Tag: bulk sms

API Service Provider for Your SMS Marketing Campaign

We use various applications for personal and professional reasons- food delivery, apparel, bookings, job search, messaging, transactions, etc.

Businesses also use applications that cater to their unique requirements. For example, we do know that Bulk SMSes are an important component of marketing. But do you also know that there are application tools that let enterprises build their software including bulk SMS?

With a bulk SMS API or Application Programming Interface, you can exchange any number of customized messages with your audience over a self-styled SMS sending and receiving channel.

SMS marketing is a crucial component of enterprise communication, and a Bulk SMS API will benefit you in the following ways:

  • With a Bulk SMS API gateway present across all your technological networks and business platforms, you can have a unified functional core to boost seamless communication.
  • APIs offer flexibility and scalability, which means that you can easily integrate new features without seeking a third party’s assistance.
  • It is a cost-effective solution considering the expandability.
  • You can make the most of its high transfer and delivery speed, and send hundreds of messages in the click of a button apart.
  • A reliable SMS API ensures data security.
  • Enterprises can also send messages in various formats and get real-time reports on response and delivery.

Meanwhile, Kirusa Konnect offers an API SMS platform that enables inbound and outbound messaging via Konnect SMS service. You can provide your purchased number as ‘from’ number and include the text message that will be sent. You can also add sender mask in the API request which is not mandatory. When sending SMS using Konnect SMS API Token, you can personalize your sender ID. This means that when the user receives a message, it will show your company name or brand from where the SMS message has come from rather than a number.

Konnect API also enables you to execute outbound calls and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) campaigns. Use cases Include payment reminder, OTP authentication, social appeal, travel updates, mass awareness, and audio content.

The Konnect APIs enable you to send text messages to end users, receive messages into Konnect platform, make outbound calls to end users and configure IVR campaigns for user engagement. All events are notified via a call back mechanism to your web server. Subscribe to a 30-day free trial to avail the service.

An Affordable High Deliverability Bulk SMS Service

Bulk SMS is a powerful tool to boost your mobile marketing campaign. With almost 98% open rates surpassing other forms of marketing across email or social media, SMS continues to be the most ubiquitous methods to reach out to users.

The reasons are as follows:

  • Bulk SMSes are the most convenient and cost-effective means to reach out to your audience without hassles. By signing up with a reliable bulk SMS provider, one can send hundreds of messages with the click of a button.
  • Owing to its higher open rate compared to any other medium, SMSes have more chances of being read.
  • With SMSes, you have better chances of implementing a clear call-to-action or CTA and generate better response rates.
  • Almost everybody owns a mobile phone whether they have an interconnect connection or not.
  • SMS gives you the chance to keep it short, concise, and simple. You can get the message across in a few words without taking the reader’s time.

Therefore, a few tips to remember before you begin shooting out your promotions:

  • Include incentives for the user. Why would anybody bother reading your messages unless they are getting a discount or an offer?
  • Do not go ballistic with the messages on a single day. Constant messaging and promotions irk your users, and it should be moderate, exclusive and personalized. Hence, it is a good idea to update the client database, and see how each user differs based on their age and location. Make efforts to customize what you are sending and do not copy your competitors all the time.

Try Kirusa Konnect’s Bulk SMS Service, where you can customize messages while also keeping track of the delivery and ROI metric.

  • If you regularly send billing or transaction details to customers, you have an excellent opportunity to initiate a clear call-to-action using the extra whitespace. Just make sure that the codes, keywords or offers blend well with the transactional message and do not lose their importance. You may even look up quite a few SMS marketing services that enable this.

Kirusa Konnect has a feature called SMS Tagging that lets the company insert messages and codes within transaction SMS and billing details. Transactional SMS tend to have a higher click-through rate (CTR) compared to promotional SMS because they contain personalized information about the client’s account and transactions.

  • Most people scroll through apps and social media accounts before noticing SMSes. Social media trends and updates significantly influence our buying decision and promotional SMSes act like a ‘final push.’ Hence, it is a great idea to integrate WAP links into your SMS that direct people to your site or app.

Kirusa Konnect is an affordable provider of Bulk SMS service, which apart from boosting SMS marketing and keeping track of your success metrics, offers tools to evaluate the ROI of bulk SMS messaging campaigns.

Bulk SMS for Business

Ekon is in the middle of an important client meeting when his phone starts buzzing. Assuming an emergency, he excuses himself and takes the call. However, the call is from an insurance sales agent regarding a new health scheme. Visibly appalled, Ekon hangs up and slams the phone down.

On the other side, the sales agent, Mary wonders what went wrong. She immediately moves on to another lead only to receive a call on her mobile number. Not wanting to miss what might be an important message, she takes it. The person on the line is another sales agent offering a housing scheme. Mary instinctively wants to slam down the receiver, but she does not. A thought strikes her. They have been making cold calls at all hours. This is precisely what went wrong with the previous customer.

Mary communicates the problem to the team lead, and they decide to find a different approach. The team realizes that cold calls hardly work for brands anymore if executed with a vanilla approach.

More brainstorming and research bring them to the conclusion that a strategized SMS engagement plan is perhaps a smarter alternative to reach out to their audience. The company already has hundreds of customers. All they need to do is collate their databases and send the right text message, that will asynchronously reach them.

Before they begin sending them out, it is necessary to have an efficient SMS marketing system for regular delivery and response. The Insurance Agency decides to sign up with Kirusa’s Konnect portal that offers a robust strategized set of bulk SMS solutions.

