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Introducing: A free way to build your SMS marketing list

Introducing: a free way to build a mobile database, including free text messages, free shortcode, free keywords, and free opt outs (we must be mad!)

For some time we’ve been looking at how our clients obtain, build and manage their lists of mobile numbers.

Most accumulate subscribers by asking people for their mobile number and  manually uploading the details into textburst.

This works well, but does require manual work to get the contacts loaded into textburst.

And it doesn’t easily allow the subscribers to opt out of the list. A person still has to call and request their removal, and in turn our customer has to login and delete the relevant person.

It’s all a bit cumbersome and littered with possibilities for error e.g. not dealing with an un-subscribe request.

What can we learn from email marketing?

Think about how email marketing lists work:

  1. You add your email address on a form
  2. You receive an email confirmation
  3. To opt out you click a link at the bottom of an email

The whole process is fully automated and controlled by the person joining the list, it puts the end user in charge of their subscription, and makes it far easier for the list manager.

This has become the standard for email marketing and justifiably so. It’s quick, easy, requires no manual intervention, is fool proof, and very cheap.

Let’s do the same with SMS Marketing

To bring the same standards to SMS marketing we’ve made a few changes to our online SMS product textburst.

  1. You can now login and set your own keyword or keywords on the shortcode 84433.
  2. Configure your own automated responses.
  3. To join your list a subscriber texts your keyword to 84433.
  4. The subscriber receives an automated SMS response to confirm your subscription, and instructions of how to opt out in future.
  5. To opt out a subscriber simply texts “STOP” to 84433 at any time. It’s fully automated.

So now a business owner can put up a sign, advertise, ask, or by however means they wish, advertise they offer an SMS marketing list.

All their clients do is send a text in to join the list, and send a text to leave.

Our clients can login to textburst, see how many and who’s in the list, and send text messages to everyone.

So what’s the big deal?

Auto responses and opt outs are nothing new in the SMS market, so what’s the big difference here?

First off, we’ve automated everything, from choosing your keyword to setting the auto response and managing opt outs.

And secondly, with this level of automation we can pass the savings onto our customers.

We will only charge you for the messages you send to the subscribers.

With this update you can actually now build a database of mobile numbers completely free of charge, the only time you’re charged is when you send out marketing information.

So now there’s no excuse, login to textburst, click “campaigns” and reserve your keyword for free.