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

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

Eliminate Waste

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

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

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

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

“The best way to get something done is to begin”

The unknown author of the quote above makes a point that we can all recognise. Procrastination in putting a mobile marketing plan together is completely understandable. Inertia is a powerful force. To counter this, one of the strengths of mobile marketing is that you can get going quickly and efficiently and with next to no budget.

There will be no need for committees, conference calls or meetings in bland hotels halfway up the M5. You will be able to set up a free bulk SMS account and have your first SMS campaign out the door is something less than half an hour.

Mobile marketing isn’t mysterious or complicated, you just need to have an idea about what you like to communicate with your customers, prospects or staff . You only have 160 characters to get your point across, so you’ll not need to chew your pencil, agonising about the right creative.

Set up an account now, used promo code NIRVANA10 and your account will come preloaded with 100 free text credits, so your first SMS marketing campaign could cost you nothing. Using your bulk SMS account is very straightforward and intuitive. In terms of button pressing help you can either watch a video on the basics or if you prefer you can download full written documentation.

When you first log into your account, you’ll be taken to a screen called Quick Send. From here, you can send yourself a test message from just one screen. You simply copy and paste your numbers , write your message and press submit .

So now could be the time to get started. If you would like to chat through how mobile marketing could work for you, please feel free to call us on (0117) 205 0202.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No need to panic if you don't have a mobile marketing plan.

Mobile marketing is on the move. For years now we have been told that the breakthrough is on its way. But at last, 2012 might be the year that mobile marketing genuinely becomes mainstream. It’s been a long time coming.

When Text Marketer was set up, way back in 1999, we believed that by around 2003 most companies in the UK would have adopted an integrated mobile marketing strategy. We probably underestimated the power of inertia and the fact that it’s human nature to stick closely to what you’ve always done.

So if you happen to work for one of the 70% of UK companies that don’t yet have a mobile marketing plan in place, where to start? It’s a murky and confusing world out there, cluttered with annoying terms such as QR codes (overhyped), short codes, long codes, MSDN and so on. To the uninitiated, it feels like you have to be part of some exclusive club to understand how it all works.

Getting started though, is truly just a 2 minute of affair. The best strategy is to ignore all the hype over things like QR codes and smartphone apps and concentrate on mobile tools that absolutely everyone uses. That means SMS. The starting point for the vast majority of mobile marketing strategies is to look at how bulk sms can be used as a way of communicating with your customers prospects or staff. So one of the first things that you need to do is take a look at a web-based bulk SMS tool. Once you’ve set one up you can start to explore how the use of SMS could be profitable for your business.

There is no cost to setting up a bulk SMS account with Text Marketer. You will also receive some free text credits for testing. Once you’ve logged on and started to send a few texts you’ll probably come up with all sorts of mobile marketing ideas. Please feel free to give us a call on 0117 2050202 and we can help you develop those ideas into an integrated mobile marketing plan.

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

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

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

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

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

Bulk SMS Cost Saving

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

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

It seems that in Israel, cities with large Muslim populations such as Jerusalem, residents have had enough of being woken at odd hours with the discordant wailing. The suggestion of using bulk SMS to call the faithful to prayer is obviously causing a good deal of commotion in the delicately balanced state of Israel.

While the bulk SMS solution might be practical, the local Muslim population is rightly furious at the concept of losing the ‘Azan’ and replacing it with a soulless chirrup from a mobile. Maybe the bulk SMS could contain a link taking you to ‘Azan app’, allowing to tailor your own waking up in the middle of the night experience.

There’s no end to how bulk SMS can be used and this has to one of the weirder applications.

If you’d like to wake people up at unsocial hours for a spot of praying, then you can get your own free account here. You’ll only be able to wake 10 people for free and then you simply pay a low cost per text credit.

Your bulk SMS text credits don’t expire and there’s no contract or monthly fee. We’re also always available for a chat, so do call us on 0117 2050202.

With so many activities to choose from, it’s easy to miss out on some great offers such as the recent free ballot for free premiership football tickets or discounts at events at the O2 Arena.

