txttools is pleased to announce the release of v6.4 which enables Unicode support. Previously mentioned API changes are now active. Users stuck on the obsolete IE6 browser may have noticed a minor error on the compose page this morning due to IE6′s incompatibility with web standards – we have, however, issued a patch for this. For full details please speak to support.
Chris Rice explains how Milton Keynes College adopted an integrated media approach for its student recruitment campaign.
Milton Keynes College is a further education organisation in a competitive situation. The aim is to attract the maximum number of students onto its courses.
Milton Keynes College is one of the fastest growing colleges in the UK and has over 3,500 16-18 year old students. Full-time recruitment is up by 40 per cent in the last three years.
Our strategy is to use the student as the hero in our marketing communications. The department’s marketing plan has a commitment to communicating with potential students using their preferred methods and media formats.
Our preferred style is to use peer-to-peer integrated multi-channel campaigns – “take one simple message and work it hard”.
Getting the Right Message Across
A strategic SMS text message plan can be an invaluable way to
communicate with your community in the event of an emergency
The most successful organisations, large or small, prepare themselves for all potential eventualities. SMS text messaging is an ideal emergency incident planning communication tool. As everyone has their phone with them at all times, text messaging provides the perfect rapid response mechanism in the event of a disaster or incident. A text message can be sent from a computer to every member of your community in a matter of minutes, whether your community is tens of people or hundreds of thousands. Importantly the message can also be triggered from pre-authorised mobile phones.
Emergency Communication
An SMS text message strategy can deliver real cost savings and dramatically improve work flow efficiency for healthcare organisations.
Many healthcare organisations are now incorporating text messaging into the way they communicate with patients. Hospitals, clinics, GP surgeries, smoking cessation, sexual health and the National Clamydia Screening Program are all feeling the benefit.
Communicating With Patients
Soon, messages can be sent containing characters outside the standard GSM alphabet e.g. Arabic or Chinese. A warning will appear on the Compose page when sending a message with a character outside of this charset. Note the standard length of a Unicode message is 70 characters instead of the usual 160, and not all phones in the UK can support these characters. See our youtube video for a full demonstration.
Unicode inbound messages are only supported on new long numbers.
Speak to support for full details.
API Changes:
With the introduction of Unicode messaging, we have updated our XMl and SOAP Messaging APIs, adding a new flag to suppress sending the message as a Unicode message.
By default, if a message sent via an API contains a character outside the GSM charset, the message will send as a Unicode message, splitting the text into blocks of 70 characters. However a new flag has been added to suppress this i.e. the message will send out as a standard message and use 160 characters, however this means the message will not display correctly on the recipient’s handset.
EMAP launched txttools for Conferences to its staff in London on 17th May. EMAP Networks are now using this audience response application at many of their conferences over the next 2 years, from one day events to multi-day conferences. The application enables greater interactivity for the delegates and includes being able to have their say during an event and being able to express their opinions using the voting options using just their mobile phones. Thanks to the staff of EMAP Networks for sharing their views in this short video.
View the video: you can view the video of the EMAP conference by clicking here.
We would like to thank TEA films Ltd for the video:
TEA films Ltd
4 Johnson House, Wandworth Road, London SW8 4ST
07760117691
www.teafilms.com
e: teafilms@hotmail.com
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