What you need to be able to do this:
1. A Text Marketer SMS account
2. A keyword on your account (you can get any keyword free for a week to trial this), configured to copy incoming SMS’s to your email address.

Once you have these, the process is very simple.
Let’s take the example of a hairdresser, Zaks. Their keyword is ZAKS on our shortcode 88802. So, any message starting with the keyword ZAKS sent to 88802 will go to their account and be sent by email to the address/es they set.

Zaks send out a campaign with their Sender ID set to 88802 so people can reply, such as, “50% off all cut & blow drys this Monday & Tuesday. Reply with name, day & time to book yours, starting your reply message with the word ZAKS.”

All replies will then be sent to the email address Zaks have set up.

When an email response is received they can simply hit the reply button as normal and type a return message to the client. The only difference from a normal email reply is that you must type ## at the end of the text reply you want to send (otherwise it will send all the text in the email).

So, their email reply might look something like, “Thanks Joyce. I can confirm your appointment for Monday at 10am. See you then. Zaks. If you want to reply to this message remember to start your message with the word ZAKS.##”. This will go straight back to the client.

In essence, so long as the person starts any message with the keyword ZAKS you can continue to have a text conversation with them using solely your email program.

For more advanced options on replies please see our email to sms instructions.

FAQ’s on replying to SMS’s using Email

Q. How many characters can I have in my reply.
A. Up to 612 characters including spaces.

Q. Does it cost anything to reply.
A. It simply uses the credits system of your account, so whatever you’re paying per credit at present.

The data held on their database includes the postcode of the customer, allowing them to send news alerts to subscribers in specific geographic locations.

For example, a recent text informed local residents about a planning decision on a block of flats that would have an impact in the area.

“Fountainbridge flats set to go ahead. Read about controversial plan in today’s News. To stop, txt EXIT to 88802.”

By alerting readers to local stories, The Scotsman is engaging with customers in an innovative way and is proving a successful strategy in driving  newspaper sales.

The Scotsman is also making good use of Text Marketer’s unsubscribe tool that allows readers to easily remove themselves from the list. Once a customer has unsubscribed, the sms system will no longer allow messages to be sent to that number. This is a failsafe function that means that a customer cannot accidentally send out a message to someone that has already unsubscribed.

Text Marketer is delighted to be working with The Scotsman and looks forward to helping them further develop their mobile marketing strategy.

For more information about how sms soutions could be used in your business, please feel free to call us for a brief chat on 0117 9249207.
Setting up a bulk sms account is free and your account comes with 10 free text credtis so you can test the service before you spend any money.

The surprising nugget of information was revealed by Alex Meisl of Sponge Group and came to light as part of an excellent series of interviews by Ewan McLeod from Mobile Industry Review.

Ewan had this idea that brands were becoming obsessed with smart phones and wanted to explore the notion that too many brands assumed they had to have an iphone app. To test his hypothesis, he interviewed some mobile marketing heavyweights and sought their opinions on the use of mobile services by UK brands.

The results were very clear. The gurus agreed that many UK brands seemed to hook onto the potential for increased customer engagement via apps and largely ignored or undervalued the massive potential for more straightforward SMS services. Just 20% of Uk consumers currently have a smart phones yet nearly all have a hand set capable of sending and receiving SMS.

Here are a few of the more revealing quotes from the interviews. If you’ve ever wondered where you should start in developing a mobile strategy, then these videos are an excellent starting point. I urge you to have a look.

“SMS is the killer app. Everyone has an SMS sender and receiver on their phone. As marketers, we try to use it but we don’t use it well enough.”
Mark Freeman – Mobile agency – Movement.

“SMS is one of the most underutilised channels, with its scale and the kind of click though rates and uplift in awareness that it achieves.”
John Mew – IAB (internet Advertising Bureau)

“Too many brands assume they have to have an iphone app.”
Alex Meisl – Sponge Group.

So as with most things, the message seems to be ‘keep it simple’. SMS is still by far the most effective tool for marketers and we ignore it at our peril.

We’d love to have a chat with you about how mobile marketing could be used in your company or organisation. Please feel free to call me on 0117 9249207

Henry Cazalet

The Mobile Marketing Association recently released data on the ‘read rates’ of SMS, 97% of text messages are opened, 83% in one hour but typically within 4 minutes.

So, if you want your customers to get your messages – texting is the way to go.

Using our Email to SMS Text Message Gateway you can simply reformat your alert emails from your system/s so that they go out by text message.

