Our enthusiasm for apps and Smartphone technology is changing the online retail landscape beyond all recognition; 16% of all online purchases made this Boxing Day were placed via Smartphones – a 275% increase on the previous year.

The general public no longer regards the mobile internet with scepticism; they now see it as a huge convenience because it allows them to make those planned or impulse purchases irrespective of where they are. Well known high street brands need to make sure that mobile advertising is in their promotional remit if they want to take advantage of this changing culture.

SMS is an ideal marketing medium for retailers wanting to target these new style Smartphone shoppers because it allows them to quickly and cost effectively inform their customers of different promotions and reductions. All phones support SMS so it also allows them to target traditional online shoppers that have not yet caught on to the Smartphone phenomenon.

Unlike other forms of digital advertising, people do tend to read their text messages as soon as they receive them, so if retailers incorporate an embedded URL in their messages, they are giving those Smartphone shoppers the opportunity to make those impulse purchases, thus increasing their overall sales as a result.

Below are seven other reasons why we believe retailers should incorporate SMS into their overall marketing strategies:

• Concise -SMS messages are to the point. Any message that includes clearly visible information of what is on offer will encourage potential customers to respond if they are interested
• Cost effective – retailers sending SMS messages in bulk can benefit from wholesale pricing
• Wide marketing reach – SMS is used and understood by everyone
• Personalized – mobile phones are very personal so by asking some intricate questions, you can build up detailed profiles of your customers which will enable you to carry out very targeted campaigns
• Quick – you can send appropriate messages to pre-defined groups with a single mouse-click
• Easy to manage – because the majority of online SMS campaigns use email as the delivery mechanism, your customer service staff can manage all correspondence from a single, centralised point
• Easy response mechanism – thus providing your consumers a positive experience

If you want to see how SMS-based marketing campaigns could increase your overall sales why not sign up to our no-obligation trial today?

We also provide bulk SMS facilities. However, our interpretation of bulk SMS is slightly different to the norm because our application has been designed specifically for smaller organisations, allowing them to benefit from a carrier-grade service at an affordable price.

Bulk SMS is the quickest, easiest and most cost effective way to reach your entire customer base in one hit. Services are easy to set up and configurations can be saved for future campaigns.

You can send your messages online, via a secure web interface or by email using your existing email application, depending on what suits you best. Our service can also be integrated with existing back- office systems via a Developer’s API.

Our Bulk SMS service supports prepaid users (very popular with SME’s and start-up companies), or monthly invoiced accounts for larger organisations that regularly send in excess of 100 text messages on a daily basis.

Your messages are delivered almost immediately and your customers will respond because, unlike other forms of communication, people do tend to read their text messages.

We have listed below our top ten bulk SMS services that we believe can benefit smaller organisations:

1. Promotional activities – Mobile phones are very personal. By using some subtle info- gathering techniques you can quickly build up accurate profiles of your customers. You can then use this information to carry out targeted campaigns such as a special promotion on party dresses or the best ski deals
2. Payment reminders –Free up your admin staff by reducing the number of phone calls you make to customers reminding them an invoice is overdue or that their rent is in arrears
3. Delivery information – SMS is a great way of informing customers of an expected delivery time. By including a “reply” facility (allowing customers to request an alternative delivery time, for example) you will cut back on the number of wasted journeys
4. Notifications – SMS is an effective way to remind people of appointments or team briefings
5. Time-sensitive alerts – SMS is the quickest and easiest way to inform parents that school will be closed due to bad weather
6. SMS broadcast – This is the quickest way to communicate general information to a particular group of people – sports teams, for example, telling them a match has been cancelled or rescheduled
7. Calendar reminders –Sending employees SMS reminders of their daily meetings or appointments will improve your organisation’s efficiency
8. M2M monitoring – SMS is a highly efficient way of alerting support engineers of a server or storage problem
9. Business continuity – SMS can be used to facilitate your business continuity procedures, thus helping minimise downtime and loss of revenue

10. Voicemail notifications – Integrating SMS into your into your telephone system means you will never miss out on a business opportunity

Our Bulk SMS service can also be used in conjunction with our personalised replies facility, which means that all your replies are delivered to the original sender and not a central holding number or email account, allowing you to build up a relationship with your customers.

Why not sign up for a FREE trial today and see for yourself how bulk SMS could benefit your company.

This type of application is really useful if you want to promote easy- to- access services to your customer base but, unfortunately, the principle of reversed billed SMS has been widely abused over the years, with consumers being charged for messages they didn’t want to receive in the first place.

We want to tell you about our version of the application. We have turned the basic concept reverse billed SMS on its head because, with our version of the service, it is the original message sender who is charged for any replies they receive and not the receiver.

