Have you received an SMS message recently from a business, brand or company and wondered to yourself why their name appears as the SMS sender even though you haven’t entered their number into your phone book?

That business brand was using what is known as a customised Sender ID, and it’s a great way to quickly connect with your SMS customers. This is because people intuitively understand and relate to names; a name carries with it a recognition that a phone number alone will never match, no matter how much you mention it in your marketing.

How Sender ID works

All SMS text messages carry with them a unique identifier – a sending number – that is most often called an ‘originator’ number. This identifier tells the network (and the customer) where the message was sent from.

It is possible to replace this identifier phone number with a text version (an ‘alphanumeric originator’) of your name or number that your customer will quickly recognise.

In other words, you can set a custom Sender ID that is your company name, a specific phone number for customer support, brand name, trademark, or any other uniquely identifiable word, phrase or number set that characterises you.

As long as it is 11 characters or less:

TextMagic

the12Brand

Miss_Fix_it

HighStAutos

Sender ID is a perfect option for situations where you are distributing a message to a large group, where the message isn’t expected, and times where you don’t require a response. It’s an unfortunate consequence of using an alphanumeric Sender ID that your recipients can’t reply to the SMS itself, because it no longer carries the originating number.

How to set a customised Sender ID

TextMagic makes it easy to customise your Sender ID. The first step is to apply for a custom Sender ID in your customer account through the My Services section, ‘Reply Options‘ area.

To create your custom branded Sender ID, you can choose from any letter from ‘A’ through ‘Z’, including the lowercase letters ‘a’ through ‘z’. You can also choose any number from 0 to 9 and the _ (underscore) character to create your 11-character custom Sender ID.

As long as you stick to these parameters, you can be as creative as you like. Just remember that you should choose a name that your customers will recognise, otherwise they may see your message as unsolicited and not bother reading it.

You can find out more about Sender ID and other reply options here: http://api.textmagic.com/https-api/sender-id

When doing business around real estate, it is important for a mortgage brokerage to maintain constant channels of communication with clients. A lot of time-sensitive information such as when valuations are booked, when people make requests or any changes in a mortgage offering are important to deliver immediately. Ideally, a client should respond quickly to any message from a brokerage, but with traditional mediums such as email, phone or letter, this doesn’t always happen. Text messaging is not often used for real estate communication, but with the right Email to SMS sending service like TextMagic, it can become a highly effective way of doing business. Read on to discover four reasons why.

1) People Respond to Text Messages Quickly

Typically, the nature of the SMS medium is such that people will respond to a text message within five minutes of receiving it. SMS is short, sweet and to the point. By using TextMagic to tie your email account to a text messaging phone number so you can both send and receive information from your clients via SMS, you can advise, make appointments, send requests and close deals far more quickly than you would otherwise. Mortgage brokers know that sometimes, speed is of the essence, which is why TextMagic offers a needed service in the world of real estate finance.

Mortgage brokerage firm Blue Box Mortgages writes, “As a mortgage brokerage we use TextMagic to advise clients that their valuations have been booked, their mortgage has offered or to request they call the office to get information at a time which suits them.”

2) Email to SMS Makes Mass Communication Easy

If you need to connect with a number of different clients all at the same time with important information regarding your mortgage, you can simply open up your email program and send a text to every client’s phone. The problem with sending messages to email accounts is that many people don’t even check them. If it looks like it’s not from a friend, many people just throw it in the bin, especially if it’s a mass mailer. However, people are much more likely to look at text messages. If you feel that a piece of information is important, you should send it via a bulk SMS provider like TextMagic.

3) Use Your Own Email Provider

One of the primary reasons that many mortgage brokers use TextMagic is because it is highly convenient. Most brokers have their own email program that they use to send information to clients or to keep in touch. However, as mentioned before, most emails typically take up to three days to receive a response. With SMS, you can receive responses to your messages in minutes, yet use your standard email sending service to maintain connection. This requires no learning curve. Simply install TextMagic and your own email program will take care of the rest.

4) Connect with Younger Clients

Typically, younger clients are the ones who are most accustomed to using text messages to communicate a wide range of things, whether chatting with friends or conducting important business transactions. As more and more young people enter the market for real estate and mortgages, you can establish an important niche for yourself as a mortgage broker if you make it easy for younger people to do business. The 21st century is one where short and sweet wins over verbose every time when it comes to financial transactions, and no one is more aware of that than young people. You will gain a reputation as a forward-thinking, easy-to-work-with mortgage firm if you use an SMS sending service to communicate with clients.

More than anything, online lead generation services need to stay abreast of the latest technology for connecting with potential customers. Email has traditionally been the medium of choice for generating leads, but lately a new contender has become prominent. SMS, or text messaging, has largely remained untapped as a means for connecting with people about products or services that they might want. SMS is one of the more versatile methods of communication in the modern world, and its only failing is that there are few feature-rich mediums for handling SMS lead generation. With TextMagic’s Email to SMS service, lead generation companies can use their own feature-rich email programs to send easy-to-read text messages. Read on for five ways that TextMagic can help your business generate leads for itself and for your clients’ businesses.

