Bulk Messaging from Text Marketer

Bulk messaging is a somewhat clumsy term to describe the process of sending any number of text messages to customers, prospects or contacts. 

There are a numbers of options for sending messages. The quickest and easiest bulk messaging route is our web-based system called MessageBox. It’s been designed for non-technical folk and from completing the simple signup form, most people can send their first text message in just a few minutes. You can even send a message from just one screen, so no need to spend time reading dull tutorials or manuals. 

Bulk Messaging Supporrt

If you do find yourself wondering what buttons too press, then we do have a series of handy videos that explain in just a few moments how each part of the system works. We also have a team of friendly support people who can help you out, whatever your query happens to be.

So bulk messaging is easy and don’t be told otherwise. Setting up an account is free and you will get some free text credits for testing. Text Marketer aims to be the lowest provider for a high quality service. We’ve even put together a price comparison table so you can see what our competitors charge. Check it out on our prices page.

Whether you are a small insurance broker or a large insurance company, insurance leads are hard to come by and can be expensive to generate.

We have well over a hundred insurance customers who are successfully generating leads using text message marketing at a fraction of the cost of almost any other method.

I thought I’d put together a quick ‘How to Generate Insurance Leads‘ article so that hopefully other companies can benefit from this approach as well.

Insurance Lead Generation – a summary of how

This is no ‘magic bullet’. In fact, it’s very simple. You are harnessing the awesome power of text messaging to fish for leads. It’s simple, straightforward direct marketing.

As in any direct marketing you need, a) a good list, b) a good proposition, c) a great delivery route (that’s the SMS sending bit) and d) a great response channel (that’s the replying to the SMS bit).

Step 1 – The List

There are strict rules on sending out SMS. The list of numbers MUST be 3rd party opted in. In other words, must have explicitly agreed to receive texts from third parties.

There is no 1 magic list of all UK mobile numbers but rather a collection of lists built by companies who have run promotions and gained 3rd party opt in permission in the process. They in turn rent these out through a data broker. When brought together the total universe size is around 14 million 3rd party opted in mobile numbers – so quite a few to go at!

You can buy lists based on the usual types of demographics and geographics – age, gender, post code, interests, etc. In general, the more selection criteria you add, the more expensive the list.

Over the years, we have worked with most of the mobile number data brokers and we have settled on the best. Contact Sara at DMRI on 0114 281 5760 or at sara@dmri.co.uk to discuss your needs. If you say you’re a Text Marketer customer, she’ll give you a 15-25% discount depending on the list you’re buying.

Expect to pay anything from £90 to £140 per thousand records depending on your requirements. We’ll come on to ROI later.

Step 2 – The Offer/Message

Remember, we only have 160 characters in a text message so you’re offer has to be punchy, relevant, to the point and easy to respond to.

It rather depends on what arm of insurance you’re in and what your company specialises in as to what you’re going to say but let’s look at some winning examples;

• We’ll review & reduce the cost of your pension – for free. Reply YES today to get a free review. Only 100 free places left.
• Hi George. I can reduce your overall insurance costs. I’m doing this for 100 people in Dudley. Reply YES if you’d like to be one.
• Sam, my insurance brokerage saves the average Dudley motorist 23% on their car insurance. Reply YES if you’d like me to review yours free.
• Dudley home insurance sale on this week! To reduce your home insurance bill now, reply YES now and I’ll give you a call. No commitments.
• Insurance is dull. Let us do the boring stuff. We’ll get you best deals for house, car and contents insurance. Call Oakey Insurance on 012345 45678.
  
• Reduce the cost of your insurance and have more money to spend on the fun stuff. Call Birchwood Insurance today and put more money in your back pocket. Call us on 012345 6789 or reply SAVE to this text.
  
• Paul, I’m a friendly local insurance broker who’s dedicated to reducing insurance costs. Can I reduce yours? Reply YES and we’ll have a quick, free review.

You can see how there are a few killer points in most of these winning messages.

• Personalisation – using the person’s name (using our merge to SMS feature). You’ll get the name with the list you buy.
• Locality – make the person feel local. You can merge the town name in too for larger campaigns.
• What do you get? – all offer something a person can get NOW & for free, just by replying yes.
• Time expiry/Restricted offer – only 100 places left or only available this week – create a sense of urgency.

Step 3 – Sending out the Text Message & getting Lead replies

'Fishing' for leads can be a time consuming process. SMS makes it painless, fast and above all profitable.

Here’s the easy bit! We’re a text messaging company.

You don’t have to use us of course but you may have seen that we keep lower costs for SMS broadcasting. We publish a competitor price comparison chart on our prices page so you can see what all the other companies charge. Have a look around of course but hopefully you’ll use us when you see other peoples prices.

