides you with a snap shot of all of your recent activity. Previously, you’ve had to filter for this information within the Inbox page. Now, a full overview is available for you on your home page saving you time and allowing you to answer any important replies in a timely manner. This tab displays the keywords with the most recent activity, the number of new messages in the Inbox associated with that particular keyword, and the number of messages sent recently.

There is also a new link at the bottom of this tab to View All Inbox Messages. This will take you directly to all of your Inbox activity, starting with the most recent activity. Again, this saves you the time of filtering through the database for this information. One of the columns associated with each message on this page is called Actions. This column offers two options: delete and reply. By clicking reply, you are directly replying to a single message in your inbox.

This new tab makes it easier to keep track of the activity coming in from all of the messages you send out. It also gives you easy access to the capability of replying to a single message, in turn making it simpler to create a closer connection with your consumers. Try it out!

Direct replies are a new feature available for use by every Opt It customer. They enable your members to respond to your messages without first typing in your keyword.

There are many advantages to direct replies. This invention provides members with a more natural way of responding to a text message, one that your customers will understand intuitively and act upon regularly. Our new feature eliminates the challenge of explaining to your customers why they should first type your keyword into a message they are writing to you. It also allows you, as a marketer, to be more creative with your text message marketing campaign.

For example, you can now ask your customers more questions in order to better understand their needs. When a restaurant owner sends out a text message to members with the direct replies feature in action “What type of entrée should we make our next mobile coupon for? Respond with pasta, hamburgers, fish, or other (please specify)”. Based on responses received, the restaurant owner has the information to later send out a mobile coupon that more people are likely to act upon. Or, the owner might send each responder the mobile coupon of their choice, ensuring that almost all recipients will act upon it.

Direct replies are a feature that not only makes managing your campaigns easier, it also creates a multitude of new opportunities to diversify your campaign and ensure continued mobile marketing success. Check back in a couple of days to find out how to view and reply to your direct reply messages.

A common question among our customers is whether there is a way to control the amount of these “coupon messages” that go out when customers sign up for your list. Well, now there is! Say hello to the “Only allow Response Message to be sent once per phone number” option. By clicking this button, you choose to allow ONLY ONE Response Message to go out when one of your customers signs up to your list. This way, if your offer is such that you feel that a customer should only be able to use it once, you can click this option and know that each phone number will only get one.

Scroll over the Mobile option in the Red dashboard at the top of your Opt It Mobile account and choose Manage Keywords. Once within this screen, choose the keyword that you want to edit to have this option. Scroll over the particular keyword, and click on the Edit Keyword option (there will be a pencil icon next to this). The Edit keyword screen will come up, and then scroll down until you see the Subscription Auto-Response section. By writing in a message within this field, you are deciding to send out a Response Message when your customers sign up to be a part of your list for the first time. Above this message, you will now see an option that you can click on if you choose to, called Only allow Response Message to be sent once per phone number, which is pretty self explanatory (Please see the picture below). This option will allow you to ensure that each of your new customers receive the message once. This is beneficial when you have a particularly exclusive mobile coupon giveaway going on to attract people to your list, but you can only afford for each person to use it once.

We enjoy your feedback and truly take our customers’ ideas for our software into consideration, as you can see here. Feel free to contact us with any new ideas!

Contest

Choosing the sub-keyword type Contest will provide you with a multitude of options to completely automate the Contest process.

Start by giving the Contest a name and description. This is solely for internal purposes and will help you utilize our reporting tools later on.

You can set the Start and End dates for your Contest, down to the minute. There is a setting to adjust time zones as well.

Next, chose the number of Entries per Phone you want admitted into the contest. Then, chose whether you want the Winner Selection to be Manual or Automated. If you select Automated, you can choose to have multiple winners. If you choose the Manual selection option, you can manually select the winner from the poll of available entrants.

The next five fields are the Pre-Contest response, Post-Contest response, General/Losing response, Winning response, and Already Entered response messages. All of these messages, if left blank, will not be sent out. However, it’s in your best interest to fill in at least some of these, especially if people will be joining your list for the first time so that they receive some sort of confirmation that they text in properly.

The language you use within these messages is up to you, however, we’d like to suggest some potential language that has worked well for others:

Pre-Contest Message

“Thank you for joining the ___ contest! We will notify you with the results shortly.”

*If a person texting in is NOT yet a member of the keyword, texting in for the contest does not add them to your keyword list. Consider offering them a way to join by adding “Reply [YOUR KEYWORD] to receive future promos & coupons”. This line can be added to any or all of the messages.

Post-Contest Message

“Thank you for participating in the ___ contest. Check back with us regularly as we love offering savings and coupons to our loyal customers!”

General/Losing Response

“Thanks for being a part of our __ contest. Unfortunately, you did not win this time, but feel free to try again next time!”

Winning Response

“Congrats- You WON!!!! Come to ____ & redeem your reward!”

Already Entered Response

“Thanks for texting in, but you are already entered in to this contest. We’ll notify you soon regarding the results!”

Last but not least, hit Save. Create awareness for your contest through your advertising and employees and sit back while Opt It Mobile 3.0 takes care of the contest!

Check back tomorrow for information on the Forward and Response type sub-keywords.

We’ve been in the text messaging business since 2004 and know from experience that one of the key ways to grab your clients’ attention via text is to customize the message to make it time sensitive. This is where the Dynamic Expiration Date comes in- it’s a simple and easy way to catch seize your client’s attention and motivate them to act immediately upon an offer.

Here’s how it works: The Dynamic Expiration Date allows Opt It users to set their coupons or offer to expire an “X” amount of days after a message is sent out. For example, if your customer signs up for your list on 06/01/2010, your Welcome Message might include a coupon that expires in 3 days. For your customers that receive this message, the text would say “please redeem by 06/04/2010”. But if this person joined on 06/02/2010, the message would read to them “please redeem by 06/05/2010”. Pretty cool, huh?

The benefits of this feature are huge- not only are you sending a customized message to your members to make them feel special, you’re setting a timeline for redemption, forcing those who want to take advantage of the deal to act quickly.

So, how do you use it? It’s easy:

All you have to do is include into your message to have your offer expire an X number of days after the member joins the list (Just change XX to the number of days you want the offer to be valid). Remember- the number needs to be at least 2 digits, so if you want people to redeem your offer 1-9 days in the future, just include a “0” before the number of choice.

An example message would look like this:

(This is how the message looks typed in the software)

(This is how the message appears on the members phone)

The Dynamic Expiration Date feature can be included in your Welcome Message, Response Message, Already Subscribed Message, Web Form Verification Message, and Subscription Forward Response Message.

And the best part of the feature? – Iit’s FREE!

Havrish talks about the beginning stages of the campaign, a point at which it was necessary to invest a bit more time into the marketing initiative. “I think it’s important for management to start these campaigns,” Havrish says. “But when it takes off, it’s OK to empower your staff to run them.” Delegating the responsibility to send out text messages to employees is simplified by Opt It’s software -you can edit security settings and assign only certain capabilities to employees. Also, the software allows you to pre-schedule messages, turning the task of creating a text message into one that can be done at any time during an employee’s shift, and it only takes a few seconds.

Not sure which member of your staff is best fit to take on your mobile campaign? Havrish recommends a seasoned and young member of your staff, who is fresh and focused, and your team here at Opt It agrees. Creating messages for your cientele that are original and animated is one of the most successful ways to keep them coming in the door. A young mind with an understanding of the preferences of your customers is ideal for the undertaking.