So what's the UK got to worry about?
No much I would have thought, as long as people buy stuff, they'll be right, hmm, same as us really.
I was just watching the late night news tonight, and there was a piece on the UK market and how the pound was getting ever closers to the value of the Euro - there were slices of old people going on about how they were worried how their pounds would get round, and all sorts.
The problem with a strong currency is that there are always things abroad cheaper, not necessarily better and in a lot of cases definitely not, but cheaper.
The problem here is that, and myself included, is that when we start looking at buying something we look at the general price, then we look for that but cheaper. We research some more and find an alternative that is even cheaper, and we look until we've found the cheapest, forget about any trade off's in terms of quality, availability, convenience (all the things that consumers generally demand in any purchase) - buy it, it sucks, complain to our mates that we should have gone option A, or at the least option B and to stay away from option C because it's junk.
The great thing here, and no doubt somewhere in the UK, is that with our currencies being low it means that locally source goods and services become cheaper as the offshore stuff rises in the price, the void is closed and people get back to looking at what's best value - and start to take into account more different aspects like quality, service, and if I can get it at a reasonable price and can get it today I will.
I especially like it with SMS I must admit - between a local service and an offshore service the price gap is great, the quality isn't there in terms of delivery rate, and to be fair when the services go down they stay down for some time. However, when the local currency falls, at some time it's inevitable that off shore prices will rise and get closer to the local services stealing their one big reason to buy - price.
I can assure you having clients that have come from using cheap services they appreciate where the trades off are, and what their value is - but this isn't to rave on about offshore services, this is a smiley piece.
The Asian markets have known it for years - look at Japan, produce high quality gear at reasonable prices, why? Because not so long ago a single Pound bought lots and lots of Yen, so did an Australian dollar, they still do, but not as much as they did.
Think of it this way, when the dollar fell the price of milk didn't double - petrol didn't stay the same as the dollar fell with the cost of oil. Sure, there maybe slight rises where we buy in parts from overseas to produce goods here, but it's small rise and not a steep step.
So to the Brits who never thought they'd see the day, and are worried about it - don't be, at the end of the day you'll end up buying more local stuff, grow the economy and the Pound, wish you hadn't and be back where you were not that long ago.
Cheers and be safe,
C
Tuesday 23 December 2008
SMS you way to better health?
This morning I came into the office, and my colleague Skye dropped a cut out article on my desk which I thought was worth blogging about - I would refer to the article, however he couldn't remember where he got it from?
So my apologies in advance for any referencing not referenced correctly...
As the article goes, health professionals in the UK at music festivals have found that most people who have lost consciousness or suffered various anxiety attacks try and SMS their mates as soon as they were able to,
What research has shown is that the mear fact they are able to SMS anything shows a certain level of consciousness - and this may be one of the tools used to over come crowded hospitals.
For me the most important aspect is the fact that the test is recordable - going way back to my early football days I got knocked out, and the test to make sure I was right to go back on was to answer who was winning? We lost every game that season, so it wasn't a real hard question.
But in an age where people are no longer accepting the word of others as to whether something happened or not, this is irrefutable - using features such as automatic responses so that there is clear communication recorded both ways as a double confirmation if you like.
The article goes on to say that there have been calls for further research and investigation into SMS messaging as a tool for hospitals - the one hitch I guess being is I was under the belief that mobiles couldn't be used in hospitals? Hmm...
If I don't blog again, have a happy and safe Xmas from Esendex Australia....
So my apologies in advance for any referencing not referenced correctly...
As the article goes, health professionals in the UK at music festivals have found that most people who have lost consciousness or suffered various anxiety attacks try and SMS their mates as soon as they were able to,
What research has shown is that the mear fact they are able to SMS anything shows a certain level of consciousness - and this may be one of the tools used to over come crowded hospitals.
For me the most important aspect is the fact that the test is recordable - going way back to my early football days I got knocked out, and the test to make sure I was right to go back on was to answer who was winning? We lost every game that season, so it wasn't a real hard question.
But in an age where people are no longer accepting the word of others as to whether something happened or not, this is irrefutable - using features such as automatic responses so that there is clear communication recorded both ways as a double confirmation if you like.
The article goes on to say that there have been calls for further research and investigation into SMS messaging as a tool for hospitals - the one hitch I guess being is I was under the belief that mobiles couldn't be used in hospitals? Hmm...
If I don't blog again, have a happy and safe Xmas from Esendex Australia....
Thursday 4 December 2008
SMS for business marketing
I was just reading through some of the questions asked on Yahoo Answers, and saw a really good question that I thought was something really valid, how do I write a marketing SMS to customers?
Well there's no set format in my book, just some rules or guidelines if you prefer and it's something that I get asked by our customers all of the time.