All you need to do is open a free SMS account with us (use Promo Code INSURE when you do and we’ll put 50 free credits in your account so you can test it). When you open an account you’ll get the basic instructions. But, seriously, it’s a case of copy and pasting in the mobile numbers, writing the message and hitting send – it really is that simple!

Included in your text account is a free virtual reply number. What this means is people can reply to your messages – hopefully YES (some will undoubtedly be less ‘clean’)! All these text responses will be automatically routed to the email address you used when you sign up – so that’s where all the leads come in.

Costs & ROI on Insurance Lead Generation by SMS

So, will it work for you is the million dollar question?

Without fail, all of our current insurance customers did tests first, on our recommendation, to see. To my knowledge, to date, it has a 100% success rate.

Let’s look at what a test of 5,000 would cost;

Buy the list (avg £100/’000) = £500
Send the SMS (3.7p per text) = £185 (we don’t have any set up for monthly costs, just a pay as you go service)
Total = £685

Response rate to SMS campaign.
A tougher question because it depends on your proposition, offer, etc. But we can assume an average of 10%. So, 500 leads.

Return on Investment. Simply multiply 500 x your normal conversion rate x your average income per customer.

E.g. car insurance might be 500 x 24% x £47 =  income of £5,640, profit of £4,955  plus ongoing renewals and cross sell potential – not bad from a lead generation spend of £685.

Start an Insurance Lead Generation SMS campaign today

1. Speak to Sara at DMRI 0114 281 5760 or at sara@dmri.co.uk to discuss your list needs
2. Open a free SMS account with us (use Promo Code INSURE when you do and we’ll put 50 free credits in your account so you can test it)
3. Watch your email inbox for all those lovely leads

1. Everyone makes mistakes

If you know someone who doesn’t then please do post your review below! (that should guarantee no reviews!)

Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. They are actually a critical part of learning in marketing. Embrace your mistakes and learn from them to gradually improve your marketing over time.

2. Forget that your customers are human individuals

This is a very common one. In a world of databases and data overload, it is easy to forget that each person is an individual. Let’s face it, us humans are complex beings with an ever-increasing amount of things going on in our lives.

Your business is very important to you but think about it, is it really that important to your customer? If you’re a doctor then the chances are yes but the broad majority of businesses are only a tiny part of a person’s life and really not that important to them.

Choose the timing, frequency and content of your marketing sympathetically based on what you think the lifestyles are of your customer base. For example, if you were marketing nappies to new mums, send them useful information on the subject,  not bombard them with nappy 2-for1 deals. They will be a much better customer for it (and you’ll even get some free word of mouth advertising out of it because the message contains useful information).

 3. Have a plan

Businesses up and down the land do ‘knee-jerk’ marketing and advertising. How many times have you heard, “oh god, sales are down, we need to do some more marketing!”?

Customers are smart and savvy nowadays. They’ll sniff out ‘knee-jerk’ marketing in a second and you’ll get negative feedback because of it – and probably a lot of unsubscribes!

You need to have a plan that you stick to. What are you going to send them and when? How are going to send it, email, SMS, letter, etc? Why is it going to be interesting to them? Do we think they’ll stay on our list because of it or unsubscribe?

Depending on your business your plan maybe days, weeks, months or even years long. Think of it as if you were ‘wooing a lover’! You want your customers to love you and you need to treat them accordingly.

4. Don’t rationalise bad marketing decisions

One of the biggest mistakes we can make as marketers is to rationalize bad decisions.  It is important that we accept and face the fact that we didn’t make the best choice.  Once we’ve overcome the hurdle of admitting fault it’s time to take action:

• Focus on why a particular marketing tactic didn’t work
• Determine how your team can improve going forward
• Debrief other team members so they can avoid making the same mistakes

5. Keep your message consistent

What is your raison d’etre? Why would people choose you over your competition? Keep that message consistent in everything you do.

Taking the nappy company example from above. Let’s say their nappies were special because they prevented nappy rash. Then, everything they say should be related to nappy rash whether that be information, help, advice, articles or whatever.

The point is to keep reminding your customers why you’re so special.

Summary

With all the digital marketing tools we have at our disposal now, it’s easy to forget that each customer is an individual and may well be exposed to information about our business by email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, advertising, etc, etc. The key is to have a plan, send useful and informative information, learn from your mistakes and keep your message consistent. Remember, you want your customers to love you.

Here are a few links that expand more on the topic;

• The 7 deadly sins of mobile marketing
• The truth about Email Vs SMS Marketing
• 10 steps to mobile marketing nirvana
• Target the human, not the mobile number
• 11 ways to market your brand via SMS

First Choice have partnered with Text Marketer to offer customers a low cost, high quality SMS route.

Integrating your RDB ProNet account with Text Marketer is very straightforward and should only take a few minutes.  Stage one is to open up an account with Text Marketer. Make sure you use the promocode CHOICE and you’ll receive 100 free text credits for testing.

