Looking at the table, the average saving on a purchase of 1000 text credits is an eyebrow raising 39%. (At time of writing). This raises the obvious question: How is Text Marketer able to charge so much less than other companies providing bulk SMS services? There is a simple and logical explanation.

The cost per text that bulk SMS providers pay has dropped very significantly in the past few years. This means that if a bulk SMS provider has not dropped their cost to the end user, then they are generating more profit from every customer than they used to. We have taken the very obvious step of passing on the cost savings to our customers. This ludicrously simple plan has meant that our customers can enjoy very low bulk SMS costs without any compromise on the quality of service or the support that they receive.

Eliminate Waste

We also keep a beady eye on our costs. We have a modest but efficient office in central Bristol (which apparently looks like a prison) and we have steered clear from opening up offices throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

Text Marketer only uses direct connections to UK networks, we never route our bulk SMS traffic through low-grade, unreliable international routes. We’ve invested heavily in making our service as robust and bullet-proof as possible and our servers are hosted with Rackspace, recognised by many leading brands as the most reliable server hosting service available.

So we haven’t taken any short costs in providing our customers with a low-cost bulk SMS service, we’ve just passed on cost reductions that all bulk SMS providers have benefited from.

If you haven’t yet explored how bulk SMS might work for you, help yourself to a free account. You’ll get some free text credits for testing so you can see how it works before buying any text credits. Do call us or drop us a line if you’d like to discuss anything further, all our details are on our contact page.

Click the icon to download the FREE Excel Campaign Calculator

What response rate will you get from your Marketing Campaign?

I’m often asked about the relative differences between different marketing communication channels and which one might provide the best return.

Of course, there are many factors that have an effect on the success or failure of any campaign (list, creative, offer, etc.) but there are some well-respected organisations that conduct research on these things and publish ‘industry averages’.

To help you gauge a likely cost and return and compare the differences between SMS, Email, Telemarketing, Fax Marketing and Direct Mail I have built an Excel tool which gives you you the ability to change the parameters of the campaign and see the likely cost and return implications.

A quick video demo’ of how easily it works;

STEP 1

First, you enter how many people you’re going to contact, what is the cost per hour of your staff/agency running the campaign and the likely revenue you’d expect to earn from each response (averaged across all responses).

STEP 2

The areas in green use industry standard figures for costs and response rates across the channels but you can amend these should you have more relevant figures for your industry sector. In particular, if you had a large direct mail campaign, you might want to up the printing costs.

STEP 3

The results are then calculated in the red area (do not change these cells). You will see the estimated total costs & revenue for the campaign and then the likely net revenue received by you.

I hope this will provide some ‘science’ behind making decisions on what type of marketing channel has the most likely chance of success for you.

FREE DOWNLOAD

The Excel Marketing Campaign Calculator is free to download (it’s in 97-2003 format so should work for most people).

This is one of the commonest questions we’re asked by potential users of our bulk SMS service. It’s a completely understandable concern. if you’re about to upload all your precious customer data onto a new supplier’s bulk SMS system, you want to be absolutely convinced that it’s not going to be flogged onto some other company to use as they see fit.

Companies are not being paranoid in seeking assurance that their bulk SMS data is secure and won’t be passed on to any third party. So in simple terms, here is Text Marketer’s policy regarding the use of customer data stored within its systems.

We would never ever, pass on, sell or allow access to any customer data held on Text Marketer’s systems.

All data is password protected and stored on highly secure servers, hosted by Rack Space.

Customers who no longer wish to use their bulk SMS system, can request account deletion along with all customer data ever stored on the account.

So Text Marketer customers can be confident that when they load sensitive data onto their accounts, there will be no nasty surprises.

So if you haven’t already done so, please feel free to set up a bulk SMS account. We’ll give you some free credits for testing. Or feel free to call us on (0117) 205 0202.

When Alistair was assessing a number of shortlisted bulk SMS companies, he noticed a wide range of prices on offer. He also recognised that there seemed to be two types of company; those that used direct connections to UK networks and those that didn’t. With reliability being so important, a direct route was the only option for him. He commented:

“Your low prices were important but not as important as providing my business with a reliable service.”

