How to secure a short code for SMS marketing

I am also interested to know.

thanks for the info. Shortcodes are almost everywhere and can be huge business if worked properly. I just signed up with Izigg, they use 90210, they offer great packages as far as emails per month and so on and they do all the backend work

fyi - it takes roughly 12 weeks to get your shortcode approved by all the cell phone carriers here in the US - shortcodes cost upwards of $500/month

however you have to purchase them for periods no shorted than 3 months at a time

you will then need to an SMS provider too use alongside your shortcode to be able to send/receive txt messages... again you will also be paying for their services too whilst your shortcode goes through the provision period - you cant do one without the other. So again expect to pay $$$ each month with the possibility of not even having an opportunity to send or receive a single message! lol

and then the real kicker - you have your short code, and your sms provider... but no decent interface to use and provide to your customers as from what i have seen most interfaces are very basic. You will need to custom build an interface to work with your SMS providers API...

I would not even consider getting a shortcode unless you can drop at least $20k and that would be on the light side of things...

These would have to be your lowest pricing if your lucky!

6 months NON vanity shortcode @ $500/month = $3000
6 month SMS Gateway @ approx $1000+/month = $6000
Custom built interface to connect to SMS API = $2500+

Dont forget you also have your web hosting, main website, ssl, payment gateway, marketing etc, etc to think of too

hth

PS i also think that easy to remember numbers are better and easier for end user to use than words for your shortcode... ie 111222 etc