Once you’ve set up your account, simply follow the simple instructions below. Alternatively you can also call RDB support on 01256 314602.

Installing the Text Marketer Plugin

1. Copy the file TextMarketerOutbound.dll (found in the same folder as this document) into the Root of ProNet – normally C:\Program Files\First Choice Software\RDB ProNet or C:\Program Files (x86)\First Choice Software\RDB ProNet

2. Once the .dll file is in place, add the plugin into ProNet by navigating to Options -> User Preferences -> Plugins and clicking the Add button. You must type in the name as you would like the plugin to appear in the database. Then select the three dots at the right of the second box and select the file from its path: C:\Program Files\First Choice Software\RDB ProNet \TextMarketerOutbound.dll.

NOTE:

• When creating the SMS account, if you have any previous accounts that are set as the global account you will need to remove the global account. Tick on the old account if you wish for the new one to be Global.

• If you get a 403 forbidden error when testing the SMS service, check you have the correct account details. These can be found by logging into your Text Marketer account and going to Settings – API settings. Here you’ll find your API username and password displayed.

 Setting the Reply Number / Company Name

The last step in the installation process is to create an entry in the SQL registry table using the script below to provide a reply number/company name on the message that is received by the recipient.

The text must be no more than 11 characters long and you need to input it into the ‘company name’ part of the script below. The script (in red) needs to be copied and pasted into the SQL Management Studio and run against the ProNet Database (if required support can do this part for you).

INSERT INTO [Registry] (

[SystemCode],

[RegistryUserId],

[XMLText],

[CreatedUserId],

[UpdatedUserId],

[CreatedOn],

[UpdatedOn]

) VALUES (

‘TEXTMARKETER_REPLY_NUMBER’,

NULL,

‘CompanyName’, <—Use the reply number here CANNOT BE LONGER THAN 11 CHARACTERS

1,

1,

GETDATE(),

GETDATE())

If you have any integration queries, RDB support will be delighted to help. You can reach them on 01256 314602.

Enable your MailChimp account to send SMS's and also allow people to join your MailChimp lists by text message, automatically - and for free!

This provides you with 2 main advantages;

• Use the power of short code marketing to allow people to join your MailChimp list! You get a free keyword on our 88802 short code which allows people to text in and join your email list.
• You can instantly send an SMS, via Text Marketer, to any lists in your MailChimp account.

Text Marketer uses direct UK connections for ultimate reliability and if you request it we can also allow European and worldwide bulk SMS.

Goldmine already has an inbuilt email function but as many businesses know, only a small % of emails get read. Also, if the message is urgent, such as chasing payments, you want to make sure it gets there and fast. Sending an SMS from Goldmine is as simple as sending an email. In fact, it uses the email functionality of Goldmine and our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Text Marketer provide one of the lowest cost SMS Gateways so you can be sure you’re getting the best deal on SMS costs.

We’ve tested this process with a number of Goldmine users and from setup to getting the first SMS message out of Goldmine, the whole process normally takes around 10 minutes and then you’re integrated for SMS from Goldmine.

Step 1 – Open an SMS account

First, you need an account with us, so that you can use our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Open your free Text Marketer account
(Use the promo code GOLDMINE and we’ll add 100 free text credits to your account for testing – pre-filled with link above).

Step 2 – Setting where your emails come from

Go in to your Text Marketer account. Navigate to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS.

See “Email Gateway Settings” on that screen. First, click “Toggle” next to the “Use Domain Authentication” box to make it Active.

Then, enter the domain name your emails come from in the box. So if your emails come from sales@abcwidgets.com for example, you would enter abcwidgets.com. Then, click the Submit button to save those changes.

Step 3 – Updating a contact record in Goldmine to have an Email-to-SMS address

You need to specially format an Email-to-SMS address for your contacts. Most people simply put this in as a second email address for a customer.

The format is [the-mobile-number]@textmarketer.biz, e.g. 07888999777@textmarketer.biz.

Choose a test contact in Goldmine and update their secondary email address as per the above format, using their mobile number.

Step 4 – Sending your first SMS message in Goldmine

Let’s send your first SMS. All you’re going to do is the same process you would as if you were going to send this contact an email.

Choose your test contact. Choose the secondary Email-to-SMS address we set up earlier and then create your email message.

There is no need to put in subject in. The only difference is that you should end your message with ## … this tells our system where the end of the text message is (so it doesn’t send signatures or sign offs often automatically added to the end of emails).

For example, send “Hi, this is a test of our new SMS function in Goldmine. You can reply to this text. Thanks.##“

Then send the email and your contact will receive the message as a text message.

You’ve now sent your first SMS message from Goldmine!