SMS has an open rate of of over 98%, so there’s no more effective way of getting a message directly to someone. Compared to email where open rates are as low as 20% of less, a web sms service is an obvious and cost effective choice for many companies.

The web sms service is run entirely by John Lewis. They are able to upload the different groups of members that are then held securely in their account. It’s then just a case of writing the message, setting the date and time they want the message to arrive and hitting a submit button. Setting up the web sms service is done in seconds. Every new user gets 10 free text credits to try the web sms service for free before deciding if they want to buy more sms credits.

Each web sms account also comes with a free unsubscribe service which allows users who no longer wish to receive further texts, to easily remove themselves from the sms list. Users who unsubscribe can no longer receive message from that company. Using the unsubscribe service with a web sms service is not only best practice, it’s also a legal requirement.

Set up a free web sms account today and see how it could benefit your organisation. We’re always on hand if you’d like chat about this, so please feel free to call us on 0117 2050202.

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

SMS Costs Cut by 48%

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

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

Stuart Melville from Ashley Wells Recruit in Leicester commented:

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

Making the Switch

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

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

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

Get up and Running in 90 Seconds

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

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

“Dear Henry,

I am really impressed with your customer focus and professional approach as a direct result of sending out texts to over 1000 customers, I had an amazing response with over 100 customers booking in to my clinic, within 48 hours of receipt. This generated many thousands of pounds of custom. I will continue to use your services and will be sending out message on a monthly basis.

I have recently been asked to attend local business forums to offer professional advice in how to generate business and survive!! I will certainty be promoting your company as an effective means to help with customer communication and generation of business, Please feel free to use my feedback on your site.”

Regards

Lisa Monaghan-Jones
Managing Director
Internal Beauty Clinic (Medical aesthetics)
Shepley, Huddersfield

So set up a free account and your bulk sms campaigns could be generating new business for you in no time at all. Talk to us, we’ll explain how it all works and how to get the most out of mobile marketing. We can be contacted on 0117 2050202.

Develop a Pointless App

99% of apps are useless and get used just once. This was the stark finding of Blackberry, who reported that the vast majority of the 200,000 odd apps are rubbish. Every company and brand it seems, has felt it an imperative to launch an app and be seen as a front runner in new technology. This has mainly been driven by brand managers and their agencies, massaging egos with little thought about how their new baby is going to be useful. They also conveniently ignore the fact that only 25% of their target market will actually be able to download or use it.

Unless your app is providing something genuinely useful to the customer, then it’s really not worth going through the pain, cost and distraction of developing something that most users will think is pants.

Open a free bulk sms account with Text Marketer and you’ll some free text credits for text. We’re always happy to discuss how mobile marketing might work for you, so if you’d like to chat, please call us on 0117 2050202.

Just Sell Sell Sell 

Although mobile marketing is the most responsive direct marketing channel, you can do much more with it than just sell your wares. You can gain so much more trust and authority by mixing up your messages with other information that might actually be useful. So instead of just seeing your sms service as a route to sales, you should also view it as a way of ‘adding value’ to what you already do.

One Text Marketer customer, Jim Bailey, runs the Vauxhall dealer in Torbay. He mainly uses sms to send out service and MOT reminders. In addition he also sends out ‘motoring tips’ at certain times of year, reminding people to check washer fluid, anti freeze and oil levels etc. This might sound a tad trite but the reaction from his customers has been surprisingly positive. He has spontaneously received thanks from customers about this service and even generated some free pr in the local papers.

So if you use sms to do something slightly unusual, based upon delivering a service rather than just selling, then you might just end up with something that customers see as useful.

Set up a free account with 10 free text credits and discover how easy it is to get a bulk sms campaign up and running.

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

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

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

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

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

One Screen is Plenty

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pester Them

Your bulk sms message is an intrusion, unasked for and unwelcome. So the reason for the disturbance had better be good. If you’re wily enough to have presented an offer to the right customer at the right time and they’ve responded positively, then you’ve done incredibly well. You can so easily undo all the good that you’ve done for your business and brand by pushing your luck.

