10 things you didn’t know you could do via text

 

Now there’s a challenge. I use SMS for all sorts of things but in my mobile world, folks tend to get carried away with the new stuff and forget good ol’ fashioned reliable text messaging. And I firmly believe there is still plenty mileage in text messaging.

So when I received an email from another Helen who blogs at Mobile Maven alerting me to a post she’d just written about 1o things you didn’t know you could do via text, it got me thinking. Clearly there’s an American bent to her list and there’s a few things missing on it including these:

My favourite use of SMS in marketing terms is for customer service. Telling people via SMS that their parcel will be delivered on x date, asking customers for feedback and simply saying thank you goes a lot further than endless push messages telling me to do something I probably don’t want to do. Customer retention is cheaper than customer acquisition.

On a daily basis, one of the SMS services I use most is Spinvox who do voicemail to text message – incredibly handy – it converts all my voicemail messages to a SMS which I can then reply to the caller via SMS if I wish. I can even dial in to listen to the message if someone has mumbled so much that it wasn’t translatable. It also works as a voice memo service and links in with various social networks. And even better news today, is that Spinvox is now working with Skype.

You can text in to disable your phone if it’s been stolen… this is still a work in progress for me and I have yet to complete my investigation into these services but will report back shortly on my findings.

And although not strictly a SMS service, you can back up all your SMS (and contacts and whatever else) from your phone, over the air, using Synkia. I met these guys in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress and I’ve been looking out for a SMS-back-up service forever and couldn’t understand why one didn’t exist. After all, O2’s bluebook does this. And Treasuremytext goes some way to doing this too, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. But I have to say, Synkia is *exactly* what I was looking for.

I know there are plenty other examples but instead of me going on about them, perhaps you can tell me what your favourites are instead and share them with everyone here?

Voice marketing is part of the mobile marketing mix too

When talking about mobile marketing these days, the assumption is that it's all about mobile data and that the format of that data is mobile internet and sms. Let's not forget that the mobile phone was primarily designed so that we could *talk* to each other wherever we are and whenever we want to. Voice communications are still important and voices do matter. So it's great to see companies taking this seriously and using voice effectively as part of their marketing efforts. And I've stumbled across a couple of examples just today to share with you.

First off, you can jump start your kid's morning routine with a Hannah Montana (TM) wake-up call! This is a new(ish) campaign from Walmart and Disney. The idea is quite a simple one... you subscribe to the service and you can organise a pre-recorded surprise telephone call from Hannah Montana to brighten up your sprog's day. It's good to see good, old-fashioned voice at work. I haven't tried it myself, and let's face it, I'm a tad old to be a Hannah Montana fan but even I know she's incredibly popular so I imagine this campaign should fly too. The FAQs are very clear that it's a free service and no email addresses will be used for marketing purposes. Very refreshing.

Nearer home in the UK, the teams at Spinvox and Moblog have joined forces to launch the 'We Love Your Accent' competition and voice blog. This is your chance to tell the world what accent you like and why and in doing so, you're in with a chance to win a fancy schmancy new Nokia phone, a year's free subscription to both Spinvox and Moblog and 250 shiny new personalised moo cards. So have your say and tell the world what your favourite accent is and why.

If you have other examples of marketing campaigns where voice is the key element, then please add a comment below and share what you know.

A couple of offers from the folks at Spinvox

I've been a big fan and customer of Spinvox (the visual voicemail people - i.e. the service where your voicemail messages get turned into text messages) pretty much since they launched here in the UK. Well the good news for my Stateside readers is that they've launched their visual voicemail service in the US too. And even better, they're giving away a limited number of free US voicemail accounts valid for one year and guaranteed no spam (I don't know how many are up for grabs, so best be quick if you're interested as they can stop the offer at any time).

So how do you get your mits on one of these accounts then? Well all you have to do is Click on this link to indicate that you are in fact in the United States and then fill out the form. To get the free one year account, you need the 'golden key'... which is where you need to put 'technokitten' in the Company field. If you don't put 'technokitten' in there, you won't get a free account. If you don't do this, you'll just get the free trial rather than a one-year account. You have been warned!

And if that's not enough, Spinvox has also launched their Spin-my-blog service which offers bloggers the opportunity to call in with their blog posts and they automatically get transcripted and posted to your blog. I'm going to be trying this out myself as it seems a really cool idea and a good way to blog when you're out and about. And what's more, they've got some free blog accounts for my readers too. If you're in the UK, then you can click on this link.

If you're in the UK, you'll automatically be set up with a Spin-My-Blog number and then all you have to do is save the numberon your phone and save or remember your PIN and call the number issued whenever you want to use the service. If you're in the US, then Spinvox will be in touch with you to set it up. It looks like the service should also work in Germany, France, Spain and Canada.