Here’s some great examples of using Email to SMS:

1. Ecommerce order confirmations - sending a text doubles confidence rates in the order process.
2. Despatch confirmations – when a package is sent, send a confirmation text with tracking info. This can reduce ‘where’s my order’ calls by 50% or more.
3. Email merge – send personalised text messages in bulk using simple email merge tools freely available (such as this one).
4. Staff alerts – if the alert is urgent to your staff or colleagues, send it by text, it’ll be there immediately, wherever they are.
5. Systems alerts – many different online systems have email alerts when there are problems. Great if you’re sat at your computer but if you’re not, also configure systems to send an Email to SMS alert for backup.
6. Customer/patient appointment reminders – many companies, health services, gyms etc. send appointment reminders by email and many just don’t get read and the appointment is missed. Using our Email to Text service ensures your reminder is read, hugely increasing the chance the appointment will be kept.

There are of course many other examples of how you could employ Email to Text within your business.

You can try it out all automatically online. First set up a free Text Marketer account (includes 10 free text credits) then read the Email to SMS instructions and send your first text out through the gateway. ‘Simples’.

More information on pricing, etc?

If you have any general questions about pricing, setup, payment or almost anything else, try the Text Marketer Help Centre.

“97% of SMS opened, 83% in one hour but typically within 4 minutes”

If ever there was a statement that should encourage marketers to incorporate an sms service into their marketing, this is it.
This figure is in bold contrast to email open rates that are really struggling at around 15%.

So why is it that most UK businesses don’t have a mobile strategy? We’ve pondered this at length and we believe it’s just down to inertia. Marketers feel most comfortable doing what they have always done. Despite sms services being available for over a decade, it is still considered to be slightly alternative, edgy and dangerous. There is also a tendency for people to think that it’s going to be very technical and complex.

The reality is very different; mobile marketing is, simply using the mobile phone as a way of communicating with customers, prospects of staff. It’s really no more complicated than that.
One of the main benefits is that there are no set up costs, so you can get your first campaign up and running with a very low budget and like traditional direct marketing channels you can very easily measure the response that you achieve. As sms software is incredibly easy to use, you don’t need to come from an IT background to initiate a new sms marketing programme.

Set up a free account (which comes with 10 free text credits) and you’ll soon gain an insight into the potential applications for sms marketing in your business. If you’d like to discuss any aspect of your mobile strategy, please feel free to call us on 0117 9249207.

This is in addition to our simple HTTP SMS Gateway API, explained here, and we also provide a more complex ‘RESTful’ SMS API to send SMS messages and give you access to information about your SMS marketing account (don’t have one? You need to have an account).

QUICK INSTRUCTIONS

1. Create an email to the address shown above
2. Put your API username and password in the subject field with a % symbol in between (no spaces). You can find your API username and password in your  account on the ‘Settings’ > ‘API Settings’ page but it is usually the same unless you’ve updated your login details.
3. Type the text message you want to send and at the end put two hash symbols “##”
4. Put 1 or many numbers in a single column underneath (it’s always best in international format but UK numbers starting 07…… are OK too).
5. Send the email!

INTRODUCTION – Expanded Instructions / Additional Features

The Email-to-SMS (or email-to-text-message) service allows you to send SMS text messages via email. You must have an SMS marketing account (you can create a free account here) to send text messages via this service.

The actual email address of the email-to-SMS gateway is shown in the screenshot above and available from your account on the ‘Help’ page.

To send a text message to one or more mobile numbers, you will specify the message to send, and the numbers to send to, in an email. You then send the email to our email-to-sms gateway email address (using a specific format/structure).

Example1 (Update!)

You can format an email address such as [mobilenumber]@textmarketer.biz (for example, 447777111999@textmarketer.biz) and send to our gateway.

Your email subject should contain your API username, followed by ‘%’, followed by your API password (You can find your API username and password in your  account on the ‘Settings’ > ‘API Settings’ page.), e.g.

myAPIusername%myAPIpassword

Then you would simply type the message you want to send in the body and end that message with ##  and send the email.

Example 2

Let’s say you want to send a text message containing ‘Call us for a quote’ to the UK mobile number 07777123456. To do this your email contents would look like this:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456

The ‘##’ characters simply tell us that this is the end of the message to be sent. And it’s followed by the mobile number. That’s it!

IDENTIFICATION

Your email will contain your account’s API username and password in the email subject. This allows us to verify your identity and deduct credits for the text messages sent from your account.

Your email subject should contain your API username, followed by ‘%’, followed by your API password (You can find your API username and password in your  account on the ‘Settings’ > ‘API Settings’ page.), e.g.

myAPIusername%myAPIpassword

Example

So the complete email (subject and body) would look like this:

Email Subject:

myAPIusername%myAPIpassword

Email Body/Contents:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456

MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS

You want to send a text message via email to more than one mobile number? No problem! Simply list the numbers on separate lines, like this:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456
07777123457

Or put them on the same line, with commas in between to separate the numbers, like this:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456,07777123457

MESSAGE WITH MULTIPLE LINES

A message sent using the email-to-SMS gateway can contain more than more line. Simply ensure the message still ends with ‘##’, e.g.:

Special offer this week on:
- black tights
- green shoes##
07777123456

FROM/SENDER ID

The sender ID is the number/name that your text message will appear as being sent from. When using the email-to-text API this defaults to the sender ID that is set in your account settings (see the ‘Send SMS’ > ‘Default Sender ID’ page). For example, you might want to set the sender ID as the name of your business, or perhaps to your own mobile number.