Text Marketer provided him with a free account so that he could test the reliability of the bulk SMS system before committing. They also provided with him as much support as he needed, together with training for all the users of the bulk SMS platform. As there was no minimum order, Snap-on could start their bulk SMS marketing strategy with a small campaign to begin with, moving up to larger text campaigns as they measured the success of the activity.

Setting up a free bulk SMS account takes just a minute or so. If you can’t be bothered to watch a brief instructions video or read a short document, then please feel free to give us a call on (0117) 205 0202 and we will gladly talk you through getting your first campaign out the door.

So there are two ways that you can cleanse your bulk SMS data. The first is to clean up your data as much as you possibly can before uploading your bulk SMS list into your account. Unfortunately there is no cost effective way of telling whether a number is dead before actually sending a message to it. What you can do though is make sure that your numbers all start with 07, so they are at least proper mobile numbers as opposed to landline numbers which normally start 01. You can also check that the bulk SMS list has the correct number of characters. Any number that is too long or short will obviously be a wasted text. You can easily sort your bulk SMS data in Excel and get rid of the numbers that are not formatted correctly.

Bulk SMS Cost Saving

So once you have your ducks in a row so to speak, you can send out your bulk SMS campaign. So that brings us on to the second way of cleansing your data. Using delivery reports in your Text Marketer account, you can download a complete list of all the mobile numbers that you have sent a message to, including the outcome, (delivered or failed.) A ‘failed’ outcome most commonly indicates that the number is dead and if you tried to ring it you would just get a ‘number cannot be recognised’ message. Once you’ve sorted the delivery report spread sheet by ‘delivered’ or ‘failed’ you will then be able to re-upload your list knowing that all the numbers are live and can receive texts. An average bulk SMS campaign has a failure rate (due to expired or wrong numbers) of about 23%. So by spending a few minutes to clean your bulk SMS list you can make a big dent in the overall costs for future campaigns.

Have you started to look at SMS marketing as a way of increasing business? If you are new to this, you can set up a free bulk SMS account here. There are no setup costs, monthly fees or contracts and your account comes with 10 free text credits so that you can try the service at no cost. We are always available to speak to on the phone, so if you would prefer, please call us on (0117) 205 0202.

With no real signs of jobs growth, the focus inevitably turns to cost saving. Agencies are increasingly looking to find ways of trimming their spending as a way of helping them through the current slow patch.

SMS Costs Cut by 48%

An analysis of Text Marketer’s recruitment consultancy customesr has revealed that there are huge savings to be made by switching sms supplier. Taking 47 agencies who switched to Text Marketer in the past 12 months, the average saving was 31% with one company slashing their sms bill by 48%.

SMS costs have come down dramatically in recent years and it’s clear that there are significant and worthwhile savings to be made. Cost reductions within the industry have not readily filtered down to businesses, so by shopping around for lower cost sms providers, agencies can make a worthwhile dent in their spending.

Stuart Melville from Ashley Wells Recruit in Leicester commented:

“We came across Text Marketer by doing a quick search on the web. What was immediately obvious to us is that their costs are much lower than the company we’d been using before. We had been paying about 7 pence per text and we now pay just 3.7 pence. We send several thousand texts a month to our applicants, so our annual sms bill has reduced by about £3500.”

Making the Switch

Adapt users can switch to Text Marketer with a few small in account changes.

Most consultancies use specialist industry software to run their agencies, which usually have an sms sending tool within them. Text Marketer have agreements with many of these software companies so switching from one sms provider to another is very straightforward. Users of market leading Bond Adapt can integrate immediately just by making a few small change within the account. If you’d like to find out more about integrating your recruitment software with Text Marketer, call us now on 0117 2050202.

If you currently use a stand alone bulk sms system, switching couldn’t be easier. Simply set up a free account here. Use the promo code JOB when you sign up and you’ll receive 250 free text credits to trial the service. You can then buy additional low cost sms credits by credit card or by invoice.