SMS is not like email - you simply do not have the room on the page to muck about and be fancy pants with it all. Know what you want to say, say it and be direct! If it's something like a new product that is being launched and there is more to it than can be explained in a single sentance, then point them in a direction that they can see.
At the very least this will encourage a positive movement towards sales - and as I always say, every company in the world is a sales company, and without it there is no trading and effectively no company :)
So if you have no room to move, or give any real teeth cutting information (and it costs) then why would you even bother I hear you saying? Easy...
Cable and Wireless a while a go did a study and found that less than 20% of people who receive an email read them, whilst over 80% of people read their SMS messages.
Working through this, if we said that of the people who read their respective messages 20% of them went on to purchase something then if you sent 100 emails to customers, 20 or 20% of them read the email, and 4 of them went on to buy - that's a response rate overall of 4%.
In truth, anyone that has done email marketing before will know that's actually exceptional, and by no means in the norm.
However, if you sent 100 SMS messages, then at least 80 people or 80% read them, and again 20% of that represents an overall response rate of 16%!
That works out to be a 400% improvement over email!
One question I'll throw back to you... How many times do you receive a SMS message and ignore it, not read, decide you'll read it later?
if it's from someone you know and is in your contact list on your phone, then maybe - if they are not, or they are stamped with the business name, then I would suggest it's a fairly slim chance that you would ignore it, and therefore my figures are a bear minimum of what is possible.
So to come back on topic, keep your messages short sharp and to the point and keep them under 160 characters :)
Well there's no set format in my book, just some rules or guidelines if you prefer and it's something that I get asked by our customers all of the time.
SMS is not like email - you simply do not have the room on the page to muck about and be fancy pants with it all. Know what you want to say, say it and be direct! If it's something like a new product that is being launched and there is more to it than can be explained in a single sentance, then point them in a direction that they can see.
At the very least this will encourage a positive movement towards sales - and as I always say, every company in the world is a sales company, and without it there is no trading and effectively no company :)
So if you have no room to move, or give any real teeth cutting information (and it costs) then why would you even bother I hear you saying? Easy...
Cable and Wireless a while a go did a study and found that less than 20% of people who receive an email read them, whilst over 80% of people read their SMS messages.
Working through this, if we said that of the people who read their respective messages 20% of them went on to purchase something then if you sent 100 emails to customers, 20 or 20% of them read the email, and 4 of them went on to buy - that's a response rate overall of 4%.
In truth, anyone that has done email marketing before will know that's actually exceptional, and by no means in the norm.
However, if you sent 100 SMS messages, then at least 80 people or 80% read them, and again 20% of that represents an overall response rate of 16%!
That works out to be a 400% improvement over email!
One question I'll throw back to you... How many times do you receive a SMS message and ignore it, not read, decide you'll read it later?
if it's from someone you know and is in your contact list on your phone, then maybe - if they are not, or they are stamped with the business name, then I would suggest it's a fairly slim chance that you would ignore it, and therefore my figures are a bear minimum of what is possible.
So to come back on topic, keep your messages short sharp and to the point and keep them under 160 characters :)
Tuesday 2 December 2008
Part 2 of what's new - Inbound MMS
So, what else aside from Voice SMS is new? We are now catching up with our European colleagues and have an inbound MMS service.
Again, initially this is something that can be thought as being one dimensional, but actually in a commercial sense makes for an unbeatable way to do business - and this is what I mean;
First thought would be websites, mainly designed to target teenagers, to send in pics of themselves, pets, family, etc... so that members can see each other for pleasure or competitions, etc... At least that was my first thought...
However, going forward from that, where it could become really would be for those external services offered by various trades and professions. I'll give you an example; you're pipe in your home breaks and you call in a plumber - what's the problem? how about you SMS me a picture to....
The plumber gets the message through, and gets an idea of the situation, and comes around with the correct parts.
Or how about your PC isn't working and there is difficulties in communications for whatever reason - send a pic via MMS to the call centre to the operator, can see what's going on and provide a better level of service, etc...
In terms of sending outbound SMS, as far as I'm aware it's not something that the powers that be are looking at - and to be fair, I can't see a valid reason for wanting to send an outbound MMS except to show that you are using the latest technology... and in my mind choosing MMS to send outbound media over WAP Push, is like choosing reading a book on your laptop versus reading a book - just because the technology is newer, it isn't an improvement on what already exists and so the take up will always be little to not at all.
At this stage the way the service is setup is that the sender will text their MMS message to an Australian virtual number which has been enabled for MMS, and that message will be then passed through to a predefined email address.
That said, it would also be possible if an operator sent a standard SMS through to the recipient and that message was then replied to, to enable direct reply meaning that the inbound messages would specifically go through to the originator.
