To use an SMS gateway, select a provider such as 160.com.au. Next, integrate it with your own customer database or CRM provider. Finally, craft the intended message and send it out to your recipients.
In essence, an SMS gateway is a provider that allows individuals and businesses to send and receive SMS text messages from non-phone devices. This makes sending out marketing text messages, appointment reminders, and announcements easier than ever to send.
How does a business set up and use an SMS gateway? We’ll explain in more detail below.
Select a Gateway Service
You might be wondering how to find an SMS gateway code. Don’t worry–this comes with the gateway service. What matters is ensuring you choose a provider that offers a balanced combination of geographic coverage, excellent customer service, high security, and seamless integration. Each of these is important for different reasons.
Why Geographic Coverage?
Geographic coverage is an important consideration for businesses with customers located globally. Be sure the provider offers messaging services in countries where your customers are located.
Sending a standard text message to other countries can cost a fortune, but with a quality SMS gateway provider, bulk cross-border messaging can be accomplished at low cost.
Customer Service
While bulk messaging is relatively inexpensive, massive campaigns can lead to significant bills. Check that the provider has a customer service team like 160.com.au does to help with system integration and setup.
Secure Encryption
SMS messages aren’t simply for marketing–they can contain sensitive information such as health data. Customers receiving lab results or appointment reminders depend on the privacy of these messages. By utilising a gateway provider with robust security, your business won’t have to worry about information being compromised.
Easy Integration
A reputable SMS gateway provider will allow its customers to plug and play with their existing CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. It should also easily incorporate email clients like Microsoft Outlook and Gmail. Once your systems are integrated, you can start sending out SMS messages.
Execute a Strategy
It’s important that you have a strategy and goal for your messaging campaign. Is it for appointment reminders, product updates, or general marketing?
Assess your customer list and choose the appropriate recipients. Messages sent through an SMS gateway have the option of being personalised or generalised. Many businesses want customers to receive a message with their names attached. Simply pull this data from any existing CRM that is integrated with the SMS gateway’s API (Application Programming Interface), and names will be automatically added to each outgoing message
Finally, choose whether it will be a one-way message or if the customer needs to be able to respond. 160.com.au offers both one and two-way SMS communication. Any replies will be converted into emails that land in a dedicated inbox.
Refine the Next Campaign by Analysing Past Performance
Based on the previous campaign response rates and other data, a picture will emerge that reveals what is working. Aim for campaigns that maximise response rates or drive sales.
Find campaigns that have a high ROI and see if it is possible to tease out why it worked so well. With this information in hand, additional campaigns can be crafted to increase the ROI even more. In the end, this means fewer dollars spent on SMS campaigns for every dollar earned.
Secure, User-Friendly, and Economic
160.com.au offers SMS gateway services with the ability to send messages to users almost anywhere on Earth. Our API makes it easy to connect your existing CRM and email systems with our SMS client. We also have a secure Australian data centre dedicated to ensuring our customer’s data is in good hands.
When purchasing in bulk, our per-message rates are some of the most affordable available. Visit our site today and see how we can help take your business messaging to the next level!