Picture this: You make a new contact at a conference and want to exchange details. It used to be a case of fumbling around for a pen, scrawling your phone number on the back of a cigarette packet, and hoping they can read your writing.

Or, your clients regularly need to find up to date information on your products or services but they are always on the move.

Now there's a better way. With two-way texting, you can have your clients send your name or key word to a five-digit number. Within seconds your full contact and product details will be texted back, and displayed on your clients' phone.

Not bad. But two-way texting - sending a keyword to a short text number to receive an automated reply - is nothing new in itself. Until now though, it has been aimed at the upper-end of the corporate market and could cost around £500 a month or more just to maintain the service.

That's why its use has mainly been restricted to news agencies and large businesses. Their customers can sign up by text message to receive regular updates by text of the headlines, share prices or football scores. Interactive TV shows such as Pop Idol have also used the service, allowing viewers to receive regular updates on goings-on and to vote for evictees.

But two-way texting has recently become very cheap indeed, now the service is to be offered and configured online. Back in February www.iTagg.com launched a new service aimed at small businesses and individuals, and many similar services are likely to appear over the coming months. Quantos have been using this service from day one and can confirm its reliability and usefulness.

The iTagg service costs £9.99 a year to run, plus additional fees on texts either sent or received. If your friends or clients pay 8p to text the service, the response text will be free. If not, response texts can be charged at the premium rate of 25p each.

Keep in touch

The keywords texted to iTagg's five-digit number are called mobile domain names. Customers register this name online, just as they would an internet domain name, and then type in the information they want sent back as a response text.

You decide who pays for response texts. Each domain name can have up to 20 secondary keywords, with different messages attached to each. If, as Quantos have, registered the mobile domain name Quantos, you could set up secondary keywords such as "availability" or "opportunities". If someone texts "Quantos availability" to 83248, they will receive an immediate update and my contact details for the period.

Two-way texting should also appeal to imaginative small businesses, says Peter Abraham, a Quantos project manager specialising in online marketing and communication.

"One of the UK’s leading astrologers and Quantos Consultancy client, Sarah Bartlett (www.sarahbartlett.com), is planning to use the itagg system to offer premium level horoscopes by subscription. Clients of hers will be able to obtain daily, weekly or monthly horoscopes by texting ‘moonspun scorpio’ for example, to 83248. The advantage to Sarah is that this not only compliments her existing monthly forecasts on the web and her phone-in horoscope service but extends her reach to mobile users – who may not or may not want to use the internet. Sarah will also be able to offer clients the ability to send and receive whenever they want to, or direct at an opted-in date and time. Unlike email and web based services Sarah can earn a commission each time a text is sent."

"Quantos client and Fairtrade coffee supplier, Cafeology, could use mobile telephony to send and receive product orders and payments, direct to their warehouse from the barrista."

"And serviced office space providers Dexter House could offer Space Alerts by mobile to busy company directors searching for the perfect office space environment or virtual meeting room for the next company sales meeting. The ideal scenario from both client and supplier perspective is to offer the client their preferred method of communication." Peter warns, however, that the iTagg service won't fit all clients' needs and that to get the most out most of the concept the mobile part of the equation still has too be integrated into other aspects of your marketing communications.

For more information please call Colin Hiom on direct on 07958 695444 or Peter Abraham on 07747 615 928.