All in all, with the new products coming on board, one of the things that interests me the most is the creativity in the ways that the services are used - and no doubt I'll be back with some super ideas!
Cheers,
C
Again, initially this is something that can be thought as being one dimensional, but actually in a commercial sense makes for an unbeatable way to do business - and this is what I mean;
First thought would be websites, mainly designed to target teenagers, to send in pics of themselves, pets, family, etc... so that members can see each other for pleasure or competitions, etc... At least that was my first thought...
However, going forward from that, where it could become really would be for those external services offered by various trades and professions. I'll give you an example; you're pipe in your home breaks and you call in a plumber - what's the problem? how about you SMS me a picture to....
The plumber gets the message through, and gets an idea of the situation, and comes around with the correct parts.
Or how about your PC isn't working and there is difficulties in communications for whatever reason - send a pic via MMS to the call centre to the operator, can see what's going on and provide a better level of service, etc...
In terms of sending outbound SMS, as far as I'm aware it's not something that the powers that be are looking at - and to be fair, I can't see a valid reason for wanting to send an outbound MMS except to show that you are using the latest technology... and in my mind choosing MMS to send outbound media over WAP Push, is like choosing reading a book on your laptop versus reading a book - just because the technology is newer, it isn't an improvement on what already exists and so the take up will always be little to not at all.
At this stage the way the service is setup is that the sender will text their MMS message to an Australian virtual number which has been enabled for MMS, and that message will be then passed through to a predefined email address.
That said, it would also be possible if an operator sent a standard SMS through to the recipient and that message was then replied to, to enable direct reply meaning that the inbound messages would specifically go through to the originator.
All in all, with the new products coming on board, one of the things that interests me the most is the creativity in the ways that the services are used - and no doubt I'll be back with some super ideas!
Cheers,
C
So what's new? Voice SMS (Part 1)
Hello Internet people out there, it's been some time since my last post, and mostly because I've been so flat out with things that I either forget to blog, or I'm too busy to even think about it.
So apologies for that.
So then what's been happening?
Quite a lot actually, since we last spoke about anything Esendex we have had a couple of new products introduced, like Voice SMS and Inbound MMS.
The Voice SMS is an interesting product - I'll be quite honest here, outside of people with sight impairments, I struggled to get an idea on what people would use the service for? However, it's been my own customers who have shown me the light.
One example is Copper Mines Tasmania, who use the service for emergency alerts - for example, if there was an incident on site at 2:00 am in the morning, they can send an alert out to those who need to be in the know - the beauty of the product is in both the ability to send a message to both LAN lines, and mobile phones alike, along with the fact that the service continues to ring the phone until it's picked up and receives something (i.e. hitting number 1 on the keypad to listen to the message) - well, it sends it again every 10 minutes there after for 10 times until it's answered.
Another example would be sending information, like a customer order, to a location where the only means of timely inbound communication might be a LAN line office phone from a central hub.
It's a product that is coming along and growing organically - I guess what I like about it is that to a point it's still growing and in its infancy in my opinion and is something that is still being shaped by our customers.
The other beauty, unlike the standard SMS, is that it's possible to see who has listened to the message or not
With the future ability to change and customise many aspects like the number the message originates from, the preamble and post amble of the message, variable speed and test playback to name a few.
I have no doubt though that as we get on, and continue to take our customers feedback that it will develop into a truly powerful tool...
So apologies for that.
So then what's been happening?
Quite a lot actually, since we last spoke about anything Esendex we have had a couple of new products introduced, like Voice SMS and Inbound MMS.
The Voice SMS is an interesting product - I'll be quite honest here, outside of people with sight impairments, I struggled to get an idea on what people would use the service for? However, it's been my own customers who have shown me the light.
One example is Copper Mines Tasmania, who use the service for emergency alerts - for example, if there was an incident on site at 2:00 am in the morning, they can send an alert out to those who need to be in the know - the beauty of the product is in both the ability to send a message to both LAN lines, and mobile phones alike, along with the fact that the service continues to ring the phone until it's picked up and receives something (i.e. hitting number 1 on the keypad to listen to the message) - well, it sends it again every 10 minutes there after for 10 times until it's answered.
Another example would be sending information, like a customer order, to a location where the only means of timely inbound communication might be a LAN line office phone from a central hub.
It's a product that is coming along and growing organically - I guess what I like about it is that to a point it's still growing and in its infancy in my opinion and is something that is still being shaped by our customers.
The other beauty, unlike the standard SMS, is that it's possible to see who has listened to the message or not
With the future ability to change and customise many aspects like the number the message originates from, the preamble and post amble of the message, variable speed and test playback to name a few.
I have no doubt though that as we get on, and continue to take our customers feedback that it will develop into a truly powerful tool...
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