The sender ID can be any 16-digit number, or any text of up to 11 alpha-numeric characters.

Example

Let’s say you want to send the message ‘Special 2-for-1 offer this week’ to the UK mobile number 07777123456, with a sender ID of ‘Fast Pizzas’. Your email body (contents) would look like this:

Special 2-for-1 offer this week##
Fast Pizzas#
07777123456

The sender ID is ‘terminated’, i.e. ends with, a single ‘#’ character. It can appear before or after the message, so this works too:

Fast Pizzas#
Special 2-for-1 offer this week##
07777123456

ERROR REPORTING

If your email-to-SMS request is successful, with no errors or problems, you will not get any response (unless you’re using the Sandbox service). However, if there are any problems with the format of your email, or problems sending to any of the numbers you specify in the email, you will get a verbose email response with details of the problem(s) encountered.

Note that you will not get any response if your API username or password (included in the email subject) were incorrect, or did not contain the ‘%’ character to separate them.

TESTING/SANDBOX

If you want to test the service without actually sending any text messages, there is a different email address to use for this purpose. It works in the same way as the normal service, except that no text messages will be sent and therefore no credit will be deducted from your account. Also, unlike the normal service, you will get a confirmation email telling you what message would have been sent, and to what numbers, if you’d used the normal live service.

The email addresses for the testing service and the normal live service of the email-to-SMS gateway are available from your SMS marketing account tool on the ‘Help’ page.

We have built a nifty little Excel worksheet which takes care of this. Download the file here.

INSTRUCTIONS:

When promoting your campaign, it is important to ask people to text in in a specific way which is:
[KEYWORD] space [FIRSTNAMEONLY] space [EMAILADDRESS]

Then, once all the autoresponses are in simply copy and paste them into the yellow part of column A of the Excel sheet. It will remove the keyword and split out the name and email address into separate columns for easier importing into other applications.

Paste your autoresponse data into the yellow section to strip out the name and email address. Handles up to 10,000 records at a time.

The ‘meat and two veg’ – The Top 5 reasons to have a short code text service

1. If you advertise anywhere then adding a text response option will increase overall response rates by around 20% and 50% of respondents will choose to respond by text message.

2. When enquirers respond to your text service you automatically capture their mobile number which is fabulous for future marketing activities.

3. Enquirers by text receive an automatic text response with all your company details on. This effectively acts as a business card on the enquirer’s mobile phone.

4. Using a text response service cuts costs. Calls to mobile phones are very expensive and require staff to talk to the customer. If you send a customer a question by text and allow them to respond by text, you cut out the staff requirement and each contact costs a matter of pennies rather than many pounds.

5. Two thirds of people want to use text with companies but only 3% currently do. Offering a text service to your customers

So, if you’re going to set up a text short code, why use Text Marketer?

1. We have the lowest monthly cost for keywords. £25 per month for any word & only £4.99 per month for budget keywords!
2. You get a full text account free of charge to manage all your text activities.
3. If you want to send text messages back to people we also have the lowest cost per message prices, backed by our Best Buy Guarantee.
4. You can set up your keyword on our short code text service instantly online and be up and running in minutes.
5. There is a no-risk 1 week free trial so you can try the service and if you’re not happy after a week, cancel & don’t pay a penny.

Other useful links on the subject.

• Read more on our short code text service. There are 2 short videos here too which show real life examples & in system mechanics. (This page also shows our competitor price comparison chart for short code text services).
• Read the full system instructions if you want to see more detailed instructions and screenshots of how it would work in your account.
• Check if the keyword you want to have is available.
• Get a free Text Marketer account (which you’ll need to use the text response service and set up the free 1 week trial).

This document is referred to by the REST SMS Gateway API – Specification Document.

Resource URI:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/keywords/mykeyword

Actions on the ShortCode keywords (see Short Code SMS Service).

• GET method – get the availability of a given keyword

GET method

Test whether the specified keyword is available on our ShortCode number.

RESOURCE_ID: the keyword of which to test the availability, e.g. ‘mykeyword’ in the example above

Example usage

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/keywords/buyit

will test whether ‘buyit’ is an available keyword.

Example GET response

<response processed_date="2010-05-06T13:43:18+02:00">
<available>true</available>
<recycle>false</recycle>
</response>

The <available> tag shows whether the keyword is available (true/false) and the <recycle> tag shows whether the keyword is available through ‘recycling’ a disused keyword, i.e. one that was in use previously.

Read the advanced specification of this response.

