My church and my other ministries have recently benefited from the use of a powerful SMS marketing tool called – RevText.
For a reasonable fee, I have acquired a short code - 5 digit number such as 45900 – and five keywords. It’s the same technology used for voting for your winner on American Idol.
In a church setting those keywords might be Youth, Children, Prayer, Adult, and Missions. Each of those key words represents a group to whom administrators can send a mass sms to all of the cell phone numbers registered in that group.
At an upcoming event, we will use another feature of the application by flashing a powerpoint ad before the gathering. The ad will invite participants to text the keyword, “App,” to our short code, enabling participants to receive a password to a free mission management tool – oneapp. Those who opt-in auto-deposit their cell numbers and we automatically send them the information they are requesting. It all takes place on the cell phone.
Another use – a youth pastor can send an instant text message to all the youth telling them, “The bus is running late. We leave for youth mission trip at 10am, not 8am. Tell your parents!”
A pastor can send urgent prayer requests to his prayer team or he can send the sermon title and key passage to the entire congregation with a link to last week’s podcast. If ice and snow force the cancellation of an event the pastor can instantly text the entire church – better than a phone-tree or an email blast.
RevText can also create small, cell phone sized .mobi domains for use with your mass text messaging in order to capture other vital opt-in only information.
Mobile Business Cards is another cool feature. For another small fee you can avoid printing a business card by using a mobile business card. When you meet someone at a conference, no need to give them a printed business card. Just tell your new contact to text your first name to the short code (5 digit number) and they will instantaneously receive your Mobile Business Card with all of your vital information. The mobile card goes directly to their phone. They don’t have to type in your data from a business card. This is a great feature.
So, why do a post on this product? Because it is one of those valuable resources that I have found very helpful to my communication strategy. It’s a great way to stay in touch instantaneously with an opt-in only community.
You can test drive it at www.revtext.com.
And NO, I don’t get anything for this plug. It’s such a helpful tool, I wanted to share it with you.
8 Facts to consider about Texting!
- Almost all adults in the U.S. own a mobile phone, making them accessible to text messaging.
- Over 94% of every text message will be read and they can not be blocked, filtered, or ignored.
- Text messages are usually received within seconds of sending, making this an extremely fast method of delivery.
- SMS marketing is cheaper and quicker than traditional methods of communication and more reliable than email.
- Mobile phones allow your RevText SMS campaign to be delivered wherever the subscriber is and whatever they are doing.
- Complete control over when the subscriber will receive and read your SMS campaign.
- People don’t have to stop what they are doing to read a text message.
- SMS marketing allows you to respond to real time events and promotions instantly.
{ 0 comments… add one now }