SMS Marketing Articles - Page 3 of 3

Short Message Service Resellers

Businesses and organizations that are starting short message service (SMS) marketing campaigns may want to consider short message service resellers to provide them with the ability to send SMS text messages. By knowing about the pros and cons of short message service resellers, businesses can decide if an SMS reseller will meet their text messaging needs.

Setting up an account with a short message service reseller is one of several ways that businesses and organizations can start an SMS text message marketing campaign. SMS resellers buy bulk SMS text messages, often in the form of credits, from SMS text message service providers, then resell these messages or credits to organizations at a profit, though usually for less than it would cost the organization to buy the messages on their own. For example, the short message service provider might sell text messages for 10 cents each, but by buying in bulk the reseller can get a large number of text messages for 6 cents each. The SMS reseller then sells some of those SMS bulk text messages to a business for 8 cents each.

There is often a partnership between short message service providers and resellers. The short message service provider usually offers support for the SMS reseller, such as templates for creating their website and tools for managing customer accounts. The SMS provider oversees the technical aspects of sending the SMS text messages, while the reseller handles the customer service. This can benefit the customer in several ways:

Short message service resellers can offer SMS text messaging packages that are designed specifically to meet the needs of particular types of organizations, such as SMS text message marketing for retail businesses or medical text alerts for health care organizations.
SMS resellers may provide a more cost effective way for businesses to send international SMS text messages than businesses are able to find on their own.
Short message service resellers often have deals that are more economical for businesses than they might get by buying directly from short message service providers, especially if the number of bulk SMS messages the business sends is relatively small.

There are two main drawbacks to using an SMS reseller. The first is that it is fairly easy to become a short message service reseller and the industry is relatively new, which means that it can be difficult to know if a reseller is going to provide quality, ongoing service to businesses.

The second potential drawback of SMS resellers is that no matter how reliable the reseller is, they may have little to no control over the technical aspects of the SMS text messaging, so if they are not partnered with a high quality short message service provider the business may end up with unreliable service. The SMS provider is often invisible to the customer, so it can be difficult to know if a company offering SMS text messaging is a reseller and which provider they work with.

Businesses should consider the pros and cons of short message service resellers before deciding to use one. If they decide an SMS reseller is right for their business, they should look for one that has established a good reputation both for customer service and for reliability. In addition, the business should make sure the reseller’s pricing fits with their budget and offers them a good deal, and they should read all the fine print so they understand the service that they are purchasing.

Some businesses that deal with a lot of bulk SMS text messaging may want to consider becoming SMS resellers themselves. The advantage of this is the opportunity to buy SMS messages at a discount and make a profit on the ones they resell, but the business will also need to find a reliable SMS provider and be equipped to handle the customer service end of reselling SMS text messages.

SMS Text Messaging Providers

You can market your business with the help of SMS marketing. This article defines what SMS text message providers can do for you and reviews three major SMS text messaging providers.

One of the challenges of business is reaching your potential customers. As technology advances, there are new challenges in marketing — and new opportunities. You have a a great chance to leverage the very popular form of communication known as the text message. SMS (short message service) text messages are usually sent via cell phone. This is an instant and convenient way for people to communicate with each other. And businesses are starting to see that SMS text messaging can offer a great way to reach customers. Indeed, a number of major businesses, including McDonalds, have used text message marketing campaigns to reach their customers.

SMS text messaging is a fast way to get the word out on new promotions, as well as encourage customers to come in and use special coupons. When you write effective, brief ad copy for to send out via cell phone, you can share information with potential customers, and encourage them to take action. Plus, because it is a text message, most people will see what you send. A text message commands attention. Before you can launch a text message campaign, though, you need to access to a subscriber list, and a way to efficiently send out your ads. Luckily, there are SMS text messaging providers that can do this. Here are three of the most popular SMS text messaging providers:

Skymo: This SMS text messaging provider is actually based in the United Kingdom. However, that does not stop Skymo from accessing markets around the world, including the United States. You can have your ads texted to a wide variety of people quite quickly. However, the British company does its business in the U.K. currency, the pound sterling. As a result, due to the higher value of the pound to the U.S. dollar, you might find that you advertising campaign budget does not go as far as you would like.
Simplewire: One of the easiest ways to get started with a SMS text messaging marketing campaign is to get a Simplewire starter pack. Everything you need to begin an effective text messaging campaign is provided. This is a great way to determine whether or not text messaging is a good fit for your marketing needs. All you need to do is create the message you want sent. You can scale up your campaign later if you want.
PSWin.com: Like Skymo, this is not a U.S. company. PSWin.com is based in Europe, and uses the euro for its fees. Like the pound, the euro has a higher value than the U.S. dollar, so you might be at a disadvantage due to the currency exchange rate. One of the nice things about this company, though, is that it does not charge setup fees, nor does it charge regular subscription fees, as some other SMS text messaging providers do. You are charged on a per-subscriber basis. There are no minimum subscriber requirements, which is nice for smaller companies. Larger companies, though, may find that the per-subscriber payment is not as cost efficient as they would like.

There are plenty of other SMS text marketing providers as well. Before you commit to one, you want to know exactly what is done for you, and how much it costs. Find out how the fees are charged, and find out what you will get. In some cases, but the time you pay a setup fee, monthly subscription, and then pay for the ads themselves, things start to get a little out of hand. Do some careful research, and make sure you choose a company that will handle the technical aspects of sending SMS text messages, so that you can concentrate more on running your business.

