[Mike Elisson]

Do you usually offer a free gift or discount?
Or is there a better way to collect numbers for text message marketing from a website?

[Mike Elisson]

Nice. What's your website? PM me if you don't want to post it.
I'm trying to learn from other good examples in this market.

[TrumpiaTim]

Generally most businesses will now collect numbers via Online Sign Up Pages or Via Mobile Keywords for example:

Text TRUMPIA to 99000

By texting the above mobile keyword, your number would be captured.

[cainbrian]

You can do it with a basic online capture page, however you may already know that it decreases conversions with each new piece of information you attempt to collect.

I like to collect more leads upfront with e-mail addresses, then collect numbers later in my funnel when the 'hot' leads want to take the next step to more info in whatever they were originally looking for.

[RaymondB]

Mike Elisson, you can create a pop up page on your website/s and let your visitors fill out/enter their information, you can give away free ebooks, audio files, promotions, discounts. Hope that contributes!

[imsolutionsgroup]

Here is what I added to the website of a new tanning client.



As you can see, when they enter the phone number below a text message is sent to the number. To stay 100% compliant, the message that's sent is:

"We need to make sure you requested to be added to the VIP list. Reply to this text with 5OFF and instantly receive your $5 coupon for your next session!"

After they reply with 5OFF they are sent the actual SMS coupon. This is the way it needs to be setup, otherwise I can go to the website and start adding random numbers.

And, yes... if you offer an incentive to sign up to the SMS ("VIP") list, you are going to get many more subscribers than if you offer no incentive at all.

Hope that helps

UPDATE: I added this to the sidebar of almost every page of the site.