Get up and Running in 90 Seconds

1. Set up a free account in 90 seconds.
2. Use promotional code JOB to receive 250 free text credits.
3. Login to your account and start trialing the system

Text Marketer’s job is to give you all the right tools and support to make switching bulk sms provider as painless as possible. Please feel free to call us for a chat on 0117 2050202. We’d love to hear from you.

Price was always going to be a major factor in the decision making process as budgets are squeezed ever tighter. The quality of the sms service itself was also a crucial consideration and several sms service providers were trialed during the tender process.

Text Marketer’s platform got the seal of approval for being the easiest sms service to use. From the moment the user logs in, the simple menu structure makes sending bulk sms campaigns delightfully straightforward. SMS campaigns of any size can be sent from just one screen in just a few seconds and the full delivery reporting tools allow users to track their campaigns right to the users’ mobile phones.

Text Marketer’s sms service has evolved over 12 years to be one of the most widely used in the UK.

Find out how easy Text Marketer’s sms service is to use by setting up a free account. All accounts receive 10 free text credits, so you can test out the sms service before spending any money. Text Marketer’s costs are also very low. and you’ll find a handy price comparison table that shows you what many other bulk sms service providers are charging.

As well as providing great tools at low cost, Text Marketer’s experienced staff are always on hand to help you put your mobile marketing strategy together. Please feel free to call us on 0117 2050202.

The TV remote control and the washing machine are always mentioned as some of the most glaring examples of dire software implementation . (My colleague recently bought a new washing machine that has just one button in the middle labelled ‘wash my stuff’. Genius.)

So bulk sms providers have a delicate line to tread. There are all sorts of clever tools that we have in our toolbox. So how do we present these in a way that’s going to prevent our customers from hurling their computers out of the window in frustration?

Our starting point was to try and identify a typical user of a bulk sms service and tailor the user experience around them. We then immediately ran into trouble because our customers range from techno uber-geek at one end to… (how to put this politely) card holding member of the Flat Earth Society on the other. There just isn’t such a thing as a typical customer.

So we then decided to look at what most bulk sms software users would want to do the very first time they opened up an account and logged in. In almost all cases, people just want to see the thing working. They’ve just set up their bulk sms account and they want to send themselves a quick test message. Nothing fancy, just a test to check it works.

One Screen is Plenty

We then set about making the process of sending a quick test as easy as possible. ‘Quick Send’, as it’s imaginatively called, is what emerged. It’s the starting point and hub of our sms software. When you first login to a Text Marketer account you get taken straight to Quick Send. This allows you to send bulk sms messages from just one screen and with delightfully few clicks.

To get a bulk sms campaign landing on as many phones as you wish, all you need to do is the following:

1. Paste your mobile numbers into a box
2. Write your message
3. set the sender ID, (who the message is from)
4. Press submit

In all it takes about 15 seconds. By making it easy for people to get going, we hope to demonstrate that using our bulk sms platforn as a daily tool isn’t going to be a chore.

Help yourself to a free account to see what we’re talking about and send yourself a test message. (You’ll get 10 free test messages.) If you get lost or confused, then we’ve failed but we expect you’ll find it a walk in the park.

We always available on 0117 2050202 if you need back up.

I had a rant about Bannatynes who also committed the cardinal sin of not including an unsubscribe option on their bulk sms activity. The Information Comissioner’s Office, whose job it is to set out the rules on this, state very clearly on their website, that you must…

“give them the opportunity to opt out of receiving further marketing messages each time.” 

So I’m curious to understand why Orange believe the rules on mobile marketing don’t apply to them. It’s possible that when you sign up with Orange, there’s a clause, buried in the depths of the small print, that gives them permission for all time to push you bulk sms messages. Or perhaps they would argue that the messages aren’t mobile marketing, but are merely information bulletins that customers would find useful.

Whatever their reasoning, I do wish they’d stop. If I had the energy, I’d switch networks, but realistically that’s not going to happen. Being on the receving end of sms ‘spam’ makes you realise how important it is to give customers the chance to unsubscribe.

