SMS text messaging is a booming industry, which has resulted in a proliferation of good deals, and not-so-good deals, for sending SMS text messages. Numerous SMS service providers offer deals to draw in customers and make their SMS text messaging service stand out. Individuals or groups considering using SMS text messages often wonder how to find the best SMS deals. This issue is complicated by the fact that many of the companies offering deals on SMS text messaging are relatively new, so it can be hard to know if an SMS text messaging business will be reliable.
The first thing to do when looking for SMS deals is to decide what it is you are looking for from an SMS text messaging service. Many SMS service providers try to focus on offering deals for a particular niche market, so one company may have the best deal for large businesses sending thousands of SMS text messages each month, while another may be more suited to a small company that wants to send occasional text alerts to its customers. Some questions to answer realistically when looking for SMS deals include:
- What is your reason or what are your goals for using SMS text messaging?
- What is your budget for SMS text messaging?
- How often do you expect to send SMS messages?
- How many people do you estimate you will be sending messages to at one time?
- Are you planning on using your SMS text message campaign for the long term or the short term?
- Will you only be sending messages in one country, or do you need an international service provider?
By determining your needs, goals, and budget, you can avoid falling for deals that might be good for some businesses, but don’t actually serve your particular needs.
It can be helpful when researching SMS service providers to make a table or chart comparing the features and prices offered by various service providers. Make sure you understand all of the pricing structures and fine print of the service providers you are considering. For instance, some companies may have lower per-message costs but charge a monthly fee or require you to sign a contract with a cancellation fee if you want to quit using their services before your contract is up. Also, some service providers charge per message and others sell credits, and one credit may or may not be equivalent to one message. There are other mobile marketing features you may want to consider in addition to pricing:
- Which wireless companies are compatible with the SMS service provider? Most SMS service providers work with all the major wireless companies, like Verizon and T-Mobile, but if there is a popular local wireless company in your area you would want to make sure it was compatible with your SMS service provider.
- Is there a set up fee? Can it be waived?
- Is there a contract or do you pay as you go?
- What forms of payment does the SMS service provider accept?
- How good is the customer support? You should always contact the company with questions before signing up to see if their customer service is responsive and helpful. Some service providers also have online tutorials and other helpful information for their customers on their web sites.
- How easy is the SMS service to use? Most SMS service providers let you test out their platform before you sign up. It is very common for SMS messaging services to be entirely web-based, which is convenient because it does not require you to install anything on your computer and you can access your account from any computer with an Internet connection.
- Is the SMS service provider a reseller? A short message service reseller buys credits or messages from a large service provider and rebrands and resells them, usually to specific market. This can actually provide customers with a good deal, since the resellers set their own prices and create their own packages. The one thing to be cautious about with resellers is that the quality of their service is entirely dependent on the quality of the company they bought the messages from – reseller generally handle customer service and sales, but not the technical aspects of the SMS text messaging.
The most important question about an SMS service provider may be how reliable it is. This can also be one of the more difficult questions to answer. Sometimes you will be able to find out the reputation of a service provider through word of mouth, but there are a lot of SMS providers out there and some of them are fairly new, so there may not be a lot of information about them. Be wary about trusting glowing online reviews, which may be written by affiliates or others associated with the company. As with many things, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. Money back guarantees may indicate a company stands by their services, but if the fine print is overly complicated, a guarantee may not help you. Sometimes the only way to find out if an SMS service provider is reliable is to give it a trial run. This is one reason that a provider that does not require a contract has an advantage, because you can try it for a month with low-priority, low-volume test messages at first, and then decide if you want to continue.
It may require some shopping around, but if you know what type of service you need and do some research, you should be able to find an SMS deal that’s right for your company.