FAQ’s

Can people reply to messages I send them?
In your account, you can set who the message comes from. This is called the Sender ID. It can be your company name for example (which people couldn’t reply to). Or, you can set it as a number to reply to. This could be an office mobile phone for example and then replies would come back to that. Or, you could rent a virtual mobile number where all replies come back in by email.

How much does each text message cost?
Our prices per text are very low. We even provide a competitor price comparison chart on our prices page.

I don’t want to put the ## at the end of each message. Can I change that?
Yes. Go to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS in your Text Marketer account. In the Email Gateway Settings area, you’ll see ## in the Message Termination field. Change that to whatever you wish or remove it completely and everything in your email will be sent as an SMS. Click Submit to save.

I’d like to be able to send from other Email programs like this, can I?
Yes. See our Email-to-SMS gateway instructions.

Capsule CRM is one of the leading online CRM providers and you can now integrate your lists with Text Marketer’s SMS platform.

This provides you with 2 main advantages;

• Use the power of short code marketing to allow people to join your Capsule Groups and Contacts list! You get a free keyword on our 88802 short code.
• You can instantly send an SMS, via Text Marketer, to any Groups or Organisations in your Capsule account.

Text Marketer uses direct UK connections for ultimate reliability and if you request it we can also allow European and worldwide bulk SMS.

Salesforce.com already has an inbuilt email function but as many businesses know, only a small % of emails get read. Also, if the message is urgent, such as chasing payments, you want to make sure it gets there and fast. Sending an SMS from Salesforce.com is as simple as sending an email. In fact, it uses the email functionality of Salesforce.com and our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Text Marketer provide one of the lowest cost SMS Gateways so you can be sure you’re getting the best deal on SMS costs.

We’ve tested this process with a number of Salesforce.com users and from setup to getting the first SMS message out of Salesforce.com, the whole process normally takes around 10 minutes and then you’re integrated for SMS from Salesforce.com.

Step 1 – Open an SMS account

First, you need an account with us, so that you can use our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Open your free Text Marketer account
(Use the promo code SLSFORCE and we’ll add 100 free text credits to your account for testing – pre-filled with link above).

Step 2 – Setting where your emails come from

Go in to your Text Marketer account. Navigate to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS.

See “Email Gateway Settings” on that screen. First, click “Toggle” next to the “Use Domain Authentication” box to make it Active.

Then, enter the domain name your emails come from in the box. So if your emails come from sales@abcwidgets.com for example, you would enter abcwidgets.com. Then, click the Submit button to save those changes.

Step 3 – Updating a contact record in Salesforce.com to have an Email-to-SMS address

You need to specially format an Email-to-SMS address for your contacts. Most people simply put this in as a second email address for a customer.

The format is [the-mobile-number]@textmarketer.biz, e.g. 07888999777@textmarketer.biz.

Choose a test contact in Salesforce.com and update their secondary email address as per the above format, using their mobile number.

Step 4 – Sending your first SMS message in Salesforce.com

Let’s send your first SMS. All you’re going to do is the same process you would as if you were going to send this contact an email.

Choose your test contact. Choose the secondary Email-to-SMS address we set up earlier and then create your email message.

There is no need to put in subject in. The only difference is that you should end your message with ## … this tells our system where the end of the text message is (so it doesn’t send signatures or sign offs often automatically added to the end of emails).

For example, send “Hi, this is a test of our new SMS function in Salesforce.com. You can reply to this text. Thanks.##“

Then send the email and your contact will receive the message as a text message.

You’ve now sent your first SMS message from Salesforce.com!

FAQ’s

Can people reply to messages I send them?
In your account, you can set who the message comes from. This is called the Sender ID. It can be your company name for example (which people couldn’t reply to). Or, you can set it as a number to reply to. This could be an office mobile phone for example and then replies would come back to that. Or, you could rent a virtual mobile number where all replies come back in by email.

How much does each text message cost?
Our prices per text are very low. We even provide a competitor price comparison chart on our prices page.

I don’t want to put the ## at the end of each message. Can I change that?
Yes. Go to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS in your Text Marketer account. In the Email Gateway Settings area, you’ll see ## in the Message Termination field. Change that to whatever you wish or remove it completely and everything in your email will be sent as an SMS. Click Submit to save.

I’d like to be able to send from other Email programs like this, can I?
Yes. See our Email-to-SMS gateway instructions.

Netsuite UK already has an inbuilt email function but as many businesses know, only a small % of emails get read. Also, if the message is urgent, such as chasing payments, you want to make sure it gets there and fast. Sending an SMS from Netsuite UK is as simple as sending an email. In fact, it uses the email functionality of Netsuite UK and our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Text Marketer provide one of the lowest cost SMS Gateways so you can be sure you’re getting the best deal on SMS costs.

We’ve tested this process with a number of Netsuite UK users and from setup to getting the first SMS message out of Netsuite UK, the whole process normally takes around 10 minutes and then you’re integrated for SMS from Netsuite UK.