1) SMS is Short, Sweet and Gets More Replies

The truth is that people are more likely to reply to something the easier it is to read. The short, sweet nature of a text message gets to the heart of the matter, which is, “Here is something that you might like. Reply if you like it!” This will garner a much higher response rate than the standard email, which, while it is a bit looser than a formal letter, nevertheless requires more writing than a text message (a salutation, a closing, etc.) in order to be appropriate for the medium. TextMagic can help you take advantage of the unique opportunities afforded by text message lead generation without having to switch to a new program.

2) Keep The Program You’ve Got

Chances are, as a lead generation company you have a feature-rich email program. You may be able to use variable fields, you may have an automated marketing plan or you may need to send thousands of emails per day. TextMagic “magically” transforms emails to text messages and vice versa, so everything that you are able to do with emails, you can do with text messages. This mobile SMS software requires practically no learning curve – simply install TextMagic, sync it up with your current program, and you’re ready to go.

3) Real-time Tracking Capabilities

The TextMagic Email to SMS gateway software offers a variety of perks for lead generation services, including the ability to monitor and track replies. One satisfied customer with TextMagic, Magnetic Marketing Ltd, reported that, “TextMagic is very easy and quick to set up, and its email to sms gateway allows me to monitor, in real time, leads that are being generated both for my primary business, and those business I support through Magnetic Marketing Ltd.” Because text messages are so much more convenient than emails, with TextMagic you will be able to monitor huge gains in lead generation.

4) Get Close to Customers

One of the steps when it comes to lead generation is known as “lead nurturing”, which by the name alone indicates that the intent of generating a lead is to get closer to your customers. Typically, people tend to text with their friends and family, whereas they use email to engage in more formal business relationships. The trend in online marketing is toward a more informal approach, and for this reason TextMagic is invaluable in providing your business the mobile SMS software required to tap into text messaging.

5) Ease of Use

As mentioned in the above review of TextMagic, Magnetic Marketing Ltd wrote that the program was “very easy and quick to set up”. It is rare that a program that opens up such vast new territories for marketing, sales and lead generation has a shallow, easy learning curve like TextMagic does. Its complexity comes from what you can do with its email to SMS service, not from how long it takes to set up.

When advisers with One Call Financial Advice Centre need to reach their clients quickly, they don’t reach for the phone, nor do they send out emails. Instead, they turn to the SMS technology offered by TextMagic.com. There, they are able to quickly type and send text messages with important information and requests to call the office. One Call sees the benefits of using TextMagic.com as threefold. Not only have they been able to reach out to clients in new ways, but they’ve also saved time and money using TextMagic’s Email to SMS service.

Financial advisers and service companies turn frequently to TextMagic when they need to reach their clients promptly. TextMagic’s easy-to-use SMS service allows them to reach clients easily, whether they need to get a message to a single individual or thousands. From information about mortgage rates to advice regarding equity release, TextMagic.com allows financial advisers to send concise messages to their clients, even on the tightest of deadlines.

The SMS service offered by TextMagic.com allows users to send messages of up to 459 characters to multiple mobile accounts. Messages can be sent easily from any domain to mobile phones. No text messaging skills are required. Simply register your email address with TextMagic and all emails sent from your account will display your domain name, making it easy for SMS recipients to identify you and the importance of your message.

As any financial adviser knows, the economy can be a volatile environment in which to operate. Being able to reach clients quickly is essential, especially when a lapse of just a few minutes contact could cost your client a significant amount. With individuals in the UK sending nearly 11 million text messages every hour according to TEXT.IT, sending financial services advice from the web to mobile SMS recipients isn’t just logical; it’s a sound business stratagem as well.

To keep customer contact organised, it is possible to integrate TextMagic’s email to SMS technology with CRM systems, allowing you to monitor customer outreach. The progress of each text message can be followed online, so it’s always possiblethat your clients have received the latest information about their accounts.

For many financial advisors, working with clients and in markets around the world is part of the normal day. For those who need to span the globe in just a few moments, TextMagic allows you to send emails to SMS recipients to over 200 countries in any language. Simply upload the numbers in international format and you can reach clients in Kenya and Basingstoke in the same message.

In a turbulent financial market, it is essential that you are able to reach your clients in a timely manner. As One Call Financial Advice Centre found, text messages do not only save them money, they save their clients money as well. By sending financial advice from the web to SMS recipients, your clients will know that you are doing everything possible to keep them informed of the latest developments related to their accounts, and you’ll build important relationships with them at the same time.

