SMS Marketing Questions

1. Monthly fee
2. WordpressVBX by Chad Wyatt.

1) Monthly of course always want that income coming in
2) Re seller - there are so many i have been looking at limecellular and Avidmobile

got to see which platform of messaging you want to do .... SMTP (via email) or SMS (true messaging) research the differences may make you change your mind.

Monthly payment can be profitable; but if do not make much SMS then it will be costly to per sms rate. you any one that looks smart.

You can price it different ways, per message, per thousand messages, per subscriber, or per keyword etc. You can get creative here, for instance for a real-estate agent I charge a low monthly price for thousand texts but also charge per keyword because if he has multiple properties then the agent will likely find that more appealing. However, this pricing plan wont be good for you if its a restaurant or something like that because they will likely want only a few keywords but may have more outbound text blasts throught the month so its better to charge them higher monthly per thousand texts or something. Try to fit the pricing in with the type of business your catering to.
Also remember that you should have one type of charge if they are going to do it themselves(self managed) or a higher charge if they want you to do it for them(managed).
We use Trumpia.
Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions that can help you with.

Lawrence

I Offer my clients a few different options. You can charge a monthly fee that covers 250 or 500 texts and then bill per text after that OR just give them a bundle of so many texts and when they use those re-bill them for a refill. We are very flexible in order to keep the clients comfortable. For the most part we bill a monthly fee that fill their usage.

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Ry Russell
Vice-President
txtwave.com

With Chad's plugin don't you have to pay a minimum of $1000/mth to get a shortcode in order for it to be a true sms use. Otherwise it has a cap of 30 text every 30 seconds and no shortcode. Just using a number and no real control over keywords. Is it a $1/mth charge per phone number? If I understand it correctly. Twillio has always been a little confusing for me to find answers.

For charges currently I bill 4.5 cents a message but could easily charge more. I use my own SMS Platform. It works very well and has many functions already built into it.

Call it what you want; whitelabeled, licensed, owning it whatever, with my system you don't have to keep paying for functions in the future because they are already available. You can start out cheap, but you will keep paying for upgrades to get the real functionality of an SMS system.

1. Both - Monthly fee & bulk rate

2. Trumpia's White Label Reseller Program offers the most comprehensive platform.
Trumpia?s White Label Mobile Marketing Reseller Program Makes It Easy for Professionals to Brand, Price and Offer Their Own Multi-Channel Marketing Services

1. I charge a monthly fee that includes a certain number of messages and keywords, then charge an overage fee of .05 to .08 per message and $7-$10 for additional keywords, depending upon the package.

2. I use the Lime Cellular white label platform.

1. Check the competitors in your area. I was going to be charging $250 a month, etc. A WSO I bought told me to. Then, when I couldn't get any bites I looked at my competitor and they were way cheaper. So look at your competitors.

Furthermore; businesses LOVE blasts. Rather than paying monthly and having to build their own list, etc, they'd rather just use a pre-built list of local consumers. My competitor does both, blasts and monthly services. For blasts, he charges 6¢ per text. ($6 for 100) Thus, I am going to charge as follows:

6¢ per text for the first 1k.
5¢ per text for the second thousand.
4¢ per text for the third thousand.
And 2¢ per text after that.

Whereas my competitor charges $276 for 4600 texts, I will charge 182 for the same. My profit will be $136. If I manage 25 blasts a month, I'll make my goal life earnings. =)

What I'm doing to build my list for blasting is I got this plugin for Chrome to download my FB friends contact information. Then I manually added my local friends phone numbers to my list. I'm having other friends from this town do the same and give me the numbers for me to ad. Also, I am going to the local college and posting fliers telling people to subscribe for mobile coupons. They love them here.

2. Use Chad Wyatt's Wordpress plugin. It'll save you hundreds in the long run and his system is what makes me able to turn a profit while undercutting my competitors prices so much.

Typically you would charge the end user/advertiser client a setup fee of $99-$250 plus depending on the scope of the project. Followed by a monthly fee that includes "up to" x amount of messages and xx amount of keywords.

keywords are profit centers since they both trigger the action at the application layer and they represent a hosted database.

by using the UP TO method of billing, you end up selling the same SMS credits over and over gaining a profit margin of about 400% while still remaining competitive.

Don't try to compete with the whores online that give away the SMS. Provide value added service and companies will appreciate you and recommend you to others.


I am totally bias, but I recommend you check out the SMS Reseller Platform at SMS Aggregator, SMS Application Provider, SMS Reseller & Short Code Hosting, Pound Codes

Our guys know the industry and HELP our resellers get profitable FAST!
TJ

isn't it the same as cold calling or e-mail marketing hurt the clients?

I think you should charge on both monthly and per message basis because you are just starting and providing both kind of services which would help you in getting more clients.
Currently, AvidMobile is one of the most used white label sms service by people. It is one of the most cost effective and easy to use and also have great customer support.

I use Lime's white label platform this way you get your own branding and build your own business name. I have 6 packages that charge based on use of the platform along with a set number of texts. Packages go from 1000 to 25000 texts and are priced from $97 to $797. I have found that my retention rate is much better and the campaigns are more successful if I manage it for the business owners. They love this since the campaigns are more effective and they don't have any spare time to learn a new system or know how to market it properly anyway. With the scheduler on the platform I can schedule weekly offers for clients going out as many months as I want. Basically set it and forget it. We try to limit offers to weekly so the list stays responsive and we reduce the number of opt outs. As their lists grow the number of texts being sent grows and they "graduate" to the next package level. Its a win win - more profit for the business owner and more profit for me.

I would recommend monthly pricing as it will bring in a consistent stream of revenue for your business each month.

i saw wordpressvbx chad wyatt mentioned... looks cool but i can't find a download link or sales page anyware although I see site servicing the people who own it... kind of strange for a marketer...

I have had good luck with a $149 setup fee, and $99 per month for up to 500 subscribers, and $149 from 501-1000. 2 messages per month, plus signups still makes a nice profit. I use customized openvbx flows that use both text and call in signups. Also, the business owner is notified via text when someone opts in. If you give the impression that you have customized everything for them, then getting a setup fee and monthly fee is not a big deal.