Specific error codes

N/A

Example PHP code

<?php
/**
 * GET request on the 'keywords' resource
 */
$url = 'http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/keywords/mykeywordtest'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$username = 'myAPIusername'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$password = 'myAPIpassword'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$url = "$url?username=$username&password=$password";

// we're using the curl library to make the request
$curlHandle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$responseBody = curl_exec($curlHandle);
$responseInfo  = curl_getinfo($curlHandle);
curl_close($curlHandle);

// deal with the response
if ($responseInfo['http_code']==200)
{
	$xml_obj = simplexml_load_string($responseBody);
	$available =  $xml_obj->available == 'true';
	$recycled =  $xml_obj->recycle == 'true';
	// do something with the result
	if ($available)
		echo "Available ";
	else
		echo "Unavailable ";

	if ($recycled)
		echo "(recycled)";

} else {
	// handle the error
	var_dump($responseBody);
}
?>

This resource deals with sending SMS to customer.

This document is referred to by the REST SMS Gateway API – Specification Document.

Resource URI:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/sms

Actions relating to sending SMS messages.

• POST method - Used to send an SMS message.

POST

POST method

Attempts to send the specified SMS message.

Example usage:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/sms

Post arguments:

* Can be found by logging in to your account, Settings->API Settings

CONCATENATION

CONCATENATION

If you exceed 160 characters you automatically invoke concatenation sending, this has the following consequences: Each message consists of a 153 character ‘chunk’, i.e. no longer 160 chars; the extra characters are used to glue the messages together. Therefore a message that is 307 characters long will require 3 messages to send (153 + 153 + 1).

Example POST response:

<response processed_date="2010-03-23T10:31:39+00:00">
	<message_id>4172870907</message_id>
	<credits_used>1</credits_used>
</response>

• message_id – the unique message ID attributed to the sent SMS
• credits_used – the number of credits used to send the SMS

Read the advanced specification of this response.

Specific error codes:

CONCATENATION

Example XML error response:

<response processed_date="2010-03-24T14:37:41+00:00">
<errors>
	<error code="10">invalid number or not an integer</error>
	<error code="9">invalid number or too short</error>
</errors>
</response>

Example PHP code:

<?php
/**
 * POST request on the 'sms' resource (send an SMS)
 */
$url = 'http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/sms';
//$url = 'http://sandbox.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/sms';

$username = 'myAPIusername'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$password = 'myAPIpassword'; // CHANGE THIS!!!

$data = array('message'=>'hello','mobile_number'=>'447777123123', 'originator'=>'me',
	'username'=>$username, 'password'=>$password);
$data = http_build_query($data, '', '&');
// we're using the curl library to make the request
$curlHandle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
$responseBody = curl_exec($curlHandle);
$responseInfo  = curl_getinfo($curlHandle);
curl_close($curlHandle);

// deal with the response
if ($responseInfo['http_code']==200)
{
	$xml_obj = simplexml_load_string($responseBody);
	// do something with the result
	echo "Message ID: $xml_obj->message_id\n";
	echo "Credits used: $xml_obj->credits_used\n";

	var_dump($responseBody);

} else {
	// handle the error
	var_dump($responseInfo);
	var_dump($responseBody);
}
?>

NOTE

It is important to understand the difference between the status of a message in a delivery report, and getting a success or failure when using the API to send a message. A ’success’ response from the SMS send only confirms that the number and message appear to be in the correct format – this does not mean that the number actually exists, or that the message was received by the recipient. Delivery reports, however, confirm to you what has actually happened to the sent message. See the deliveryReport resource.

This document is referred to by the REST SMS Gateway API – Specification Document.

Resource URI:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/deliveryReport

Actions on a specific delivery report.

• GET method - Gets the contents of a delivery report

An individual delivery report shows the current known status of all messages sent on a given day, or for a particular campaign. Whereas the REST API resource deliveryReports (note the trailing ’s’) gets a list of available delivery report names, including delivery reports for campaigns (see here).

GET

GET method

Gets the contents of a delivery report – the status of delivery of sent messages on a given day or for a given campaign.

It is important to understand the difference between the status of a message in a delivery report, and getting a success or failure when using the API to send a message.

A ‘success’ response from the SMS send only confirms that the number and message appear to be in the correct format – this does not mean that the number actually exists, or that the message was received by the recipient.

Whereas a delivery report – which you retrieve through this ‘deliveryReport’ resource – confirms to you what has actually happened to the sent message. This may change over time, i.e. a delivery report may not show a status for a given message 10 minutes after the message was sent, but may show a status after an hour. The status of messages can change up to 24 hours after the message was sent. Therefore you may prefer to wait for 24 hours after sending an SMS before trying to retrieve its delivery report.

The possible outcomes for a sent message in a delivery report are: “DELIVERED”,”REJECTED”,”FAILED”, “NON-UK”  or no report at all.

