Making the Most of Cell Phones

Turn cell phone services into business and marketing assets
By Lisa Maloney While business cell plans are useful for employee supervision and connectivity, there are other ways of turning cellular phones to your business' advantage. Instead of focusing on the cell phones in your employees' pockets, consider how to put the phones your customers are carrying to work for you.

Making the most of cell phones requires thinking outside the box. Cell phones are more than just telephones; they're high-priced, high performance accessories that offer an ever increasing variety of features and gadgets. Here are just a few of the ways in which your customers' phones can serve you:

1. Many consumers consider cellular phones to be a necessity, so offering high-end cell phones as promotional products means adding significant value to your current products and services. offerings.

2. Your consumers are already using cellular phones to share information with their friends--give them a reason to share with you, too.

3. Each cellular phone is a mobile information station; use your customers' cell phones to remind them that you stand ready to serve.

Use cell phones to draw your customers in

Use products from big name cell phone suppliers as incentives to encourage purchases and service contract renewals, or to attract new customers. You can offer high-end cell phones as door prizes, raffle items or bonuses with purchases, contract renewals or membership buys.
Try:  Connect with cell phone dealers like Motorola and Samsung, both of which offer high profile, easily recognized products, for instant "value added" to your current line of products and services.

Let your customers use their cell phones to get something for free

Contests and giveaways are a fast and easy way of attracting new customers, or at least garnering their attention. When you give customers a chance to win something, they feel like they're getting something for nothing--but the truth is, you'll come out of the deal with the most precious thing of all: their attention. Cellular phone-based contests, an effective marketing tool, are a growing trend.
Try:  Invite customers to enter random drawings via text message or to submit photos taken through their cell phones for a contest. You can promote your contest through a variety of mediums, including the following: traditional media advertising; your company website or blog; free Internet listing services like Contestguide.com; mobile marketing companies, like Mobivity from Mobile Visions, that specialize in facilitating cell phone contests and other marketing plans or through YouTube, the ultimate online guerrilla marketing tool.

Use cell phones to keep your customers coming back

The cell phones in your customers' pockets offer you a ready-made solution for contacting them, no matter where they are in the world. Offer clients a chance to sign up for instant alerts when services or bills are due or when contracts come due for renewal. You can also create brief text-messaging newsletters to distribute information about new products or special sales.
Try:  Websites like Omnilert and TextMarks let you create online distribution hubs for sending text messages to numerous subscribers. You can send thousands of messages per minute with Omnilert or subscribe to a TextMarks Pro plan at different levels to let you reach varying numbers of subscribers.

• Keep in mind that some cell phone plans charge for both sending and receiving text messages, and some plans, particularly prepaid cell phone plans, may block them entirely. Some cellular phone plans also limit data transfer or charge extra for it. You'll score points with your customers if you're well informed and prepared to address any questions or concerns they may have about charges incurred or problems encountered while using their cellular phones to partake of your business services.