The logic goes that as they’ve responded once, then surely they’ll be up for a similar offer a week or so later? Unlikely. Having won trust and confidence, it’s all too easy to blow it by blasting out a similar bulk sms message that worked so well last time. Consumers are weary and cynical, so less is most definitely more. There’s no hard and fast rule on the optimum period between texts, but 2 to 3 weeks would seem to be a sensible average.

Set up a free account with 10 free text credits and discover how easy it is to get a bulk sms campaign up and running.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They were particularly interested in using sms as a way of receiving consumer feedback on their Sure Start Centres.  The text invited users to either complete a form or visit the concil website.

‘Cumbria County Council wants to know how you rate Cumbria’s Sure Start Children’s Centres. You can pick up a questionnaire at your nearest Centre or visit www.cumbria.gov.uk to take part. Have your say!’

Text Marketer has noticed a marked increase in the number of local councils using its web based sms software to keep in touch with its residents. Councils have traditionally been seen as rather faceless and unapproachable and using sms software to allow people to interact is an innovative way of breaking that reputation.  By allowing people to reply to the texts they are sent, people are able to get their view and opinions across in a easy, time efficient way.

One of the great advantages of using sms software is that there are no set up or ongoing costs. This allows councils to run test campaigns at very low cost. Additionally, as local councils tend not to routinely make purchases using credit or debit cards, Text Marketer’s sms software has an invoicing option, where users can raise an invoice and have it emailed to the correct person for processing.

Setting up a free account takes a minutes or so. The sms software comes with 10 free text credits for testing. Experienced account managers are on hand if you need to discuss any element of your partucalur campaign. They can be contacted on 0117 2050202.

More Haste, Less Speed

Mobile is unlike any other marketing channel. It’s quick to deploy. Really quick. You can have an idea in the shower and have the bulk sms campaign landing on customers’ phones by 9.30 the same morning. This most nimble of direct marketing channels has impatient marketers rushing to get their campaigns out in double quick time.

On more than one occasion though we’ve had panicked managers on the phone asking (more in hope than expectation), whether it’s possible to recall a campaign once it’s been dispatched. The mistakes are normally minor such quoting an incorrect phone number or web address but nonetheless render the whole sms campaign an embarrassing cock up.

So the golden rule is to send yourself and your colleagues a test sms. Pretend you’re a customer receiving it. Does it make sense? Are the details correct? How could it be improved?

The results of the initial trial were eye opening to say the least. Steve Hallett, store manager said:

“We were surprised at the result of this campaign. Sales increased by 32% the day after we sent the messages. We’ll be using this next time we have a promotion on.”

The pilot sms campaign itself was incredibly straightforward to set up. The web based bulk sms account was set up in a minute or 2 and within 5 minutes the first test message had been sent.

Then it was simply a case of coming up with a suitable offer that would appeal to as many customers as possible and drive them to store. Text Marketer will be working closely with Bathstore over the coming months to help them refine the campaign to improve the response rates still further.

Set up a free account with 10 free text credits  and you’ll be abe to assess whether mobile marketing might work for your organisation.

Dominos Pizza franchisee Sean Callum had been using sms successfully for a few years before deciding to assess different providers to see if he could reduce his costs.

“I looked at several providers and set up trial accounts with a few of them. They all seemed to have quite similar online systems and most seemed quite easy to get to grips with.

What attracted me to Text Marketer was the price. The cost per text was almost half what I was paying previously and at least 25% cheaper than any of the other bulk sms companies that I found. The system itself is so easy to use, we got up and running in 5 minutes.

As my text costs are now lower, the ROI per sms campaign has increased. This means that I can afford to send more offers to my customer base.”

If you haven’t yet tried Text Marketer, set up a free account. You’ll get 10 free text credits for testing. There are no monthly fees or minimum order.
If you’d like to discuss how mobile marketing could work for you, please feel free to call us on 0117 2050202.