Why would the sender be willing to pay to receive these messages? Well, if we take the example of text notifications for emails (when you are out of the office) you don’t really want your customer to have to pay for replying to your message because it is not their fault you are not at your desk.

By combining our reversed billed SMS application with Microsoft Outlook email forwarding rules, you can be sure that you will always receive certain types of messages– a particularly useful feature if you need to monitor stock control or support messages, for example.

How does it work? Well, our bespoke messaging software will deduct the cost of each received message from your account (which is the same cost as for sending a message), even if the sender’s details are not logged on our database.

This neat application will complement a number of other email –to-SMS based services, appointment reminders, marketing promotions or job interviews for example, where you want to encourage consumers to reply but without necessarily incurring any costs.

If your customer is unable to keep their appointment, they can quickly reply to your message (at no charge to them) to rearrange or cancel.

If you are running a mobile-based marketing campaign (Christmas promotions, for example), SMS is a great response mechanism, but again, you might not want your customers to pay. If you combine our reversed billed SMS application with your marketing campaign, they won’t have to because you will be charged for each received reply.

Our reversed billed SMS service can also be used in conjunction with our personalised SMS application, which means that all message replies will be delivered directly to the original sender and not to an email inbox or central holding number, allowing you to build up a rapport with
your customer.

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While larger organisations can usually to “ride the wave” of tougher economic climates, an irregular cash flow can be the make or break of smaller companies.

These unpaid invoices are usually not for large sums of money and administration staff find themselves spending a disproportionate amount of time either on the phone or writing letters to chase payments, because the time spent doing this can often outweigh the value of the invoice
itself.

In these instances SMS is the ideal solution. Message reminders can be quickly sent to large groups of people simultaneously. What’s more, individual messages can be customised so that they are relevant to the recipient by including key information such as the due date and the outstanding
balance.

Writing and sending out reminder messages is simple and straightforward. All you have to do is create your message(s) and distribution lists in a spreadsheet, save the document as a CSV file, upload it, review the information and press the send button.

This is much more cost effective than spending hours on the phone and leaving endless messages that are never even listened to.

SMS can also be used by councils and housing associations, and private landlords to remind tenants that their rent is overdue.

SMS will give you the desired results because, unlike other forms of communication, people do tend to read their texts. Reminders are easy to set up and because email is normally the delivery mechanism, your admin staff can manage their emails and texts from a single centralised point.  By embedding a link to a secure online payment mechanism within the message itself, you can give your clients the option to settle their debt immediately.

What else does SMS have to offer?

• It is cheap

• It is direct

• It has enormous marketing reach

• It allows for easy interaction

• It complements other communications channels

• It is targeted

A number of organisations in the UK are already using our service to better manage their credit control processes. They are also using our personalised replies facility to build rapports with their clients at no extra cost.

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We will certainly be voting for our favorite acts via SMS and not making any complaints to the regulators!

We are also pleased to see that SMS is also playing an increasingly important role in major TV fund raisers. This year’s Comic Relief raised over £15million via SMS donations, representing more than 20% of the total amount raised.

Even in our digital age, donating via SMS remains the most popular choice because it provides consumers with the simplest, most spontaneous donation experience. They are not required to download an app, neither are they required to register their contact details or input any credit card information on a website – a process susceptible to fraud if not managed properly.

The re-introduction of SMS for reality TV and its widespread adoption by the charity sector further highlights its importance as a viable communications medium.

Below are just some of the reasons why SMS remains a popular choice for businesses and individuals:

• It is cheap – Campaign executors can purchase SMS messages in bulk and consumers can
• send and receive predefined numbers of messages as part of their contracts
• It’s quick – text messages are delivered almost instantaneously over all networks
• It has a wide marketing reach – all phones support SMS
• It is widely understood – which results in a positive user experience
• It provides an easy response mechanism – allowing for spontaneous decisions
• SMS is direct – SMS pushes itself directly into the site of the consumer
• SMS integrates seamlessly with other e/marketing activities
• SMS works – unlike other forms of communications people do read text messages when they get them and it is easy to unsubscribe to a service – you simply text stop

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Direct marketing campaigns allow you to be much more targeted.  Having said that; email, once the most popular medium for carrying out direct marketing campaigns, has also been used to excess, so much so that the majority of us tend to delete emails we do not recognise without even bothering to read the message.

SMS on the other hand, another mechanism for carrying out direct marketing campaigns and for generating sales leads, is not always used as widely as it could be. SMS-based marketing campaigns are by far the most cost-effective and reliable way to send targeted messages to your customers and prospects, particularly if you want to target large demographic areas. Furthermore, if you regularly send out more than 100 messages per day, you will also benefit from wholesale pricing.

