Yes! Of course they can send you a message, but because messages are managed through our online software, on your control panel, the way in which your customers will reply to a message (or send you a message) is different from replying to (or composing) the usual text message.  Because TXT180 is on a shared short code, and the only thing separating your text messages from any other account on the short code is your unique keyword, in order for ANY message to reach you the message MUST contain your keyword as the FIRST word in the message.  Only then will the message be directed to your TXT180 account, and can be viewed from your Inbox on your control panel.  Prior to receiving the message you must also make sure that you have enabled the ability to view messages within the Inbox.  If you would like to receive texts from your customers through your TXT180 account, please be sure to read this article in its entirety, you’ll be happy you did.

In order for a contact to send a message to your inbox the contact must first create a message to our short code 77948, and then put your keyword in the body of the message, then a space, then everything afterward is considered a message which will be forwarded to your inbox. The reason for this is because we are on a shared short code, which is nice because it keeps costs down. But, if the customer forgets to put your keyword as the first word in the message, before any other information, then our system doesn’t know which account it needs to go to.  Any text that does not begin with your keyword will not be sent to your inbox and will get lost in the short code.

Messages received from customers have restrictions. Because every text has a limit of 160 characters, any messages from your customers must stay within the 160 characters (your keyword is part of that character count).  Anything more than 160 characters and your phone will split the message, sending two different texts to send out all the information. Because the message is now split and two different texts are going to the short code the system will lose the second text because it didn’t start with your keyword.

In order for you to receive the messages your account needs to be set up correctly. When you log in to your account, click on the inbox tab on the left, you will see two sentences at the top with boxes after them. The top box reads “Send Opt-ins and Messages to inbox” when this box is checked any new opt-ins and messages will be directed to this inbox.

There are a few other options in your inbox as well.  The second box “Send opt-outs to Inbox” will send a message to your inbox whenever one of your contacts opts-out.  You can also have the activity in your inbox forwarded to an email address or cell phone. To do this, enter in your email address, or cell phone number, and click the corresponding box to the left marked “forward”.  If you choose to have your inbox messages forwarded to your phone it will deduct one out going message from your txt180 account.  You may also have all your activity shown in your inbox exported into a CSV file, and saved directly on your computer, by clicking on the “Export to CSV” button.  Make sure that after you make any changes to the inbox that you click on the update button, this will insure that all changes will be saved.

And if you have any other questions feel free to contact the TXT180 staff.

Enter 2years in the promotion ID field (don’t forget to click “Apply”) when signing up to get your first month of service for $1.00!*

*Value applies to 500 message 1 month plan. Other message plans will have total cost reduced by $13.95. For example, purchasing a 1000 message 1 month plan (total of $24.95  per month) is discounted the first month to $11.00. Message plans will renew at the  normal monthly rate after the first month. See our screenshot below for more clarification. Expires 9/1/2012

Sign Up Today!

To obtain these free marketing material templates, visit the TXT180 website. Marketing templates include:

• 1 Business brochure template (tri-fold, double-sided brochure)
• 1 Customer 8.5×11 business flyer template for promoting the keyword/short code campaign
• 1 Set of instructions about the free marketing fliers
• 1 Page of template business cards (double sided w/ QR code spot on the back)
• 2 SMS Reseller 8.5×11 business flyer templates
• 1 8.5×11 table tent for promoting the keyword/short code campaign (tri-fold, same display on all sides)

We plan to release more free marketing materials in the future to widen the variety of marketing templates available to all TXT180 customers and SMS resellers. Please keep in mind all these marketing materials are TEMPLATES and can be customized to suit your business theme. All pictures and text can be changed on the documents as you see fit.

**NOTE** Customer fliers used to promote the keyword/short code campaign have mandatory verbiage already in place on the fliers that is required to be on all advertising of keyword/short code campaigns. Please do not remove this verbiage and fill in the requested information in order to be compliant with the text message marketing laws and regulations.

We appreciate your feedback and hope these new marketing materials will assist you in your SMS marketing efforts.

The same features that are present on the text marketing reseller’s control panel is available to our customers with TXT180. You can generate 3 different types of QR codes using our system:

1. One that redirects to a URL.
2. One that adds a contact to the person’s smartphone. It can include information such as your name, address, email address, phone number, and organization name.
3. One that generates an opt-in by those who scan it. You can also generate QR codes to opt subscribers into a group.

