Don't sell a monthly SMS service. Sell an SMS blast!

Conversely, those that are on the list will be getting blasts from businesses they aren't interested in, thus will opt-out more often. I'm not sure about those on this guy's list you speak of, but if I got a text every day from businesses I hardly frequent (even if I got some special deal), I'd not be on that list too long. It's just not focused enough for my interests, both as a consumer or as a mobile marketing consultant.

I prefer sending my messages to those that are actually interested in each respective business they opted-in to. The shotgun approach, by going the "blast" route, is flawed, to say the least. Also, with a monthly service, I'm not having to constantly sell my list to businesses...it's a one & done, recurring income. However, if I could do this with just 3 businesses per week, that's 12 businesses a month.

Using the figures of the guy in your town doing this, one could make $300 in one day with each blast to a list of 5,000 people (not counting costs to send). If I send blasts for 12 businesses per month, that's $3,600 per month. Not bad, but how often does he do this? Does/can he do it every day? Does he do it once a month for each business?

Now, if I were to go the "list route" and charge a measly $150/month, I'd have to sign up 24 businesses (1 time).

I, too, thought of going this route, but decided not due to the reasons above. I'd gladly give it another look if the positives outweigh the negatives. It all comes down to ROI and which route would be better for both the businesses as well as the local consumers.

Thanks for the share!

Well, most of the businesses that utilize SMS blasts here in my town are restaurants. Everyone loves food! Sometimes Cici's offers a buffet and drink for $5 (pretty much every Tuesday), Arby's does a combo for $3.99, some Mexican restaurant sends something but I've never gone there because I don't like Mexican food. Local retail stores use the service quite a bit too.

People are all different so I can't really speak for anyone or any group in general. But I wouldn't think someone would want to subscribe to a list for every business that they enjoy. That would be a lot of subscribing!

I feel like people would much rather subscribe to one list and then all the local businesses could utilize it. It just seems much easier on both ends, the customer and the business. The subscribers won't expect to be interested in every deal they get. And although it's not as targeted as subscribing to lists only for businesses that they enjoy, they still do subscribe manually and want the offers.

What I am currently doing is offering reduced rates to businesses who promote my list. I give them a locked in rate of 3¢, but with my pricing structure, once I reach 4,500 subscribers it averages to be 3.2¢ per text anyways so I won't really be out of pocket.

Also, after selling the service to a business and they see how effective it is they will come back to you. 5,000 people on the list and a business who wants to use your service twice a month... winning.


When I started I was going to sell the monthly service. But businesses here are into the blasting service and they find building their own list to be obsolete.

Offering both services doesn't hurt though. =) We all know how cheap and easy it is to run the said business, so you just really have to beat your competitors prices.

Larches,

You make some good points. I'll be looking more into this.
How are/will you be approaching these business owners? How often will you be sending blasts out to your list?

Let us know how things go!

Larches,

What strategies do you use to get people to join your list? Other than having businesses promote your offer.

I was actually thinking of doing both... get local businesses on their own
also have my own master list...
With this list it would help those missed customers they didn't get through their current marketing.

Maybe setup a different short code so it looks different also.

Hi Larch,

It is a great idea to build a master list, I have few questions for you.

What kind of business are in your master list? How often do u plan to send a text to your subscribers?

Thx

Waiyi

I'm guessing this will only work in small towns. I live in LA so using 10 dollars in gas to get a deal half way across the county isn't going to work.

Hmmm this could be very interesting to try in my local town of 50,000... how do you go about building the list? Flyers? Ads? Shouting it out?

I consider this to be sort of a Groupon-esque approach that definitely has it's place in the World. I guess for me it would be a question of why not offer both? You build your own list of numbers to which you can offer the blast AND offer businesses a way to build their own. It's a double win-win. The blast gets them in the door and helps expedite the building of their own list.

Why not build several lists for yourself - restaurants, services (oil change, tanning, etc), and some other niches. Then target businesses in each niche to help build your list since you will be blasting their ad once a week or whatever. This way there is less chance of people dropping out and each day you can blast a different niche - Mon, Wed, Fri are restaurants, Tues are services, etc.

Do you have any ideas how to create coupons using the wordpress platform for Chad's plugin? There is another warrior that has a great WSO out about this very same concept. His name is jasonthewebmaster. I just want to be able to create coupons for the businesses so customer's can redeeem them in the business using the wordpress Twilio platform from Chad.

Why aren't you both building your own list and selling sms services to local businesses?

We built our list of local people, then use it as a selling tool when we promote our sms service. If the client still does not want to build their own list, then we charge them a "blast fee". However, we have segmented our list out into 4 main categories.

Facebook fanpage my friend! We use the wP Business Press theme.