SMS Guidebook

Take advantage of the long lasting effects that Mobile services have on marketing!

Acquire a personal check-list for people & companies who would like to use, or still use, mobile services & mobile marketing.

Companies, who had the forethought of future technology, have been using mobile marketing for quite some time as they identified the key pros of competitive marketing utilising a system that directly communicated with their consumer and end users. Due to the increasing demand of modern marketing needs, the call for this system has grown incrementally over the past few years as the SMS is cost efficient, effective, flexible and most importantly; an economically viable tool that ensures mass exposure.

The advantage; you can reach the customer – and the customer, by default, reaches you. This technology allows for unique opportunities with regards to customer loyalty, acquiring new customers, and selling.

This revolutionary interface allows you to connect quickly, directly and with simplicity in mind, to your customers.

We advise that you discuss the following points with your potential partners as to why they should pick you over other provider competitors:

- SMS Route
Question whether your SMS messages have been dispatched via a national or an international SMS route as many low-price providers send their SMS messages via third parties (in this case a country such as Asia) in order to keep their retail prices substantially low. Although this may seem advantageous, one must remember that this could have a snowball effect on the marketing as these messages are more often than not, retrieved later (and in some cases, not) rather than instantaneously.

Tip: Ask your provider for the prescribed national routes. These will be fed directly to your home mobile network operator. In other cases one should at least ask for European connections.

- The security of your data
It is imperative to always ascertain that you are protected from data misconduct at all times. This is why it is important to ask under what conditions your information will be stored. Ensure that your data is encrypted and under no circumstances will it be available to unauthorised personnel. A company’s database is the heartbeat of its foundation and it should be protected as such. As with all internet accessible software, one must ensure that the data exchange is protected in some way such as the encrypted 256-Bit SSL certificate.

Tip: Verify the SSL-certificate on the website of your provider and make sure that it is authorized by a confidential certificate authority (for example Thawte, Verisign and so on). Ask for technical conditions (encrypted verification of the data, storage etc) – a professional provider will respond to all these questions without hesitation.


- Number lookup support (supporting ported telephone numbers)
Does your provider offer high-quality solutions for finding the whereabouts of a mobile phone number? Nowadays many telephone numbers are ported to other networks. You can no longer see whether a client is MTN, Vodacom, Virgin or Cell C exclusively through their 08 codes due to this (update: In Austria alone, during the 1st quarter of 2008 over 348 000 telephone numbers were ported between various network providers!
Low-price providers/routes work without number-search support but the SMS sent will never reach the desired recipient. This is due to the code being “seen” as something it isn’t when being sent.

Tip: Ask if your provider uses this number-search service before SMS-transmissions – but far better is to get a test account, because through this you have the possibility to send a SMS to a ported telephone number of a workmate or friend.

- price vs. quality
Oftentimes an offer from a provider looks cheap but afterwards turns out to be more costly. Cheaper prices make it impossible to send via national SMS-routes or rather, direct connections from 1 mobile network to another. Consequently SMS spam can be accumulated through these international routes and can therefore actually be blocked by your client’s service provider in order to facilitate the end user in protecting themselves from unwanted spam. Having your SMS messages transported via these indirect routes will also mean that your end user may only be reached later or not at all in some cases.

Tip: Do not get trapped into attractive offers displaying promises such as “Only 30 cents per SMS”, as with all things, sometimes cheaper is more costly! In the SMS business, quality depends on price; the lower the price, the poorer the quality of delivery. A regular price margin for high-quality SMS messages is between 75 - 120 cents per SMS with 160 characters.

- The tricks of low-price providers
A very common trick: Often it is possible to receive a test account from your service provider in which to test “the system”. All SMS messages arrive very fast and without problem to the mobile phones you have targeted. However, afterwards, if you place an order for your own contract activation, other SMS-routes will be activated too. The telephone numbers used previously during the test period will still use the original gateways as memorised by the system in order to hide the fact that you have been conned into using various other untrustworthy gateways.

Tip: Do not test regularly with all numbers available in your company database, rather test with other numbers which have not received a SMS message via the system of the test provider – or, to avoid this problem altogether, steer clear of low-cost providers in general.

- Software Capabilities
In the case of SMS-transmission, nothing should be left to chance. How many numbers have actually received the transmitted SMS? How many numbers no longer exist? Will the non-existing numbers be immediately registered in a black list (i.e. lock-out for inactive numbers) in order to save costs by no longer sending to those numbers anymore?

Tip: Ask your provider if such possibilities exist and if null en void telephone numbers will be automatically blocked for the next session of SMS messages that need to be sent. This small service will not only save you on costs but ensure that your time isn’t spent combing through numbers and updating your database in your own time.

- Service
Service is very important in all areas of industry. If you require assistance with regards to the transmission of a SMS or any other technical request, is there a hotline available? Does this come at a cost to you or is it free? Is this support only available whilst your contract is applicable?

Tip: The provider can make mistakes and in such situations it is important that a professional person is available to assist you with your query. The service hotline should also be available to you during your business hours. It is also preferable that a provider does not bill small additional services at all or immediately.

- Time-critical applications
How fast can the SMS be transmitted? A fast SMS-transmission is essential for short-term activities. In order to target customers with regards to an activity on the same day or simply just to relay important information that requires immediately delivery, one would expect the SMS to be delivered and arrive almost simultaneously.
Do they guarantee a fixed operational capacity (SMS per second)?
A normal transmission of one SMS should not exceed, on average, between 3-12 seconds.

Tip: It is advised to test the system of a provider extensively before being bound contractually. Would you like to transmit time-critical messages (alarms, information for outdoor staff, forwarding time imperative information to drivers and much more)? If this is the case, you should ask for national direct-connection-routes to the operating companies as they can offer reputable transmissions & high transmission rates.

- SMS Live Tracking (SMS delivery status in real time)
Time is the most important factor with regards to SMS-transmission, especially if an outdoor staff member or a driver needs to be reached in a specific time. What options do you have in order to control the SMS status? (I.e. Whether the SMS has been received or whether the phone is of etc.)

Tip: The only opportunity to track whether an SMS has been received is to utilise a live-tracking function (notice of receipt). This enables you to see if and when the SMS has been received on the mobile phone of the recipient or employee.

- Attaining Data
Are there any possibilities for a simple and professional way in which data may be acquired? Are there practices in place, which include legal components (telecommunication-law §107 TKG 2003, SMS-OPT-IN & SMS-OPT-OUT, deregistration with sending a SMS with the content STOP and so on)?

Tip: Before signing a contract one must ask if such services are available and whether the legal components are included so as to avoid complications at a later stage. This includes the provision of SMS-telephone numbers for advertising.

- references
Get references of the provider. A serious provider will give you the opportunity to ask a reference whether they would recommend the provider to others. A professional consultancy should also include solutions that will make it possible to retrieve customer data in a simple yet effective way. Information and services should not be complicated.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on our FREE hotline service