Each QR code that is generated can be previewed, downloaded, and then added to any print advertising to promote your text message marketing service. For a more complete look of what QR codes are and how they work, see our previous post about TXT180 releasing QR codes.

As always, we are trying to bring new features to our customers that can help improve the marketing of their business. Text message marketing is very effective and with the right tools, such as QR codes, effective marketing campaigns can be created and launched to benefit businesses large and small.

What are QR Codes?

QR code stands for “quick-response code” and was originally developed for use in the automotive industry. They are 2 dimensional bar codes meaning they hold data in both the horizontal and vertical directions, making the data capacity much larger than that of standard bar codes. Each QR code consists of several black squares, in a specific sequence, on a white background. Each of the black squares in their sequence represents the data encoded into the QR code. Here is an example QR code that redirects users to the TXT180 website:

How Do They Work?

QR codes are very simple forms of collecting and sharing information with one another. In order to extract the data/information from a QR code, one must scan the QR code using a compatible QR code scanner. The most common example is smartphone apps (many free ones available) that provide QR code scanning capabilities using the smartphone’s built-in camera. When the scanner app is launched, the camera starts and the scanner app begins to try and detect a QR code. When the camera is pointed to a QR code, the scanner app decodes the QR code and performs the encoded action.

How Do They Benefit Text Message Marketing?

QR codes can be encoded with a wide variety of data and actions. A comprehensive list of QR code capabilities:

1. Redirect to a website URL
2. Show a YouTube video
3. Pin a Google Maps location
4. Direct to a Twitter profile or perform a Twitter status update
5. Direct to a Facebook profile or “Like” something of Facebook
6. Direct to a LinkedIn profile or share something on LinkedIn
7. Direct to a FourSquare venue URL
8. Download something from an App store (Apple, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows!)
9. Link to something in iTunes
10. Send plain text
11. Call a telephone number
12. Make a Skype call
13. Send an SMS message

And the list goes on and on. The QR code capabilities we have chosen are to redirect to a URL, send an SMS message, and download contact details. SMS white label customers can now generate, from their control panel, QR codes that will perform these 3 actions. The most useful of these is the sending an SMS message. The QR codes will be generated with the short code and keyword of the customer, which they can then download, print, and advertise to get subscribers to opt-in.

It is our hope that these new QR codes will help customers extend their business further and increase the success of generating opt-ins.

Group Graphs

The ability to see a graphical representation of group’s contacts is a valuable tool for those looking to run text voting/polling campaigns. Group graphs can be enabled from the control panel and an auto-refresh ability can be set to refresh the graph every 10 seconds for a more real-time look at the results.

An excellent example of this is a sport’s grill who is running a text voting campaign on game night of the NBA finals. The sport’s grill would advertise to text sports.miami vote for the Miami Heat to win the game or text sports.okc to vote for the Oklahoma City Thunder to with the game. Once the texts start coming in, the graph can be displayed on a big screen to record the number of contacts for each group, meaning the number of votes for each team. There are other uses for the graphing capability, such as being able to watch the effectiveness of your text campaign in a graphical way.

Mobile Send Message

More and more people are going mobile with their devices and which allows them to be on the run and still have access to the data they need. That being said, many of our white label resellers have inquired about having a mobile-friendly way of sending text messages. We have incorporated a mobile-friendly send message page, which will allow a reseller’s customers to log-in to a send message page and send messages to all contacts, groups of contacts, or all contacts not associated with a group. This feature still only works with those who have mobile web access and we will be working on developing a way for those without mobile web to send a message from their phone.

Hosted Widget Page

We’ve had the web widget ability to collect opt-ins for some time now, but what about those who don’t have websites to host the widget on? The hosted widget page is simply a website widget on an already hosted page by us. This allows your customers to pull open a URL (white labeled of course) to a widget that can help them collect opt-ins. This is especially useful for the tablet/kiosk market of those looking to collect opt-ins through a point-of-sale tablet/kiosk.

Watch for more updates and enhancements as we roll them out. These features are available to our SMS resellers, and will be added to the TXT180 service very soon. There are new things on the horizon and please continue to supply us with feedback so we can continue to bring the features that you are looking for.