Initiating a Bulk SMS Marketing Campaign
  • The Konnect CPaaS portal offers a free trial for users to register and activate a new account.
  • Upon successful account activation, the insurance agency is asked to select a Sender Mask. The Sender Mask is the identity of the SMS sender. Brands can use a custom name or number as the preferred Sender Mask.
  • They are then asked to upload a list of those to whom the messages are to be sent. The option of a DND or do-no-disturb filter is provided to prevent them from sending promotional SMS to people who have unsubscribed.
  • The agency uploads its content or message on the platform and schedules a preferred shoot-off time.
  • They also have a complete metric to keep track of deliveries and response rates. The Konnect CPaaS portal also offers tools to evaluate the ROI of the bulk SMS messaging campaign.
Complementing Your Bulk SMS Marketing Campaign

The Agency also takes effective measures to generate quality leads for their scheme. This is also to ensure that word gets around quickly amongst as many people as possible. Hence, they advertise the insurance policy across various media channels with an SMS code. This serves as the CTA or call-to-action.

People who see the advertisement send a text to the number and express interest regarding this policy. The Insurance Agency captures the phone number of the sender. This is how a lead is generated. The agency sales team then reaches out to these leads to turn them into customers.

SMS marketing is an effective method to gain traction for your business. In spite of the popularity of smartphones, SMS remains the most accessible means of communicating to the masses. One must also remember that SMS marketing methods should not be implemented in isolation. It is always a good idea to integrate them with various channels. An omnichannel experience provides leeway for maximum customer engagement.

4 Common SMS Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Lately, Tamara has been receiving a lot of unsolicited messages from some new bakery on the block. They apparently have the best dough balls and serve the most delicious chocolate brownies, but she needs no reminding every two hours.

It is not like Tamara is indifferent to brownies. She loves them, and garlic dough balls are amongst her favorites. Plus, the bakery is only 2 kilometers away.

In fact, she has attempted ordering a few times, but the experience has been unsatisfactory. They keep transferring her call and never give a discount. In short, their messages have been unreliable.

On top of that, the abbreviations are enough to put anybody off, and some messages are just blank texts. Tamara decides to dismiss them and moves onto another bakery.

Classic Mistakes

Our bakers were making the classic SMS marketing mistakes that we take no notice of sometimes.

NO CTA: There were hardly any clarity on CTA or call-to-action in the promotional SMSes that Pristina bakery was sending to its customers. While they introduced discounts and coupons, nobody knew what to make of them because there was no mention of time and day. A typical message from them went: “Hi. We been missin u. Come by. Grab a discount on your next order.” They never mentioned on what and when. Poor Tamara chose the wrong day.

Unorganized SMS List: First of all, you do not say you miss somebody on the first meeting. Pristina Bakers made this blunder. Perhaps Tamara did not notice, but many of us would realize that the bakery was sending uncustomized generic messages to every person on their database. Considering that she had never bought anything from them, “we been missin u” was highly inappropriate.

Forgot to Keep a Clock: Nobody needs to remember croissant and donuts every two hours. Not during dinner, in the middle of a meeting or before going to bed. The bakers did precisely that. They kept sending uncustomized messages to people too often without any profound CTA. Also, they did not give their leads the option to unsubscribe or opt out, causing many of them to dismiss the promotion.

Isolated the Campaign: People scroll through food delivery apps and social media accounts even before noticing any SMS. Social media trends and updates influence our buying decisions, and promotional SMSes act like the “final button.’ Plus, one can integrate WAP links into SMSes that direct people to their site or app. Pristina Bakers had done none of that and made a leap of faith with SMS marketing. They seemed like intruders.

In conclusion, no matter how convenient or cost-effective SMS marketing may be, one has to tread carefully. It needs extensive research much like any other form of marketing. Part of the effort will also involve choosing a credible SMS marketing service provider.

Despite best measures, marketers often fall short, and it is safe to have an SMS marketing system in place to assist in the implementation.

Watch Out: How CPaaS is Taking Over and What to do About It?

Communications Platform as a Service or CPaaS is taking over the industry with new benchmarks for enterprise communication. More businesses are competing to provide an Omni-channel Experience via robust cloud infrastructure and secure communication.

In the fast-paced business space, companies who do not keep up with existing trends will have a hard time catering to customer expectations. Hence, you must steer along the following lines-

  • Check if your vendor has partnerships with enough network carriers so that it is easier to carry out inbound and outbound communications. For example, Kirusa’s Konnect CPaaS Portal which offers a comprehensive suite of inbound and outbound communication tools enables you to connect with the target audience via mobile phones through its partnership with several network carriers.
  • Assess the scalability of the API that your vendor offers. Its length, breadth, and depth should be able to accommodate your organization’s evolving needs. For example, if you have to include touch-to-video-chat features, data communication, or VoIP phone system in a customer-facing smartphone app within a year, you don’t want to go to another vendor.
  • An Omnichannel experience is sought-after by many enterprises for gaining a competitive advantage. But with most large businesses now operating across multiple channels (online and mobile), customer service has become the key factor that influences a buyer’s decision to choose one provider over another.
  • Secure communication has become a significant concern because accessing CPaaS vendor APIs requires the use of credentials. If not handled with care, exposed credentials allow third-parties to access the company’s infrastructure.
  • There has to be constant interaction between the vendor-developers and those who use it, one that surpasses traditional support channels. An active user/developer community thrives on shared practices, codes, tools, and skills. Developers who are more willing to share the same with their users are more capable of implementing their features well.

In the fast-paced and evolving cpaas market, and opportunities are numerous but one needs to keep track of the most recent updates. It is also a battleground for companies to keep up with existing trends and engage in the best possible manner with customers.