So a heartfelt plea to all our customers and users of bulk sms marketing tools. Please, for pity’s sake, include an opt out on your mobile marketing campaigns or risk seriously aggravating your punters.

For Text Marketer customers, if you haven’t yet discovered how your free opt out tool works, please find more information here.

If you’re new to this and would like to explore how sms marketing might work for you, feel free to set up an account. You’ll get 10 free text credits and of course a free unsubscribe tool.

An sms service is the most efficient way of making sure that important information or instructions get to the right people immediately. 97% of all texts sent are opened, with 83% being opened within the hour. Compared with email where as little as 35% of messages are read, using an sms service you have the best possible chance that your message is getting to right people immediately.

Using delivery reports, Text Marketer’s SMS service allows users to check the delivery of their sms campaigns. Each sms campaign automatically creates a delivery report which can be downloaded to an Excel or csv file. The report lists all the numbers that were sent to and provides an outcome against each. (Delivered or failed.)

Increasing numbers of UK businesses are starting to use an sms service for all kinds of communications. Bulk sms has traditionally been seen as a marketing tool, a sales channel to get offers out to large numbers of prospects or customers at low cost. While this is indeed very effective, there are a wide range of other applications for an sms service.

One of the main attractions with using an sms service is that there is no set up fee, monthly fee or contract, so you can get started at a very low cost, without the need to have a specific budget for the activity.

If you’d like to see how using an sms service might work for you, then you can set up a free account here. You’ll also receive 10 free text credits to test the service. please feel free to cal us on 0117 2050202 if you’d like to discuss how sms might work for you.

Using texting to invite your customers to recommend a friend is a very powerful way to achieve sales growth as people have been used to forwarding text messages since the beginning of texting itself.

For example, you could send out a text a few days after a purchase saying something along the lines of, “Thanks for your order. We hope you’re a satisfied customer. If you are, please tell your friends about us and we’ll reward you both with £10 off your next purchase. Your referral code is XYZ123″. (You can use our txtUs reply system for getting return responses).

This types of schemes have to be tailored for the particular business you’re in of course but, esepcially in today’s socially connected world, it can very quickly produce stunning results.

Top 20 tips to getting your member get member scheme right first time.

Offers

1. Reward both parties not just the existing customer or the friend. Both need to see benefit in the offer to make it worth their while.

2. The reward to the friend must be as good (if not better) than other acquisition offers in the market. You can’t disadvantage a new customer because they were referred by a friend.

3. Test different offers for both the customer and friend. Often cash (or vouchers) is king but you can instil relevance by relating the reward to your product eg a free upgrade, free month’s subscription etc. Whatever you go for, keep it simple.

4. Placing a time limit on the offer aids tracking, although consider also having an ongoing lower reward ‘always on’ to capture any ad hoc referrals

Targeting

5. Test the best timing to target existing customers. Try to target them when they’re feeling most positive about your product for example when they’ve just made their first purchase.

6. Target your customers that came through the referral scheme themselves – it’s most likely they’ll be possible about the scheme as they’ve benefited from it

7. Include the existing customer’s name in the text message – this will help reduce the assumption it’s spam

Customer tools

8. Make it easy for customers to refer & provide them with the tools – offer a microsite where they can enter friends’ details, make sure they can do it via their phone, via social media, SMS etc

9. Ensure each customer has a unique code which can be used to link their friends’ registrations to their account. Make sure customers know this code so they can pass it out to friends and don’t have to rely on friends clicking through certain links.

10. In your MGM campaigns remind customers of the benefits of your product or service and why new customers benefit from buying from you. Not all customers will remember why they use you specifically!

11. Keep referring customers up to date about their friend’s progress. They can help to prompt the friend to ensure they complete their registration or achieve any sales criteria to gain the reward.

12. If possible, set up a microsite that provides this progress information to customers. Give them the tools to encourage their friend to overcome any barriers to conversion.

13. Remember you are not able to retain any data about the referred friend, unless you have their consent. Any follow ups should ask the customer to enter their friend’s email address again to avoid any data protection issues.