Step 1 – Open an SMS account

First, you need an account with us, so that you can use our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Open your free Text Marketer account
(Use the promo code Netsuite and we’ll add 100 free text credits to your account for testing – pre-filled with link above).

Step 2 – Setting where your emails come from

Go in to your Text Marketer account. Navigate to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS.

See “Email Gateway Settings” on that screen. First, click “Toggle” next to the “Use Domain Authentication” box to make it Active.

Then, enter the domain name your emails come from in the box. So if your emails come from sales@abcwidgets.com for example, you would enter abcwidgets.com. Then, click the Submit button to save those changes.

Step 3 – Updating a contact record in Netsuite UK to have an Email-to-SMS address

You need to specially format an Email-to-SMS address for your contacts. Most people simply put this in as a second email address for a customer.

The format is [the-mobile-number]@textmarketer.biz, e.g. 07888999777@textmarketer.biz.

Choose a test contact in Netsuite UK and update their secondary email address as per the above format, using their mobile number.

Step 4 – Sending your first SMS message in Netsuite UK

Let’s send your first SMS. All you’re going to do is the same process you would as if you were going to send this contact an email.

Choose your test contact. Choose the secondary Email-to-SMS address we set up earlier and then create your email message.

There is no need to put in subject in. The only difference is that you should end your message with ## … this tells our system where the end of the text message is (so it doesn’t send signatures or sign offs often automatically added to the end of emails).

For example, send “Hi, this is a test of our new SMS function in Netsuite UK. You can reply to this text. Thanks.##“

Then send the email and your contact will receive the message as a text message.

You’ve now sent your first SMS message from Netsuite UK!

FAQ’s

Can people reply to messages I send them?
In your account, you can set who the message comes from. This is called the Sender ID. It can be your company name for example (which people couldn’t reply to). Or, you can set it as a number to reply to. This could be an office mobile phone for example and then replies would come back to that. Or, you could rent a virtual mobile number where all replies come back in by email.

How much does each text message cost?
Our prices per text are very low. We even provide a competitor price comparison chart on our prices page.

I don’t want to put the ## at the end of each message. Can I change that?
Yes. Go to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS in your Text Marketer account. In the Email Gateway Settings area, you’ll see ## in the Message Termination field. Change that to whatever you wish or remove it completely and everything in your email will be sent as an SMS. Click Submit to save.

I’d like to be able to send from other Email programs like this, can I?
Yes. See our Email-to-SMS gateway instructions.

Outlook already has an inbuilt email function but as many businesses know, only a small % of emails get read. Also, if the message is urgent, such as chasing payments, you want to make sure it gets there and fast. Sending an SMS from Outlook is as simple as sending an email. In fact, it uses the email functionality of Outlook and our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Text Marketer provide one of the lowest cost SMS Gateways so you can be sure you’re getting the best deal on SMS costs.

We’ve tested this process with a number of Outlook users and from setup to getting the first SMS message out of Outlook, the whole process normally takes around 10 minutes and then you’re integrated for SMS from Outlook.

Step 1 – Open an SMS account

First, you need an account with us, so that you can use our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Open your free Text Marketer account
(Use the promo code Outlook and we’ll add 50 free text credits to your account for testing – pre-filled with link above).

Step 2 – Setting where your emails come from

Go in to your Text Marketer account. Navigate to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS.

See “Email Gateway Settings” on that screen. First, click “Toggle” next to the “Use Domain Authentication” box to make it Active.

Then, enter the domain name your emails come from in the box. So if your emails come from sales@abcwidgets.com for example, you would enter abcwidgets.com. Then, click the Submit button to save those changes.

Step 3 – Updating a contact record in Outlook to have an Email-to-SMS address

You need to specially format an Email-to-SMS address for your contacts. Most people simply put this in as a second email address for a customer.

The format is [the-mobile-number]@textmarketer.biz, e.g. 07888999777@textmarketer.biz.

Choose a test contact in Outlook and update their secondary email address as per the above format, using their mobile number.

Step 4 – Sending your first SMS message in Outlook

Let’s send your first SMS. All you’re going to do is the same process you would as if you were going to send this contact an email.

Choose your test contact. Choose the secondary Email-to-SMS address we set up earlier and then create your email message.

There is no need to put in subject in. The only difference is that you should end your message with ## … this tells our system where the end of the text message is (so it doesn’t send signatures or sign offs often automatically added to the end of emails).

For example, send “Hi, this is a test of our new SMS function in Outlook. You can reply to this text. Thanks.##“

Then send the email and your contact will receive the message as a text message.

You’ve now sent your first SMS message from Outlook!