SMS Marketing for Small Businesses

Small businesses looking for ways to spread the news about their products and services need to have a good marketing plan. However, with technology becoming increasingly important, and with young people moving away from traditional TV and newspapers, it becomes important to carefully choose your media. When thinking about possible ways to market products and services, many small businesses fail to think of cell phones. This is because it can be difficult to consider a cell phone as a medium for carrying advertising messages.

Cell phones, though, are everywhere. Nearly everyone has a cell phone. And it is possible to send and receive messages with cell phones. This makes cell phones great for marketing. Cell phone marketing is done through SMS messaging — also called text messaging. Some estimates indicate that more than one billion text messages are exchanged every month on a worldwide basis. There are a number of services that help with SMS marketing for small businesses, and you can take advantage of that to get your message.

Here are some of the advantages that SMS marketing for small businesses can have for your enterprise:

A mobile phone does not have to be online to receive an SMS message.
Almost any cell phone can receive a text message — it does not have to be a smart phone.
It is possible for customers to respond easily to your SMS text message.
SMS text messages grab attention, and cell phone users are likely to read them.
SMS text messages can be save for later.

You can send out advertising messages to your customers and potential customers en masse, at a very reasonable rate, when you use SMS marketing strategies. You can send out promo codes and coupons that can be used at your store, and you can share sale information. Another strategy is to make joining a SMS text club feel exclusive. Offer special “insider” deals to customers who sign up for special SMS marketing, and you can increase your ROI.

How SMS Marketing for Small Businesses Works

It can help to understand how text message marketing works on behalf small businesses. It is fairly straightforward. There are SMS providers that have access to subscriber lists. They can also help you craft SMS marketing messages if you want the help. You decide on a message, and let the service know. The service sends out hte text message to the subscribers you are interested in. Your potential clients get a look at our advertising. Payment for SMS marketing services are often made with a monthly fee, although some providers have per-message fee.

What you choose to do for your small business depends on you individual situation and needs. Carefully consider your target audience, and whether your potential customers are likely to use cell phones and be interested in receiving SMS marketing messages. If it appears that your business could use the help of a text messaging marketing campaign, you might want to compare providers.

SMS marketing really can be a good tool for small businesses. If you are struggling to reach a wider potential customer base, the use of text messages sent to cell phones can be a real help, since these messages can reach almost anyone.

History of Short Message Service (SMS)

As SMS (Short Message Service) celebrates 25 years, it’s a good time to look back at its history and see how it’s developed since 1985. This article reviews the history of Short Message Service, aka text messaging.

Origins of SMS

SMS made its appearance in 1985, beginning as a German/French team including Bernard Ghillebaert, Friedhelm Hillebrand, and Oculy Silaban. Originally, the SMS service was defined in the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standards. The intent was to provide a means for transfer of brief, one-way information, like the news flashes one sees on the bottom of a TV screen. Candidates for inclusion were stock market quotes, sports score updates, weather reports, and up-to-the-minute traffic information. Short messages sent from providers’ websites were also planned. It was aimed at business people. The first SMS message actually sent, and beginning the history of short message service (SMS), was a Christmas greeting on December 3, 1992, traveling on Vodafone’s GSM network in the UK.

SMS was not expected to be the success it turned out to be, and that’s one reason why it was originally free. Its popularity and its youthful audience surprised service providers, who did not mount an extensive advertising campaign and didn’t, in fact, spread the word much at all until after it began to make waves. This was partly because it had a steep learning curve. The industry didn’t anticipate that people would be up to the challenge. But young people not only were up to the challenge; they actually found the challenge of the complexity worked to their advantage in that the medium could be used free from parental oversight and intrusion because adults were finding the medium too challenging to take it on. That there was initially no cost was an added bonus.

SMS Developments

The limitation to messages of 160 characters in English (fewer in alphabets that have characters that use up more memory. As people worked to communicate as fully as possible in this limited medium, new abbreviations and types of abbreviations arose. Because these spellings were new inventions, they spread slowly among users and added to the protection people felt using the medium: outsiders, which included anyone who wasn’t using the medium, now were challenged both by the complexity of the technology and the opacity of the language that was used.

In early SMS history, when the first prepaid airtime became available, SMS charges didn’t exist, and people could avoid be shocked by their usage costs if they texted instead of making expensive voice calls, SMS text message marketing popularity increased markedly. By 2000, monthly texts per user averaged 35. By 2010, the monthly average was 357. But as SMS usage took off, services realized that they should be charging for SMS. Nevertheless, the impetus was there, and the popularity of SMS, instead of being curtailed by the new charges, continued to grow apace.

Short message service history developed quickly with the use of short codes, another SMS innovation appeared in the United States in 2003. These 5-6 digit codes (short codes) are not only easier to remember than regular telephone numbers, but they made an ideal fit with value-added services, including subscribing to SMS campaigns from the customer’s favorite vendors, voting on television shows, accessing premium mobile services, and ordering ringtones, the latter two being the next development that emerged in the wake of the enormous popularity of SMS text messaging. However, by 2009, premium services were in less demand, and standard services were in greater demand. Nevertheless, the use of the SMS service is expected to continue to grow and generate $233 billion in income in calendar year 2014.

Recent SMS history developments include businesses learning to use SMS text messaging for SMS niche marketing and contact with select audiences. There are SMS alert systems for educational institutions, virtual concierge services for travelers, parent-contact programs for K-12 schools, patient contact programs for healthcare providers, community contact programs for churches, and advertising programs for restaurants, hotels, and more.