Tracking & High value

14. If possible track referrals not just conversions – that will allow you to identify key referring customers, even if not all their referrals convert in to customers.

15. Consider rewarding customers for referrals not just conversions.

16. Measure the quality of new customers being referred to you. This allows you to identify customers who are referring the highest value friends.

17. Consider giving high value referrers an additional reward to encourage more referrals of the highest quality

18. Test tying the friend’s reward into more than one purchase – this will encourage repeat purchase and minimise ‘hit and runs’.

Finally…

19. Take a look at Member Get Member schemes outside your own market to see what innovation is going on there and adapt the best ideas for your own customers.

20. Remember to constantly review & optimise your scheme. Don’t just leave it to run itself!

Created by Text Marketer Ltd – Bulk SMS Text Marketing

This was however the conclusion of Juniper Research whose job is to wrestle with these issues and try and foresee the way of the future. The use of bulk sms as a way of getting a marketing message across will certainly become more popular but I think it’s other, non sales related sms, that will see the fastest growth. Increasingly we’ll be given options for sms alerts in any number of situations. So as well as appointment reminders, we could receive package delivery notifications, ticket confirmations etc. We’ll also have the option to receive a wide range of sms alerts triggered by events such as low bank balance, bill payment confirmation or traffic updates.

All of these bulk sms examples exist already, they’ll just become more popualar. As long as the opt out rules are observed, these types of services will be seen as useful and in many cases crucial, rather than spam.

Daniel Ashdown from Juniper said

“While SMS is one of the oldest value-added services, it has an enduring appeal for a number of reasons. In terms of text communication it is unrivalled on the mobile device in its ubiquity – virtually every handset in the world can send and receive it. This makes it extremely appealing for brands who want to enable communication with their customers, as unlike other messaging mediums, they know it will reach almost its entire intended audience.”

It will be intriguing to see if this prediction comes true. Talk to Text Marketer if you’d like to chat about how your business might adopt some sms communications. The bulk sms tools we’ve developed are easy to use and you can set up a free account to try it at no cost.

0117 2050202.

The mobile marketing campaign was combined with an email campaign with the simple objective to tempt as many customers as possible to either spend online or in store. As the discount was so generous, the campaign quickly generated a viral element, being picked up very quickly by discount websites such as Money Saving expert.

The power of mobile marketing is at its clearest where you have a limited time offer that you want to promote to as many possible people in the shorted possible time. SMS has the ability to cut through like no other marketing channel can. With read rates of over 98%, if you’ve got an incredibly strong offer like The Body Shop did, then mobile marketing would have to be at the top of your list of direct marketing options.

The entire mobile marketing campaign can be set up in a very short space of time and last minute changes to either the copy or the offer can be made in a matter of moments. It’s this flexibility that marketers can be surprised by if they’re new to bulk sms. With all other communication channels, whether that be print, radio or email, there comes a point when you’re committed and there is no long an option to change things.

Text Marketer’s mobile marketing platform has been designed for non technical people. From setting up an account to dispatching your first campaign, the process is quick, waffle-free and surprisingly straightforward. If you haven’t yet dipped your toe in the world of mobile marketing, you can set up a free account and get some free text credits for testing.

We’d also love to hear from you, so please feel free to call us on 0117 2050202.

Buying SMS databases can be a complicated process and there are many pitfalls to watch out for because the industry is so heavily regulated. This is why we wanted to launch our broker service so you can be sure you are buying from reputable, legal sources.

All you need to do is let us know the criteria for the data you want and we’ll send it out to our trusted list companies and then put you directly in contact with the one that offers the best value for your request.

Although the relative cost of buying SMS databases can be high, the ROI is usually excellent because SMS is so responsive.

Text Marketer are the lowest cost provider in the UK. Currently Salon Iris users are advised to use Text Magic, whose starting price per text is 6.8p per SMS. Text Marketer’s starting price is just 3.7p – a whopping saving of 3.1p per message sent – almost half the price!

I’m a Salon Iris user – how do I swap to Text Marketer?

