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September 24, 2007

Send Text Messages to Teens with Ease

With all the rage around text messaging, especially among teens, you may be contemplating "texting" as another communication method to reach prospective students. However, the notion of manually sending individual messages from your phone seems almost incomprehensible, given the sheer volume of texts that would have to be manually sent.

Now there is an easier way. Late last month Yahoo! announced the ability to send text messages from its email program, Yahoo! Mail. Analysts believe the other Webmail programs, such as Google's Gmail and Microsoft's Hotmail (now Window's Live Hotmail) will soon follow. All of these accounts are free and easy to set up.

While research shows more and more teens preferring instant messaging and text messaging to email, be sure to ask permission before sending a text message to a mobile phone. Not all wireless plans include unlimited or free text messaging, so be careful not to offend receivers of your text messages by forcing them to foot the bill for your message. A good way to capture permission to send text messages is to include an indicator box on your contact and request for information forms on your web site.  Your text message will be much more effective if prospects actually want to receive it, and if they are not charged for your message!