Unlike other forms of mobile-based advertising, SMS does not rely on the user having to click on a link to activate the service or access the message. It is very direct and pushes itself in front of your customers, who can respond if they are interested, or text “stop” (or something similar) if they want their details removed from the database.

What are the other advantages of SMS?

1. Well for starters, it’s got a wider marketing reach than any other marketing medium. With more handsets than people in many western countries, cost effective direct marketing campaigns can be carried out on an international scale.
2. It is extremely cost effective. It is much more economical, both in terms of time and money, to send text messages to a large group of people than to make a phone call.
3. It’s easy. SMS-based marketing campaigns can be carried out online via a password-protected interface, or they can be integrated with your email system. This means that your staff can manage all their contacts from a single, centralised point.
4. SMS is not dependant on 3G and messages are delivered almost instantaneously. What’s more, unlike other forms of communication, the majority of your messages will be read by your customers.
5. SMS is unobtrusive because it provides users with a subtle way of making an enquiry without needing to enter into dialogue with a pushy sales person.
6. Bulk SMS services include comprehensive reporting facilities, allowing you to analyse the success of different campaigns and your ROI.
7. SMS is a great way to improve your after sales service – why not send a quick text messages to customers informing them when their order will be delivered, or to remind them of an appointment or meeting?
8. Finally, SMS provides users with an easy response mechanism and it can be used to complement other forms of marketing, such TV or radio- based advertising.

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However, our changing retail habits are presenting courier and delivery companies with a whole host of new challenges with regards to job allocation and informing consumers of their expected deliveries.

Email has traditionally been used to advise customers of their order status (i.e. that goods have been despatched, when delivery will be etc.), but if your customer does not have access to their email they might not be at home to accept the delivery. This results in a wasted journey for your driver, which can be expensive in terms of time and resource, and disappointment for your customer.
Incorporating SMS functionality into order management and delivery processes can result in huge cost savings for courier companies and improved customer service for consumers.

Unlike email, you know that your SMS messages will be delivered and read as soon as they are received, so advising your customer of expected delivery times via SMS is far less likely to result in a wasted journey.
Not only that, it is possible to incorporate additional facilities into SMS notifications –the ability to reschedule deliveries, for example, which further enhances your customer service.
Our online SMS service can detect if a PDF document is attached to an email and if so extract relevant information (such as delivery location or time) from the data file and forward it to the recipient as an SMS.

If job information is included in the email itself, our software simply converts the message into a text format, giving you the option to send information via SMS as well as email.
SMS can also be used to complement other marketing activities; it is perfect for alerting consumers of:

• Promotional offers
• For issuing vouchers which can be redeemed in store or online
• To inform customers of a new season’s collection
• To build brand loyalty

If you want to streamline your logistical processes, cut your communications costs and offer better customer service to your customers, then sign up to our no obligation trial and see how our SMS applications will benefit you.
NB. In addition if you send in excess of 50 messages per day, on average, you will also benefit from wholesale SMS prices.

This type of contactless payment could have a significant impact on our shopping habits in the not so distant future, but do mobile payments really need to be limited to sophisticated handsets? They may well be growing in popularity, but by enlarge, their penetration is still low in relative terms, so you could potentially be alienating a large portion of the population. Retailers want to take full advantage of mobile phones as a payment mechanism for the forthcoming Olympics – which are only 12 months away. Will everyone have a Smartphone in time?

According to recent research, SMS still forms a major part of mobile advertising campaigns because, unlike other e-campaigns, you dependant on a reliable 3G signal or interaction from the user. SMS messages are delivered as soon as they are sent and push themselves directly at consumers, who are not required to do anything, other than read the message.

Retailers wanting to embrace mobile technology and contactless payments should perhaps take this into account when they are introducing new marketing initiatives in order to boost sales.

Vodafone and London Taxis have certainly recognised an immediate opportunity by allowing customers who have run out of cash to send a text with the vehicle’s license number to a central code and the amount owed is charged to their phone account.

SMS-based wallets have certainly come into their own in Kenya, where almost half of the adult population uses an SMS-based payment and transfer mechanism (known as M-Pesa) to transfer money to relatives, to pay for their shopping or simply to pay their utility bills. Users don’t even need to have a bank account – which is very costly in Kenya. All they need is normal mobile phone and an M-Pesa account.

SMS also plays an important part in mobile advertising campaigns because it can be used for sending vouchers or promotional codes that consumers can redeem while they are shopping.

What does SMS have to offer?

