Bulk SMS enables you to send a large number of SMS quickly and easily via a PC. In recent years, the use of Bulk SMS for marketing campaigns has gained in popularity. Today, Bulk SMS is used for a wide variety of texting campaigns. Some examples include: sending greetings, event and party notifications, to request a brochure or further information, product discounts, product promotions or as a direct response mechanism to outdoor advertising.
So what do you need to bear in mind when sending multiple text messages?
Price – This can be the most important feature to take into consideration due to the high volume of message sending. However it can be argued that price combined with quality and reliability needs to be balanced in order to get the best results from your texting campaigns.
Reliability– It is important to make sure that there are no problems with your SMS provider. Typical reliability issues include message delays, no delivery reports; messages not arriving and failure to set the sender ID (seeing who the message is from).
Timeliness– Message scheduling allows SMS to be sent at the right date and time. Various situations need to be taken into account- don’t send Bulk SMS when your receivers are asleep, avoid sending when recipients are at work (or the reverse if the message is work associated) and never send a message last minute unless an incentive is being offered as part of your texting campaigns.
Content– It is important that your texting campaigns contain appealing messages that convey your marketing message to your target audience without irritating them. It is all about creating the perfect message for the product. People have a tendency to like humorous and informative SMS messages. It is also important that the messages are short; lengthy messages are more likely to be ignored.
Personalise– A dynamic feature is ensuring that Bulk SMS messages are customised to individual mobile phones; for example, including the recipient’s name.
Ability to create groups – This function allows contacts and groups to be selected so that messages can be sent to a large number of people at a time, either from a list of contacts or to all the users within a particular area.
Fast upload – Fast upload of data from various file formats is extremely important when sending multiple text messages to ensure that messages are sent quickly, efficiently and at the same time.
*NEW* GDPR compliance – All marketing SMS needs to have an opt-out to allow customers to stop receiving messages from you. This will be something like: Text STOP to 80800 to opt-out. Make sure that your provider offers this functionality, and that you never miss this off a marketing SMS (it is not necessary for ‘transactional’ text messages like delivery notifications or appointment reminders).
If you would like to try Bulk SMS, please sign up for a free trial – we would love to hear what you think!