FAQ’s

Can people reply to messages I send them?
In your account, you can set who the message comes from. This is called the Sender ID. It can be your company name for example (which people couldn’t reply to). Or, you can set it as a number to reply to. This could be an office mobile phone for example and then replies would come back to that. Or, you could rent a virtual mobile number where all replies come back in by email.

How much does each text message cost?
Our prices per text are very low. We even provide a competitor price comparison chart on our prices page.

I don’t want to put the ## at the end of each message. Can I change that?
Yes. Go to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS in your Text Marketer account. In the Email Gateway Settings area, you’ll see ## in the Message Termination field. Change that to whatever you wish or remove it completely and everything in your email will be sent as an SMS. Click Submit to save.

I’d like to be able to send from other Email programs like this, can I?
Yes. See our Email-to-SMS gateway instructions.

SAGE ACT! already has an inbuilt email function but as many businesses know, only a small % of emails get read. Also, if the message is urgent, such as chasing payments, you want to make sure it gets there and fast. Sending an SMS from SAGE ACT! is as simple as sending an email. In fact, it uses the email functionality of SAGE ACT! and our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Text Marketer provide one of the lowest cost SMS Gateways so you can be sure you’re getting the best deal on SMS costs.

We’ve tested this process with a number of SAGE ACT! users and from setup to getting the first SMS message out of SAGE ACT!, the whole process normally takes around 10 minutes and then you’re integrated for SMS from SAGE ACT!.

Step 1 – Open an SMS account

First, you need an account with us, so that you can use our Email-to-SMS Gateway.

Open your free Text Marketer account
(Use the promo code SAGE and we’ll add 100 free text credits to your account for testing – pre-filled with link above).

Step 2 – Setting where your emails come from

Go in to your Text Marketer account. Navigate to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS.

See “Email Gateway Settings” on that screen. First, click “Toggle” next to the “Use Domain Authentication” box to make it Active.

Then, enter the domain name your emails come from in the box. So if your emails come from sales@abcwidgets.com for example, you would enter abcwidgets.com. Then, click the Submit button to save those changes.

Step 3 – Updating a contact record in SAGE ACT! to have an Email-to-SMS address

You need to specially format an Email-to-SMS address for your contacts. Most people simply put this in as a second email address for a customer.

The format is [the-mobile-number]@textmarketer.biz, e.g. 07888999777@textmarketer.biz.

Choose a test contact in SAGE ACT! and update their secondary email address as per the above format, using their mobile number.

Step 4 – Sending your first SMS message in SAGE ACT!

Let’s send your first SMS. All you’re going to do is the same process you would as if you were going to send this contact an email.

Choose your test contact. Choose the secondary Email-to-SMS address we set up earlier and then create your email message.

There is no need to put in subject in. The only difference is that you should end your message with ## … this tells our system where the end of the text message is (so it doesn’t send signatures or sign offs often automatically added to the end of emails).

For example, send “Hi, this is a test of our new SMS function in SAGE ACT!. You can reply to this text. Thanks.##“

Then send the email and your contact will receive the message as a text message.

You’ve now sent your first SMS message from SAGE ACT!!

FAQ’s

Can people reply to messages I send them?
In your account, you can set who the message comes from. This is called the Sender ID. It can be your company name for example (which people couldn’t reply to). Or, you can set it as a number to reply to. This could be an office mobile phone for example and then replies would come back to that. Or, you could rent a virtual mobile number where all replies come back in by email.

How much does each text message cost?
Our prices per text are very low. We even provide a competitor price comparison chart on our prices page.

How can I update all my contacts to have an Email-to-SMS number quickly?
You would need to contact SAGE support for this or your support person. They should be able to run an update script in your system to automatically update all contact records to have the secondary address.

I don’t want to put the ## at the end of each message. Can I change that?
Yes. Go to SETTINGS | ACCOUNT SETTINGS in your Text Marketer account. In the Email Gateway Settings area, you’ll see ## in the Message Termination field. Change that to whatever you wish or remove it completely and everything in your email will be sent as an SMS. Click Submit to save.

I’d like to be able to send from Outlook and other Email programs like this, can I?
Yes. See our Email-to-SMS gateway instructions.

Zendesk has a great ability to trigger text messages to be sent when various actions occur, such as receiving a new ticket. You can easily integrate Zendesk with your Text Marketer account to allow Zendesk to send SMS messages for you. This article explains how!

Of course you’re not limited to SMS notifications only when you receive new tickets in Zendesk, you can configure a whole range of events that will trigger a text message to be sent, like changes in ticket status or when you get assigned a new ticket. This is a great way of getting instant notification of events without sitting in front of your computer.

The basic configuration follows below. Give us a call if you get stuck.

Of course you need a Zendesk account, and if you don’t have one yet, you should also create a free Text Marketer account (use ZEND as a promo code when you sign up and we’ll add 100 free text message credits to your account for testing).

