[Mike Halliday]

While I'm on holiday I'm having my helper loading all our customer mobile numbers onto a new smart phone I've bought, I'm planning to monthly send a special offer or just send a text informing them of a quite day that has a space....eg:

Hi, it's Henry your carpet & upholstery cleaner, just noticed we have a small space on Thursday morning  & next Monday afternoon...need anything cleaning? Call us now to claim one of these spaces?....have  a great day Henry

I know I can send plain text and photos but Do you know if I can send any other format? Eg a voucher

[Melissa Edwards]

Not tried to send a voucher although I have used the actual words "£10 VOUCHER" and it worked very well although I've only done it a couple of times. I think if it's very infrequent it doesn't come across as too spammy.

I do seem to be a sucker for a Dominos text on a Tuesday so text marketing can't be all that bad...

[Jamie Pearson]

Best way to do a voucher would be to send a link that they then enter an email address to get the image I their phone. This way you could also offer that they forward it to someone else who might benefit if they dong need it. This would help build your list.

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

I used bulk texting for the first time about 2 months ago and it was a massive success.

We uploaded about 500 past customer contacts and tbh I would of cut back on advertising if had known how well it was going to work, we are finding it hard to keep up. I used http://www.textlocal.com and for the cost of about £35 I think it was, I have had well over 3k of work from it and people are still contacting me now. Text Local is really impressive and they are very helpful too and can give you loads of advice on offers, vouchers ect.

[Simon Gerrard]

Impressive indeed.
What was the content of your text message?

Simon

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

The content was so simple but worked a treat >

" Hi. You have used us before for carpet or sofa cleaning and we have some special offers on. Would you like any carpets or sofas cleaned. Deep Cleaning Solutions "

You can only have a limited amount of text or it turns into 2 texts, so you have to play around with it until you get it right.

This was a simple generic text but if you take a look at the text local site their are loads of sophisticated things you can do and they called me a few times to give me ideas ie text by area/post code/name ect. I am going to keep it simple for now because of how well it worked  

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

The " Would you like any carpets or sofas cleaned " is the important part. This was a deliberately ploy on my part to have a open ended question so they feel the need to reply.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

I think nigel from design care texts his customers as annual reminders, I guess engaging with customers so they expect your text or that they don't use anyone else is a good thing.

What kind of offer were you planning to do?

Shaun

Ps many customers may still want a price over the phone how will you combat that?

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Deep clean a bit of a personal question but where on the pricing ladder are your prices?

It's not meant to get personal but the stick in the mud bit of me thinks cheap marketing makes cheap customers, I love your idea, we have discussed it before on here but you have gone and done it Well Done!

I know you may say that you are contacting previous customers but I'm wondering how top end customers would take to it? Not that I have loads of top end customers.

Shaun

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Shaun .... When they text or called back asking what offers we had I said we had 2 offers, one for 3 rooms and the other for a full house. I also said if they wanted something else doing i would offer a discount, so i just knocked a bit off from my normal price for the work they wanted. I put these 2 offers to them for a reason because i knew they would be not many customers who wanted these but it was a chance for me to engage with them and i just knocked a tenner off my normal price which i don't mind for repeat customers. The only thing is that i will have to be smarter if i do it again because i don't want to discount again on a discounted price.

As far as cheap marketing is concerned their was real mix of past customers who replied from 2 up 2 downs to large country homes and they all said they where meaning to contact me but had lost my number or they just needed that kick up the backside.

I even got 4 jobs from one of them. We cleaned his mothers, sister and friends carpets/sofas in the same town on the same day.

I intend to just send a text to this same database once a year at the start of summer and i will build two other database's from past customers that i intend to send in the Autumn in the run up to Christmas and another in the Spring.

I have to say that the main reason this worked so well was timing. I waited until we had at least 4 consecutive days of sun and it looked like summer was here to stay  

[Shaun_Ashmore]

It's a cracking idea and very well executed again Well Done. I do like the fact that you got customers to call you as to personally engage which makes a personal connection.

So are regarding the database you're doing them once a year to various databases? Ie a summer, spring, autumn and winter mailing.

Shaun

[Carpet Dawg]

Does the text message appear as "Deep cleaning solutions" or is it your phone number?

[Mike Halliday]

I used bulk texting for the first time about 2 months ago and it was a massive success.

We uploaded about 500 past customer contacts and tbh I would of cut back on advertising if had known how well it was going to work, we are finding it hard to keep up. I used http://www.textlocal.com and for the cost of about £35 I think it was, I have had well over 3k of work from it and people are still contacting me now. Text Local is really impressive and they are very helpful too and can give you loads of advice on offers, vouchers ect.

What was the Benefit of using textlocal? I've bought a phone for £7.99 a month and get 500 text, 300 free minutes and 250MB just loaded all the numbers into it and clicked  'select all' to mass text all of them

[Carpet Dawg]

I think the database is the selling point. i.e. you can send a text to only upholstery customers etc. not so easy doing it from your phone.

plus I think your company name will appear as to who sent the txt.

[Mike Halliday]

But it is

I can put different numbers under different names  in the phone address book, upholstery customers under : U1, U2, U3 ...... Etc

So to select them I just scroll down to letter U then select them

I can name carpet cleaning customers C1, C2

I don't think having the text arrive on thier phone as my name is a good idea

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

The number is set to show my number but you can use short code numbers ect but it's all a bit above my head, just trying to get to grips with it.

Mike I tried using my mobile but found it hard work because i have thumbs for fingers  so I tried the bulk text website. It shows who looked at the text and defunct numbers so you can knock them off your database. The thing i like about it is you can look at your data base's at a glance and swap and change things around and you can download them to your computer or vice versa and upload from excel ect. Their are loads of features like attachments, links, short codes, survey links, vouchers ect. You can configure it with social media and do loads of other fancy stuff in how you target a database but like I said I'm still getting to grips with it. I just found it easy to use and if you don't use an opt out like I did it's easy to knock a number off if they do not want to be contacted.

[murray42]

Hi, we have powerful, multi-functional software for cleaning businesses, that has built-in text messaging features, which enable you to easily send out text messages to one or more customers, reminding them of an appointment, or to one or more employees, informing them of an assignment.

You can also use the Text Messaging features for marketing.

We also have extensive e-mailing features that many of our customers use for marketing.  You can filter and sort your customers and leads in a large variety of ways.  You can send a reminder, for example, to all clients who had their carpets cleaned 5 months ago, reminding the customers that it's time for another clean!  And so on, and so on ....


See

http://www.thoughtfulsystems.com/software/schedmgr/feature-list.asp

for a list of features we offer.

Join thousands of other users in the U.K., the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere who are enjoying the benefits of our software.

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[Glynn]

I think it's is a terrible & desperate way of advertising and I believe it's also illegal unless you have aquired their tel no's by way of a past booking or enquirey and then offered them an opt out choice/unsubscribe option.
Bad business and one that I for one would never dream of doing.

[Deep Cleaning Solutions]

Marketing your customer database is bad business!

What a load of tosh.

No one says anything on here when a carpet cleaner say they are going to contact past customers by post which with the cost of post is bad business!

I am aware of the legalities. Everyone does, don't they?


" opt out choice/unsubscribe option " Yes customers are made aware of this on completion of the work and have a choice to do so if they wish.

I did make the mistake of not having an opt out on the text but that was a technical problem on my part but that has been rectified now.

[Glynn]

Forgive me but are you stupid ?
I never said marketing your customer database is a bad idea.