The process is very simple indeed and should take just a few minutes;

1. Get a Text Marketer account and buy some credits for it then set up your Text Marketer account for domain authentication (option 1 in these instructions)

2. Change your preferred text to SMS provider sending domain to @textmarketer.biz in Salon Iris (their instructions)

3. Simply add two hashes ## to the end of the text message reminder you have set up in Salon Iris (this is to tell our system it’s the end of the message).

That’s it.

You’ll then be saving up to 3.1p for every text message reminder you send in Salon Iris.

If you need any support you can contact Salon Iris here.

We began work on the revised site back in November of 2010 – how time flies! Our objectives were to clean both our branding and the entire site to make it easier to navigate and present information more clearly.

Many of the pages contain the same information but the main new areas are;

• A new SMS Developers Area with all the documentation and code examples for using the SMS Gateway
• A completely revamped Help Centre which is easier to find the help documents for customers
• An expanded customer testimonials page with customers’ reviews of Text Marketer
• An updated SMS Partner/Affiliate area to explain how to resell Text Marketer’s services

Customer’s accounts have all been updated with the new branding but none of the functional side of the systems have changed.

We hope you like the new, cleaner site and that it is easier and quicker for you to use.

As with all these things, it would be great to hear any feedback you have, good or bad.

Bulk SMS undoubtedly excels as an extremely effective stand alone direct markeintg tool. Response rates to bulk sms campaigns easily outperform all other forms of direct marketing. Bulk sms campaigns are also extremely cost effective when compared to other options. What many companies haven’t yet considered though is combining a bulk sms campaign with an e-mail campaign.

How would you combine a bulk sms campaign with e-mail?

We’re all aware of how hard it is to make an e-mail campaign work well. Campaigns tend to get lost in a mountain of junk. An extremely effective way of improving open rates though, is to follow up with a bulk sms campaign. A sports equipment customer sent a bulk sms campaign to all members who had just received an e-mail, informing them that their new season equipment was now in stock and on the web site. The bulk sms campaign had the effect of improving open rates from 7.5% to an impressive 19.5%.

Could you combine bulk sms with direct mail?

A Bulk SMS campaign can be used to support any other type of communication. One call centre customer regularly uses bulk sms in conjunction with their direct mailing campaigns. So bulk sms can be used as a kind of glue that ties together all you communication activities. To find out how easy it is to set up bulk sms, please give us a call on 0117 2050202.

Many nightclubs are aware that they could be making more from their mobile marketing campaigns. This brief guide provides an overview of the main issues to consider.

Automate the process of capturing mobile numbers.
Many clubs still collect mobile numbers by sending someone round the venue with a clipboard. This is expensive, time consuming and prone to errors in transcribing. Customers are also often unwilling to give out their numbers.

Create a Text Club with real benefits
By creating a ‘text club’ that new members can join by simply texting in a keyword, you remove completely the need to manually collect numbers.

A text club needs to have real value to the customer rather than just being a way of inviting people to new events. It should have a wide range of benefits that might include the following…
· Free Queue jumping passes
· Free VIP entry
· Free entry into regular prize draws
· Regular drinks offers
· Invitation to write reviews
· Customer surveys

Ensure that all promotional activity supporting the text club mentions that the club is free and that the customer will not be sent any chargeable messages.

Promoting the Service
To generate maximum possible sign up, promote the text club via all the marketing channels that are available
· Text-enable promotional fliers
· Promote via the website
· Use posters within the venue
· Publish using on site screens
· Encourage sign up on the door
· Promote using any local advertising campaigns

Coach Nightclub promotes their text service by inviting people to join by text or by submitting their number to the web site. Their mobile database contains approximately 9000 mobile numbers.
Planet Love incentivises customers with a text to win competition, giving players the chance to win 1 of 10 pairs of tickets. This competition generated over 1200 entries in 3 weeks

Sending the Text Campaigns
You only have 160 characters to make your point, so keep you messages simple. Don’t use too much ‘txt speak’. If you use too many text abbreviations you run the risk of confusing your customers.
The text should aim to generate excitement and offer a clear reason for the customer to turn up.