TXT180 Affiliate Program

As a TXT180 affiliate, you will promote TXT180 and refer customers to us in exchange for a commission on the message plans the customers sign up for after being referred. When signing up as an affiliate, you will receive an affiliate control panel, which gives you access to a unique tracking link and TXT180 graphical banners that are tied to your unique tracking link. Whenever somebody clicks on your tracking link and signs up, our system tracks that purchase and applies commissions for that referral. Below are the details of the affiliate program:

• 20% recurring commission for the life of the referred account
• FREE to sign up
• Affiliate control panel to track referrals, commissions, and obtain banners and your  unique tracking link

TXT180 Referral Program

The new TXT180 referral program is catered to new or current TXT180 customers and is meant to reward such for referring friends to TXT180. If a TXT180 customer refers a friend to us, they will be rewarded with ROLLOVER text messages in the same amount as the message plan the friend signs up with. To receive your reward, you simply have your friend sign up and provide YOUR keyword in the promotion ID field of the sign up form. You will be credited if that is done.

For more information about our affiliate program or our referral program, visit our affiliate page.

TXT180 White Label Reseller Program

The SMS white label program allows you to sell TXT180′s service as your own service, branded with your own logo and brand. You can sell the packages we provide you at your own pricing and terms with your customers. It is a great way to make a residual income! For more information about our white label reseller program, visit TXT180′s reseller site.

Which one works best for you?

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]]> http://txt180.com/blog/affiliates/new-txt180-affiliate-program-banners/feed/ 0 http://txt180.com/blog/txt180/new-txt180-sms-messaging-plans-and-bundles/ http://txt180.com/blog/txt180/new-txt180-sms-messaging-plans-and-bundles/#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 20:24:56 +0000 staff http://txt180.com/blog/?p=556 Continue reading →]]> Businesses using text message marketing are expressing the need for more suitable text messaging plans from their bulk SMS marketing provider. By “suitable”, we mean text message plans that are tailored to the volume of text messaging the business is doing with their texting campaigns. Because of this need, TXT180 is excited to announce expansion in the available text message marketing plans and bundles that are provided to our customers.

The New Text Message Plans

Our new monthly text messaging plans are as follows:

• 1,500 messages
• 12 month prepaid account – $26.95/month ($323.40/yr)
• 3 month prepaid account – $31.95/month ($95.85/quarter)
• 1 month account – $37.95/month
• 2,000 messages
• 12 month prepaid account – $35.95/month ($431.40/yr)
• 3 month prepaid account – $41.95/month ($125.85/quarter)
• 1 month account – $49.95/month
• 5,000 messages
• 1 month account – $119.95/month
• 7,500 messages
• 1 month account – $179.95/month
• 10,000 messages
• 1 month account – $219.95/month

New Additional Message Bundles

In addition to our expanded selection of message plans, we also have a couple of new additional message bundles available for purchase by our customers:

• 1,750 messages
• $62.63
• $0.0375 per message
• 3,750 messages
• $121.88
• $0.0325 per message

New Marketing Fliers

In the interest of our resellers, we are now going to start offering marketing template fliers for download and distribution to your potential customers and customers alike. These templates can be edited with your own text and pictures to match your style or theme. We’ve also provided a flier you can provide to your clients for call-to-action promotions. Again these can be edited to your liking. To access these fliers, download them at http://www.txt180.com/downloads/flyers.zip

Reseller Billing System Update

We are very close to finishing our reseller billing system. We are roughly 95% complete with the development of it and then we will do a full round of testing for functionality. Now is the time, if you are looking to upgrade to the new billing system, to start learning the process for the billing system as well as obtaining a merchant account and Authorize.net. To start learning more about our reseller billing information, please download our reseller billing document at http://www.txt180.com/downloads/reseller-billing.pdf

Reseller Comparison Chart

We’ve done some research about how our reseller platform stacks up against the competition. We were able to confirm that we offer one of the most competitive rates in the industry and a very low overall cost and cost-per-customer through our low text message/platform fees. To read more of our findings and see the comparison yourself, visit http://www.txt180.com/reseller/compare.php

Soon-to-Come Enhancements

Once we are finished with our reseller billing system, our next major enhancement to our system is a redesign of your customer’s control panel. We plan on bringing a new look and feel to the TXT180 platform and will be developing that in the near future.

Tip:

With our new marketing fliers we are providing, carry some around with you when promoting to the businesses in your area. If they aren’t interested, leave a flier! You never know what may spark their interest later, or if another text marketing provider tries to solicit them, and your prices are lower, you’ll have the advantage because they will remember your pricing!