Zendesk SMS setup to send text messages

The first step is to setup a target in Zendesk. Go to ‘SETTINGS‘ > ‘Extensions‘, then click the ‘Targets‘ tab and ‘add target‘:

Next choose the ‘URL Target’ option:

Finally fill in the following fields:

Title: anything you like, e.g. TextMarketer SMS

URL: http://www.textmarketer.biz/gateway/?username=APIusername&password=APIpassword&orig=Zendesk&number=YourMobileNumber

In the URL above you should replace APIusername and APIpassword with the API login details from your account, available from the account UI here (or go to Settings | API settings).

YourMobileNumber should be replaced with your mobile number you want to receive notifications at, beginning with the country code 44 (no plus sign), e.g. 447777123123.

Optionally, you can replace ‘Zendesk’ in the URL with a different sender ID (up to 16 numbers), or Alphanumerics (up to 11).

Method: leave ‘GET’ selected

Attribute Name: enter ‘message’

Ensure ‘Test target‘ is selected and hit ‘Submit‘. If the test works, choose ‘Create target‘ instead of ‘Test target’ and click ‘Submit‘ to create the new target.

NOTE: If you want to send messages to more than one mobile, you must create a new target for each number, i.e. repeat the steps above and change YourMobileNumber each time. In this case, we suggest you name the targets accordingly, e.g. ‘TextMarketer SMS to Bob’.

Create triggers (events that cause an SMS to be sent)

You need to create triggers that will cause a text message to be sent by Zendesk. For this, go to the menu ‘MANAGE‘ > ‘Triggers & mail notifications‘.

Edit one of the existing triggers, e.g. ‘Notify requester of received request’. Click the green plus sign to ‘Add action‘, choose ‘Notify target‘ as the action, and select the ‘TextMarketer SMS‘ target you created earlier.

In this example, I added some text to the message to tell me the subject of the request and who it’s from:

And here’s a screenshot of the resulting SMS when someone sends in a request.

Of course there are many other events that you can use as triggers to send an SMS from Zendesk.

Embed this Infographic on your website:

<a href="http://www.textmarketer.co.uk/blog/2012/02/how-to/11-ways-to-market-your-brand-via-sms-infographic/"><img src="http://www.textmarketer.co.uk/img/eleven-way-to-market-highres-600px.jpg"/></a><br /> <P>Source: <a href="http://www.textmarketer.co.uk/">Text Marketer Bulk SMS Services</a>

SMS Campaign Delivers 600% Return on Investment

Text Marketer works with a number of bike shops who use sms as a way of communicating with their customers. There is simply no more effective way of getting service reminders or sales offers to customers. Unlike email where you might expect around 30% of the messages to be read, with a bulk sms campaign, 98% of texts that land on mobiles are read and the vast majority within 5 minutes or so.

Response rates to sms marketing campaigns are also around 5 times higher than any other form of direct marketing. (Source – Mobile Marketing Association.)

Swinnerton Cycles in Stoke On Trent has recently use Text Marketer’s SMS software with remarkable effect. With the onset of Autumn, most cyclists start to think about gearing their bikes up for winter to make sure they’re as safe as possible. With this in mind Swinnerton Cycles sent out a bulk sms campaign to its customer base with a simple, low cost gear and brakes service offer.

“Winter Service Check – 1 Week Only – Starting 19/9/11, Brake & Gear Check only £20.00 Book now on 01782747782. Only 100 Spaces Available. Swinnerton Cycles”

It’s a simple offer that was surprisingly effective. Within a couple of days of the message going out, the workshop had booked 42 services, generating a minimum of £840. On top of this, customers will be spending considerable sums on accessories such as lights, batteries, jackets etc. So the total spend  figure will be significantly higher. The total cost of the text campaign was just £126 so for every pound spent on text messages, an absolute minimum spend of £6.66 was generated. (We’ll update these figures when we have the results from accessories sales.)

Try SMS marketing for free – Send 100 texts at no cost

Why not find out how sms marketing might work for your business and set up a free account? Use the code CYCLE in the promo code window and your account will come with 100 free text credits.

We’re always on hand to help if you need anything, so please call us on 0117 2050202, we’d love to hear from you.

How could you use SMS?

There are countless ways that you could use sms marketing to generate business, here are few examples.

• Great value service offers.
• New range of bikes now available
• Offers on clothing and accessories
• Ice warning alert for commuters
• Your bike is now ready to be picked up
• Workshop opening hours
• Event notifications

Make it relevant and memorable

Make sure you choose a keyword that will make sense to the customer. You could choose your product, company or brand name. Avoid trying to do something too clever, you’ll risk confusing people and the likelihood is that you’ll alienate your target market.

Keep it short

The longer your keyword, the more likely people are to text it in wrongly. If our text response service doesn’t recognise the keyword because it’s spelt incorrectly, then the sms response will not be allocated to your account and will be lost. We recommend keeping it to between 4 and 8 characters. The aim is to make it as easy and quick as possible to respond. Don’t make your customers work.