Timing
Aim to get your message to customers at a time when they will be making plans for the evening. Too early and the message will be forgotten, too late and other arrangements may have already been made.

How Frequently?
Common sense applies here! If you send too frequently then you run the risk of annoying your membership. To infrequently and customers begin to forget who you are. Weekly text campaigns strike about the right balance.

Companies seem to package things in different ways, have different sms pricing structures and appear to do as much as possible to confuse the hell out of you. There also appears to be a very wide range of prices for what appears to be the same product. Why on earth does it have to be so complicated? Well for companies who are looking for a simple outbound sms solution that allows them to communicate with their customers or staff by text, it really needn’t be too tough.

There are however a few simple guidelines to buying sms marketing services that we think you need to be aware of. (If at this point you’re wondering, ‘o I see what they’re doing here, they’re gong to explain it all in simple terms and then surprise surprise, their solution is going to be the best one’, well you’re absolutely correct! But hold fire with the cynicism, we genuinely believe that this information will be useful, even if you unwisely decide not to choose Text Marketer as your sms provider.)

Guideline number 1.
Beware the sms credit.

We’ve come across a number of text marketing companies that quote their services on a per credit basis. Sounds reasonable, 1 credit means 1 text right? Wrong, unless you happen to be sending your messages to Dubai that is. Be warned that to send sms messages to the UK networks may require using 1.7 or 1.8 credits. So what on face of it might appear to be an amazing deal, actually turns out to cost nearly double what you had expected.

Guideline number 2.
Don’t buy before you tried!

When you choose a text messaging company you’re making a reasonable commitment, so it’s worth getting it right. You should be allowed to test the service, have a play, make sure you’re happy with everything before you start spending your cash. Does the system do what you want and expect it to? How was your support request handled? Did the support team seem experienced?

Guideline number 3.
Don’t reinvent the wheel.

The chances are that your use for sms marketing will have been done before either for a company in your sector or possibly a competitor. So choose a company who can advise you on the best way to run and structure you campaign. Why make mistakes that have been made before. We’ve all had the ‘rookie error’ experience and they can be costly. (You can always ignore the advice if you don’t rate it!)

Guideline Number 4.
Price is important… but make sure you’re comparing eggs with eggs

We all buy on price, it’s our basic instinct. What makes things slightly more confusing in our industry is that there are a huge number of possible services, and a huge range in the quality of these services. I’m not just talking here about the ‘value added’, nice to have stuff either, I’m referring to the basic reliability of being able to send a text and it actually arriving on the phone with no delay.

If you’re buying other telecoms services such as phone lines, the product is pretty much always the same; not so with sms services. There are hundreds of ‘gateways’ that sms providers can use to access the UK mobile networks. Some of these are woefully unreliable and do not support even the most basic tools such as delivery reporting and sender ID, (who the message is from.)

It won’t be a surprise to learn that the lower quality gateway can be offered at a lower price than premium gateways. For some applications, where a client is sending hundreds of thousands of messages a month, then these gateways make perfect sense, but for many companies who might be sending a few thousand or less, this is a serious false economy. It’s also worth keeping an eye on how pricing effects your monthly spend on SMS marketing. If you are sending 1000 texts a month, a price difference of 0.6 pence per message makes a whopping £6 difference on your monthly spend.

Text Marketer has decided to go down the premium route for a reason. We dabbled for a matter of hours with a cheaper gateway but the phone started ringing almost immediately with customers wondering why messages had not arrived. We quickly reverted to our direct UK connection.

So you’ve guessed it, Text Marketer ticks all the right boxes.

• We have a simple and straightforward pricing policy.
• We aim to provide the highest possible service for the lowest possible price.
• We provide customers with a free account with free credits
• We pride ourselves on being pretty competent and able to provide relevant ideas and advice.

Give us a call on 0117 9249207 and we’ll do our best to demonstrate that we’re not talking nonsense but can actually deliver on this. We look forward to hearing from you