• “REJECTED” means that the relevant operator rejected the message and did not attempt to deliver it.
• “FAILED” probably means that the number does exist (or at least not anymore).
• “DELIVERED” means the message was received on the handset.
• “NON-UK” you are on a UK only route and have tried to send a non UK number.

Occasionally there is no delivery report status for a given message at all. This can be due to a failure at the operator end because of exceptionally high load or other problems.

Example usage

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/deliveryReport/test-190310

will get the contents of the delivery report named ‘test-190310′. This is the delivery report for the campaign you would have sent named ‘test’.

RESOURCE_ID: the name of the delivery report to retrieve

Example GET response

<response processed_date="2010-03-19T15:24:30+00:00">
	<report name="test-190310" last_updated="2010-03-19T09:45:04+00:00" extension="csv">
		<reportrow modified_date="2010-03-19T09:45:00+00:00" mobile_number="447123123456" message_id="12345678"
 status="DELIVERED"/>
		<reportrow modified_date="2010-03-19T09:45:00+00:00" mobile_number="447123123456" message_id="12345679"
 status="DELIVERED"/>
	</report>
</response>

The XML response contains individual reportrow’s that give the delivery status of an individual message.

• ‘message_id’ is a unique ID for the message that was sent
• ‘modified_date’ is the last date the delivery status for that message ID was updated
• ‘mobile_number’ is the number the SMS was sent to

Read the advanced specification of this response.

Specific error codes

N/A

Note

When we receive a status report from the operator this gets added to a delivery report with a standardised name. The naming format is as follows:

“GatewayAPI_DD-MM-YY” where DD is the day in the month, MM is the month and YY is the year, each being in a 2-digit format.

So for example:

GatewayAPI_04-01-09     is valid

GatewapAPI_12-12-09     is valid

GatewayAPI_1-1-9        is invalid

Thus to get the delivery report for messages sent on 12th January 2010, you would use the URI:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/deliveryReport/GatewayAPI_12-01-10

Example PHP

<?php
/**
 * GET request on the deliveryReport resource
 */
// TODO the URL will change according to the delivery report to retrieve...
$url = 'http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/deliveryReport/myreportname'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$username = 'myAPIusername'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$password = 'myAPIpassword'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$url = "$url?username=$username&password=$password";

// we're using the curl library to make the request
$curlHandle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$responseBody = curl_exec($curlHandle);
$responseInfo  = curl_getinfo($curlHandle);
curl_close($curlHandle);

// deal with the response
if ($responseInfo['http_code']==200)
{
	$xml_obj = simplexml_load_string($responseBody);

	$reportRows = array();
	foreach ($xml_obj->report->reportrow as $xml_reportRow)
	{
		$atts = $xml_reportRow->attributes();
		$mobile = (string) $atts->mobile_number;
		$updated = (string) $atts->last_updated;
		$msgID = (int) $atts->message_id;
		$status = (string) $atts->status;
		$reports[] = array('mobile'=>$mobile, 'modified'=>$updated, 'messageID'=>$msgID, 'status'=>$status);
	}
	// do something with the report details
	var_dump($reports);

} else {
	// handle the error
	var_dump($responseBody);
}

?>

This document is referred to by the REST SMS Gateway API – Specification Document.

Resource URI:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/deliveryReports

Actions on the list of available delivery reports.

• GET method - Gets a list of available delivery report names

The REST API resource deliveryReports (note the trailing ‘s’) performs actions on the list of available delivery report names, including delivery reports for campaigns.

A delivery report shows the current known status of all messages sent on a given day or for a particular campaign. To access the contents of a particular delivery report – which will contain the status of individual messages – you would use the deliveryReport resource instead - i.e. no trailing ‘s’.

GET

GET method

Get the list of available delivery reports.

Example usage

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/deliveryReports

Example GET response

<response processed_date="2010-03-19T15:20:49+00:00">
	<userdirectory>aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwZ</userdirectory>
	<reports quantity="2" >
		<report name="test-190310" last_updated="2010-03-19T09:45:04+00:00" extension="csv"/>
		<report name="GatewayAPI_08-03-10" last_updated="2010-03-08T15:45:02+00:00" extension="csv"/>
	</reports>
</response>

Read the advanced specification of this response.

When we receive a delivery report from the operator this gets added to a delivery report with a standardised name. The naming format is as follows: “GatewayAPI_DD-MM-YY” where DD is the day in the month, MM is the month and YY is the year, each being in a 2-digit format. So for example:

GatewayAPI_04-01-09     is valid

GatewapAPI_12-12-09     is valid

GatewayAPI_1-1-9        is invalid

Specific error codes

N/A

Note

Although it is expected that you will want to use the deliveryReport resource to get the contents of a delivery report, the response as shown above contains all the information necessary to download the delivery reports in csv format, if that is your preferred method. In this case each report can be accessed via the URL

http://www.textmarketer.biz/DeliveryReports/[dir]/[filename]

where

[dir] = the user directory as found in the response above, i.e. in the above example aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwZ
[filename] = the name of the csv file to download, e.g. GatewayAPI_08-03-10.csv