Let predictive text take the strain

Infuriating though it often is, most of us use predictive text. You can take advantiage of this feature to make it even easier for people to respond to your text response campaign. By choosing a predictive text word, your customers will save precious seconds and are less likely to make a typo.

Can I capture more information by asking my customers to text additional information?

Yes. The golden rule here is that as long as the keyword is at the start of the text and followed by a space, then the entire text is captured. Be careful though. The more information you ask for, the more likely it is that people will make texting errors or not bother because it’s too much like hard work. We’ve found that asking for an address for example is a step too far. Think of the hassle of toggling between letters and numbers to input a post code; fine for smart phone users (about 35%), but tedious to say the least for the rest of us.

Asking for an email address is often a great idea though. You’ll capture vital customer data at the point that they are most interested and you can also take advantage of our automated email responder. So a user texts in the keyword, followed by their email address and receives a full html email immediately by return. This additional service is free to all Text Marketer customers.

Set up an account

Setting up a text response service is a simple process and you can get the whole service up and running in just a few minutes. Stage one is to set up a free account. Once you’ve logged in, go to Incoming SMS – Set up a short Code Keyword.

We’re alway available to advise if you need help, so please feel free to call us on 0117 2050202.

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

It will cost them one text at their normal network rate. What exactly that is will depend on the individual’s network and tariff but is likely to be in the range of 8-12 pence. Sending a text to a short code is not included in a free text bundle tariff. So it will always cost 8 – 12 pence regardless of the network and tariff.

How much does it cost to send a text to a Txtus, virtual mobile number?

Texts sent to virtual mobile numbers cost one text at the sender’s standard rate. Texts are included in monthly free text allowance, so people on contracts will probably pay nothing at all. Pay as you go customers will be charged 8 – 12 pence depending on the network they’re using.

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.

I currently use Text Marketer’s web based bulk sms system to send messages to my customers. I want them to be able to reply to these messages. Should I use a short code or a long code? What’s the difference between them and what are they used for?

Short Codes

Short codes are mainly used to generate response from advertising or marketing activity. A responder will text in a keyword to a 5 digit short code, e.g 88802. The responder then receives an automated text response letting them know what will happen next.  The responder’s mobile number, date and time of text and the content of the text itself are captured and stored.

The incoming text can be routed to an email address and can also be viewed in your Text Marketer account where all responder information can be downloaded to an excel spreadsheet or csv file, know as 2-way SMS.

As long as the keyword is at the start of the text and followed by a space, then everything else is captured. This means that you can collect other data such as email or postal addresses.

We offer 2 types of keywords. Value keywords start with a number (e.g 2book) and standard keywords are any word that you wish.

Long Codes or Virtual Mobile Numbers

Using a long code allows people to reply to the bulk sms campaigns that you send them, 2-way SMS. They do not need to start their text with a keyword, so no matter what they send, their entire text is captured.  Long codes can also texted directly so customers might be able to text you with specific query for example.

The incoming text is routed to you via email. You can then reply to the person by text, using your email system. The reply is then routed back to the person’s mobile as a text. So that you can see who has sent what, the entire conversation thread is captured.

Each organisation has their own virtual mobile number or txtUs number.

I need to send out text messages to individual customers throughout the day (normally about 35 or so). Should I use email to sms or should I logon to my bulk sms account and use that?

Response

Both are a great way of getting a text message out the door quickly and easily and which you choose will really boil down to what works best for you. There are however some differences between the two methods which I’ve outlined below.

Email to SMS Advantages

Email to sms uses your existing email, so you don’t need to switch from one sms system to another.
Replies to you messages are also routed straight back to your inbox, so you don’t need to login to access your replies. Text responses also include the original text, so you can see what the person was replying to.

Disadvantages

You could easily send a message that is over the standard 160 characters. This would use than more than 1 text credit and there’s no way of alerting you to this before you send your text.
To pick up delivery reports for email to sms, you would need to login to your bulk sms account.

Online Bulk SMS Account Advantages

You have ready access to all the tools of the dedicated bulk sms system.
Delivery reports can be accessed in a few clicks and you have a character counter that tells you how many sms credits you are using for each text.
Template library messages can be accessed, so you don’t have to rewrite the text each time but simply modify a template text.
Speed. You can send a message from just one screen and this might be marginally quicker than sending an email.

Disadvantages

The web based account is a standalone tool, so you need to toggle between this and your other business systems.
Replies can be routed to you email but won’t contain the original message, so you don’t know what the person is replying to.

We suggest trying both email to sms and online bulk sms for a few days and seeing which one works best. If anyone else has any questions about how to optimise your sms activities, please feel free to get in touch on 0117 2050202.