• It is cheap
• It is direct
• It has enormous marketing reach
• It allows for easy interaction
• It complements many other marketing campaigns
• It allows you to be targeted

At toText.net we have been providing online SMS applications to a variety of different industries in the UK for the last 5 years. Our online SMS gateway can be seamlessly integrated with many back- office infrastructures via a developers API, allowing you to take advantage of this new trend.

We pride ourselves in developing applications for niche requirements, so if our standard services are not what you’re looking for, please get in touch so we can work with you to develop a solution that meets your exact needs.

We have become so dependent on them in our modern world any failures, caused by power cuts, component failure or system overload can have serious consequences.

As our dependence on machines and IT in general continues to expand and businesses increasingly automate many system processes, monitoring these systems and machines is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly as workforces become more dispersed. The right person, at the right time, in the right place must be alerted if there is a problem or system failure.

SMS is being increasingly used for machine-to-machine monitoring for a number of different reasons:

• SMS provides “always on functionality”
• SMS is reliable – messages are delivered almost instantaneously
• SMS is not dependent on a 3G connection – vital for mobile workforces located in rural areas
• SMS is cheap

The totext.net online SMS service is being used for M2M monitoring by a number of different organisations in the UK and in response to a recent customer enquiry, we have taken M2M monitoring to the next level by adding customisable attributes to our developers API.

Our customers can now, for example, allocate their own reference number (generated by their overall management systems) to alert messages rather than have to use a generic reference generated by the database.

This facility is beneficial for safety-critical or time-sensitive applications where delays to SMS alerts being received could have disastrous effects. By implementing meaningful reference numbers to each alert, system managers can quickly compile a detailed audit trail of events by tracking what time a alert message was sent and, more importantly, what time it was delivered, in the event of a problem occurring.

Such detailed monitoring facilities also enable companies to analyse their processes and procedures to become more efficient in the way they operate.

SMS messages can be delivered to email inboxes, directly to a mobile phone, to online accounts, or to all three, depending on your preferences.

Our developers’ API is easy to install and integrates with most job management and tracking systems because it is open source. Further information can be found here.

If you want your M2M monitoring system to do something specific, then contact us because we specialise in customising our standard applications

Use email to SMS for lead generation

Email has always been a popular choice for direct marketing campaigns and lead generation. In recent years, however, it has had to compete against a number of different communications methods, with social media being the most prevalent.

As Facebook and Twitter grows in popularity, thousands of companies are jumping on the social media bandwagon without really understanding its true potential in order to try and drive more traffic to their websites and generate leads.

An obvious communications channel that has, to a large extent, remained relatively untapped in the sphere of lead generation is SMS. Here at toText.net we find this really surprising considering the sheer number of mobile phones there are in circulation.

However, while email-based campaigns are no longer that effective, email provides a great mechanism for sending out and managing SMS-based campaigns. SMS messages can be sent out in bulk to individuals or predefined groups quickly and cost-effectively using existing email systems.

No plug-ins are needed and no training is required – all you have to do is integrate our SMS gateway with your email system, which can be done easily via our developers API.

The majority of people read their text messages as soon as they receive them. Consumers are also comfortable with replying to text messages because it is quick and they do not have to enter into a conversation. What’s more all replies can be monitored in real-time. If you take all these factors into consideration, SMS driven campaigns have the potential to generate good quality leads that can be followed up and converted into orders by your sales teams.

Below are more reasons why we believe SMS should play an important role in your direct marketing activities.

• Concise -SMS messages are to the point. Any message that includes clearly visible information of what is on offer will encourage potential customers to respond if they are interested

• Direct – SMS pushes itself directly in front of your customers. There are no buttons to click or apps to download.

• Wide marketing reach – There are more mobile phones in circulation than any other technology device so the potential reach of your marketing messages are enormous

• Personalised – Unlike other devices – mobile phones are very personal. By asking some intricate questions, it is possible to build up detailed profiles of potential customers.

• Targeted – Accurate data allows you to carry out targeted marketing campaigns

• Easy to manage – Because SMS messages are generated via email, your sales staff can manage all correspondence from a single user interface. Furthermore all SMS replies are delivered directly to the original sender and not to a centralised holding box, allowing them to develop a rapport with your customers.

Sending SMS messages via email is simple Type your message as normal, but instead of typing an email address in the “To” field, you type in the recipient’s mobile number followed by @totext.net.

Your message is then delivered to our servers where it is converted into an SMS format and forwarded to your customers.

Our customised software will also allow you to deliver email attachments (PDF messages for example) as SMS messages by extracting key information from the data source.

Why not see for yourself how email to SMS can help you increase sales by taking out a free no-obligation trial today.

Click here to find out more