So the complete URL in this example would be:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/DeliveryReports/aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwZ/GatewayAPI_08-03-10.csv

Example PHP code

<?php
/**
 * GET request on the deliveryReports resource
 */
$url = 'http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/deliveryReports';
$username = 'myAPIusername'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$password = 'myAPIpassword'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$url = "$url?username=$username&password=$password";

// we're using the curl library to make the request
$curlHandle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$responseBody = curl_exec($curlHandle);
$responseInfo  = curl_getinfo($curlHandle);
curl_close($curlHandle);

// deal with the response
if ($responseInfo['http_code']==200)
{
	$xml_obj = simplexml_load_string($responseBody);
	$atts = $xml_obj->reports->attributes();
	$num_reports = (int) $atts->quantity;

	if ($num_reports > 0)
	{
		echo "$num_reports reports\n";
		$reports = array();
		foreach ($xml_obj->reports->report as $xml_report)
		{
			$atts = $xml_report->attributes();
			$name = (string) $atts->name;
			$updated = (string) $atts->last_updated;
			$reports[] = array('name'=>$name, 'modified'=>$updated);
		}
		// do something with the report details
		var_dump($reports);
	} else {
		echo 'No reports available';
	}
} else {
	// handle the error
	var_dump($responseBody);
}
?>

This document is referred to by the REST SMS Gateway API – Specification Document.

Resource URI:

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/credits

Actions on the account credits.

• GET method - get the number of credits currently available on your account
• POST method - transfer credits between accounts

GET

GET method

Get the number of credits currently available on your account.

Example usage

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/credits

Example GET response

<response processed_date="2010-03-19T15:19:33+00:00">
<credits>37</credits>
</response>

Read the advanced specification of this response.

Specific error codes

N/A

Example PHP code

<?php
/**
 * GET request on the 'credits' resource
 */
$url = 'http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/credits';
$username = 'myAPIusername'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$password = 'myAPIpassword'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$url = "$url?username=$username&password=$password";

// we're using the curl library to make the request
$curlHandle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$responseBody = curl_exec($curlHandle);
$responseInfo  = curl_getinfo($curlHandle);
curl_close($curlHandle);

// deal with the response
if ($responseInfo['http_code']==200)
{
	$xml_obj = simplexml_load_string($responseBody);
	$credits = (int) $xml_obj->credits;
	// do something with the result
	echo $credits;

} else {
	// handle the error
	var_dump($responseBody);
}

?>

P

POST method

Transfer credits from the source/master account to the target/sub account.

Example usage

http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/credits

Post arguments

or

OR you can specify the target account user name and password, rather than the target account number

Example POST

Example POST response

<response processed_date="2010-03-23T10:31:39+00:00">
	<source_credits_before>1000</source_credits_before>
	<source_credits_after>900</source_credits_after>
	<target_credits_before>0</target_credits_before>
	<target_credits_after>100</target_credits_after>
</response>

Read the advanced specification of this response.

Specific error codes

Example XML

Example XML error response

<response processed_date="2010-03-24T14:37:41+00:00">
<errors>
	<error code="0">Invalid number of credits specified: -1</error>
	<error code="1">Invalid destination account number</error>
</errors>
</response>

Example PHP code

<?php
/**
 * POST request on the 'credits' resource (credit transfer)
 */
$url = 'http://www.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/credits';
// uncomment for testing:
//$url = 'http://sandbox.textmarketer.biz/services/rest/credits';
$username = 'myAPIusername'; // CHANGE THIS!!! - the username of the account you're transferring FROM
$password = 'myAPIpassword'; // CHANGE THIS!!!
$targetAccountNumber = 0; // CHANGE THIS!!

$data = array('quantity'=>'1',
	'target'=>$targetAccountNumber,
	// or you could use the target username/password instead of 'target'
	// 'target_username'=>$targetUserName, 'target_password'=>$targetPassword,
	'username'=>$username, 'password'=>$password);
$data = http_build_query($data, '', '&');
// we're using the curl library to make the request
$curlHandle = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);
curl_setopt($curlHandle, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
$responseBody = curl_exec($curlHandle);
$responseInfo  = curl_getinfo($curlHandle);
curl_close($curlHandle);

// deal with the response
if ($responseInfo['http_code']==200)
{
	$xml_obj = simplexml_load_string($responseBody);
	// do something with the result
	echo "Source account credits before: $xml_obj->source_credits_before\n";
	echo "Source account credits after: $xml_obj->source_credits_after\n";
	echo "Target account credits before: $xml_obj->target_credits_before\n";
	echo "Target account credits after: $xml_obj->target_credits_after\n";
} else {
	// handle the error here
	var_dump($responseInfo);
	var_dump($responseBody);
}
?>

Choose your bulk sms supplier with care

If only sourcing the right sms software company was as easy as finding the lowest price and signing up. As usual, it’s a little bit more involved than that. Companies package their products and pricing in different ways that make differentiating all the possible suppliers a tricky business.