Diogo Heleno from international translation experts Multilingues21, based in Lisbon, Portugal, is part of a team of expert translators who have translated thousands of documents in more than 25 languages around the world. Because of the nature of their business, they use freelance translators based across the globe to do their work, so staying in touch is crucial to the day to day operation of their business. Rather than just relying on email, Multilingues21 have adopted a bulk SMS sender to get messages through to their freelancers quickly and easily.

“We work with freelance employees based around the world. We always felt that due to time differences we were never sure when our employees would check their email,” explains Diogo. “Plus, as freelancers, sometimes they can spend a whole morning without checking their emails, which can be valuable time to get work done.” So, rather than worrying about whether the message had been picked up by the freelancer, Multilingues21 relies on sending bulk SMS messages to ensure that their freelance staff are kept up to date.

What is bulk SMS sender?

This simple, efficient system provides an effective alternative to traditional email messaging. Users can send bulk SMS messages from their PC to mobiles instantly, giving you a range of advantages including:

• A fast, cost-effective way to send text messages to co-workers and customers. And it’s simple to use – sending texts from your computer is much faster than using your phone

• The ability to send messages to anyone when you want to, with the freedom to send single or bulk SMS to individuals and groups

• Letting you keep track of your usage. The SMS system keeps a record every time you send text messages with web SMS and lets you check their delivery status, so you can be sure the message has reached the recipient

• Instant access so you can see your contacts, past invoices, and set up automatic balance alerts

Fast, simple and easy to use

Not only has sending bulk SMS messages speeded up response times, but it’s also saved Multilingues21 money too. “With SMS we can automatically forward to the freelancer an SMS telling him/her that we have a new project,” explains Diogo. “Before we would manually type in the SMS. SMS takes less than 1 minute to be sent after email was sent. It costs less than sending a normal SMS through our mobile phones, specially abroad, and saves us so much time you cannot even imagine.”

So are you communicating in a language everyone can understand? Using a bulk SMS sender to keep your international contacts informed is proving to be a smart way to do business for Multilingues21 – find out how it could help you too.

When Christina Tuck wants to let everyone associated with the Viewpoint Club in Kent know when the next event is taking place, she doesn’t spend hours on the phone ringing around or typing endless emails to individual members. Christina and thousands of clubs and organisations like hers have discovered that, simply by employing some mobile SMS software there’s a much quicker, simpler way to make sure everyone gets the message – via text message marketing straight to their mobile phone.

Using modern tech to solve an old problem

If you’re running an organisation or club, getting important information out to your members can be a logistical nightmare. Emails may be left unread for days or deleted into a spam folder, phone messages can be missed or not relayed to their intended recipient correctly – and every time this happens it makes your organisational skills look poor at best. But there is one piece of modern tech that everyone carries around with them – the mobile phone. This essential component to 21st Century life now represents the single most popular means of communication on the planet.

So there’s the potential delivery system. Now, how does Christina and others like her take advantage of it?

Step forward text SMS messaging. Every time your mobile phone rings to let you know you’ve got a text, how long do you wait before you check it? The chances are that, unlike checking your email inbox, it’s an almost immediate response. Latest estimates are that approximately 85% of the adult population in Britain own a mobile phone, and that there are over 62million phones ringing and texting away in the UK every day (that’s actually more phones than there are people!). With all those potential recipient handsets available, businesses and clubs are suddenly finding that text message marketing makes serious business sense.

What is text message marketing?

The concept is very simple. Text message marketing is utilising the SMS messaging service on the mobile phone networks to deliver a powerful marketing message straight into the pocket of your potential customer. For groups and organisations, the same principles can be applied to ensure that important information about club meetings, events or even cancelling a weekly yoga class is almost 100% guaranteed to get through to your intended recipient first time, every time.

Setting up a system that delivers bulk messages to multiple recipients is simplicity itself. Systems like TextMagic’s mobile SMS software is a typical example, and one that has become very popular with a worldwide audience. By downloading the software onto a PC or Mac (the software is compatible with both operating systems), you can send a SMS text message directly to your entire contact list, or to just one individual straight to their mobile phone.

Mobile SMS software doesn’t just let you send out messages, though. It comes with a host of auxiliary functions that allow the user to manage their account and their time more effectively, including:

• The ability to send messages to more than 700 mobile networks around the world

• Create custom SMS templates that can be used again and again – all you need to do is add the message

• Every text sent is sent to a single folder so it’s easy to manage

• The ability to import thousands of mobile contacts into the database using Excel or any other data programme. Simply save it as a CSV file, or export it from MS Outlook

Text message marketing provides an efficient message delivery system that works for both businesses and clubs. Christina’s Viewpoint members now know exactly when the next event is taking place, and Christina can be certain that her message has got through to everyone. SMS messaging is becoming an increasingly popular method of direct marketing delivery, and with products like TextMagic providing a user-friendly system that’s easy to set up, it’s predicted to be marketing’s ‘next big thing’.