So here’s a list of simple questions that you should be asking of your potential sms software company. You’re after straightforward, waffle-free answers that give you confidence that they can deliver.

Is the bulk sms pricing transparent?

We know that some companies have a complicated credit system where it takes more than one text credit to send to a UK mobile. So what on the face of it appears to be a great price could actually cost you up to 50% more. Are there any set up fees, minimum orders of ‘price plans’? You should be able to set up a free sms account and then purchase as many or as few sms credits as you need. Also, watch out for expiring credits that get removed if they haven’t been used in 12 months.

Does the company use a direct connection to the UK Netowrks?

This is a popular topic amongst us sms software companies and has been covered thoroughly in a previous article. All you really need to know is that non UK sms gateways suffer reliability problems and often have poor or non existent delivery reporting. So a UK connection is the only option.

Where are the sms software company’s systems hosted?

How reliable are the servers that your business sms service will run on? What back up procedures are in place? Are there any guarantees on ‘up time’?
Granted this is all dull technical stuff but it’s important that you can rely on the service being up and running 100% of the time.

Does the sms service have an opt-out / unsubscribe tool provided at no cost at the point of setting up the account?

The best practice guidelines issued by the Mobile Marketing Association state that you need to have a text opt-out option on your text campaigns. This means that customers who no longer wish to receive your sms alerts can quickly and easily remove themselves from your list. If the sms software company is not offering this as standard, then you could find yourself on the wrong side of the law.

What are the payment options?

Flexibility is the key here. You should be able to make payments for sms text credits online and automatically. Are the text credits added to your account automatically or does someone have to add them manually. Can you pay by invoice if you wish without a price penalty?

What experience does the sms software company have?

How long have they been about and who have they worked for? Mobile marketing is not just about having an efficient sms solution but it’s also about getting the advice in getting the strategy right. Choose a company that want to get involved in helping your sms campaigns succeed.

It’s for this reason that we’ve had a surge of software developers that are switching to Text Marketer’s SMS API. We’ve put together an incredibly attractive package that allows software developers to switch SMS API suppliers with the minimum of effort.

Many software companies have bulk sms deals in place that are no longer competitive and in some cases we’ve been able to reduce the cost per text by as much as 2.5 pence. For a company sending around 50,000 sms per month, that’s a saving of £15,000 a year.

Switching to a lower cost SMS API is not just about the cost saving though. There is redevelopment work to be done that requires time and resource. There’s also the uncertainty that comes with a new supplier. Are they going to be reliable and trustworthy?

The software developer package that we’ve put together addresses these concerns and provides a solution that minimises the hassle and worry about choosing a new SMS API provider.

Why choose Text Marketer for your bulk SMS API

• One low, flat rate per sms, regardless of the sms volume that your systems send
• No set fee or monthly fee
• Loyalty rebates for long term customers
• Free test platform with as many free text credits as you need
• Unlimited technical support – both over phone and on site
• Dedicated integration technician – express response – all support queries addressed within 30 minutes
• Connections to all UK networks (Not via the Isle of Man or Jersey.)
• Bullet proof systems and IT infrastructure – hosted with global leader Rack Space – 100% ‘uptime guarantee’
• All systems developed within Text Marketer
• Blue chip  clients include Microsoft, Samsung, MOD, Exxon Mobil, Red Bull, Interflora, Cineworld etc.

So the cost savings are there to be had! We’d welcome the opportunity for you to put us to the test. You can be sure that we’ll do all we can to make the transition as hassle free as possible. Please contact us on 0117 9249207 for a chat.

The charity has put together a Quizaid Pack that contains quiz questions and all the materials needed to publicise the quiz event. In order to make it easier for fund raisers to apply, Christian Aid are using Text Marketer’s SMS software to allow people to apply for their pack by text.

The process is simple. Applicants simply text the word QUIZ, followed by their name and address to short code 88802. The sms software then captures the person’s mobile number and their details and sends them an automated text response letting them know that their pack is on its way. By making it easier for people to apply, the charity is maximising the response, resulting in more fund raising events taking place throughout the country.

Lower costs drives increased use of sms software

SMS software and text response services have become increasingly affordable in recent months. Text Marketer’s sms software is completely free with sms credits at the lowest rate in the industry. A text response service costs just £25 per month and there is no minimum period or contract. The service even has a 7 day trial so that companies can see that the service is right for them before spending any money.

With such low costs, many more companies are incorporating an sms service into their marketing and communications strategies. By including a text response on advertising and marketing materials, companies can expect uplift in overall response of between 15% and 20%. Additionally, by giving customers the option, around 50%, choose to make contact with the company by text. (source Mobile marketing association)

To find out more about how sms software can benefit your organisation, please give us a call on 0117 9249207. Alternatively, you can set up your sms response service by following the simple wizard.

Will we see an sms voting service in 2015?

As the dust settles on the election, Orange have released some figures revealing that 20% more of us would bother to vote if there was a text messaging service that allowed us to do so.

The stats come from the Orange Election Report, which surveyed about 2000 nationally representative adults. As well as the need for a text messaging service, the survey also found that nearly a quarter of 18-24 year olds have received information on the general election via social networks and 11% have actually commented on it using social networking sites.

Anthony Parker, author of the Orange Digital Election Report says: “It’s clear from this research that the use of technology by the political parties has made politics more accessible and interactive, and ultimately more interesting to a younger audience.”

What’s particularly striking about this research is the implications that it has for our electoral system in the future. If 20% more people voted because there was a simple text message service, then it would seem very probable that this type of technology is lkely to become more prevalent next time around in 2010.

A text message voting service would undoubtedly bring some logistal challenges around data security and the voting procees would also need to be fairly slick or people would lose interest and either not bother or vote in the tradional way.
So let’s hope that sms services and technology in general play a more central role in engaging the country’s younger voters with the whole process.

Companies wanting to find out more about how they can reduce the impact of their waste on the environment, now have the option of texting a keyword to a 5 digit short code. The text response option is now being implemented on a number of business marketing materials being deployed during 2010.

Traditionally an sms service such as this has been used mainly by business to consumer companies but increasingly B to B companies are taking advantage of the increased response rates that can be achieved. If you give people the choice around half of them will choose to make their initial contact by sms. (source – Mobile marketing Association)

The take up of sms services by business to business companies has been surprisingly slow and the feeling that sms solutions are the preserve of the consumer still remains failry well entrenched. The notion that you need thousands of people to make sms marketing worth it just don’t stand up. Just because a campaign is going out to a relatively low number of recipients, it doesn’t mean that it is in any way a less effective channel.

SMS services – an attractively low cost option

A text response service costs just £25.00 a month and there’s no set up fee or minimum term. An outbound sms account can be set up for free and you can purchase as many text credits as you need for your campaign.

If you’d like to find out more about how sms could work for your business, please give us a cal on 0117 9249207.

When most people think of how their business might use a web sms service, they think of using it a marketing tool, a way of contacting thousands of customers or prospects with a sales message.

Well that it of course true but there’s also a much more mundane and down to earth use for a text messaging service. Think of the mobile phone simply as another way of communicating with people. In the same way that you might drop someone a quick email you can also send them a text alert. It doesn’t have to be all about selling, it could just be that you have an interesting bit of news that you’d like to let everyone know about.

Increasingly customers are using web sms as a way of keeping in touch with members of staff, particularly if they are home based or spend much of their time out of the office.

Sending someone an sms that requires the recipient to do something, creates a sense of urgency that sending an email just doesn’t achieve. It’s all too easy for people to say the email never arrived or got stuck in a spam filter. So if you need something done now, then sending a text is an obvious way to go.

Whether you’re sending a text to an individual or thousands of people, the whole process takes a minute or so and there’s no software to download or install.

As there is no minimum order or set up fee, Text Marketer’s sms software is the ideal tool if you’re looking to dip your toe in the water with web to sms. The text message prices are the lowest in the industry and there is a ‘best buy guarantee’ that ensures that you are getting the best deal.

Ever wondered why all the big companies use Mobile Marketing?

If you think any of your customers own a mobile phone (and there’s a fair chance of that) then, a lot.

In a recent study 66% of British consumers said they want to receive SMS alerts from companies they deal with. But, only 3% of them do! Clealy, this is a huge opportunity for those companies who embrace mobile marketing to positively differentite themselves from their competitors by satisfying this 63% ‘demand gap’.

There are 3 main ways businesses should use Mobile Marketing today:

• SMS Alerts – instead of emails or letters, send an SMS with any reminders, offers, appointments, etc.
• SMS Competitions/Voting/Research – use 2-way (the ability to receive responses back) messaging to run competitions or conduct customer research.
• SMS Text Response (see the video) – have the ability to receive sales enquiries & customer feedback by text message.

The last one of these is crucial. If you give people the choice, half will respond to an advert by text and ad’s with a text response option generally get a 15-20% higher response rate!

Customers want and like mobile marketing but some companies seem reluctant to embrace it as part of their marketing strategy. The ‘big boys’ have been doing it for years and year on year a larger percentage of their marketing budget is going on mobile – this says a lot.

Using Text Marketer’s SMS Software you can integrate the 3 main mobile marketing ‘musts’ from above within a matter of minutes. Our text message prices are the lowest in the industry and backed by our Best Buy Guarantee. There are no set up, monthly fees or contracts so why not start satisfying the 63% ‘demand gap’ with your customers?