Starting a text message strategy can be a daunting
implementation process. Believe it or not, carriers are largely manual even
today… submit paperwork, have your data retention and privacy policies
reviewed, and sign off on SMS permissions. I’m not trying to understate the
importance of compliance with this medium, but the frustration of migrating or
integrating an SMS solution can be quite frustrating for a permission-based,
legitimate marketer.
The process for SMS Marketing is quite a complex one
typically. Most SMS platforms, for example, do not communicate and integrate
directly with SMS carriers. There’s typically an SMS marketing or communication
platform that communicates with a service that then connects to a message
gateway that then sends the message through to the carrier.
While the SMS platform may be amazing, they are reliant on
the SMS message gateway for its system to be operational. From a pricing
standpoint, that means that you pay for your software, you pay for messaging
fees to your platform, you may pay for acquiring more keywords, and then they
pay for messaging fees to the message gateway. The cost of SMS can quickly
explode… especially since consumers are adopting SMS more frequently to
interact with businesses.
By the end of last year, 48.7 million consumers will have
willingly opted-in to receive SMS communications from their favorite brands.
70% of consumers think SMS marketing is a great way for businesses to get their
attention. 82% of people say they open every text message they receive.
There are some incredibly robust and affordable SMS gateways
out there that you can register for and utilize directly through robust APIs,
including Twilio, Plivo, Telnyx, SignalWire, Nexmo, Ytel, and Bandwidth. These
platforms have software developer kits that connect to robust APIs to help you
develop your SMS platform or integration however you’d like. Unfortunately,
though, that requires development expertise, infrastructure, and ongoing
maintenance.
UltraSMSScript: Buy and Customize Your Own SMS Messaging
Platform
A less expensive alternative to developing your own SMS
messaging platform or paying monthly licensing fees to an online platform is to
purchase the code and run it on your own infrastructure. This can help you get
up and running faster as well as ensure your platform is compliant, safe, and
stable. UltraSMSScript is a white-label software with API that you can purchase
and install yourself and then utilize any of the SMS gateways. There are no
ongoing fees and you pay more affordable SMS messaging fees since you’re
working directly with a gateway.
UltraSMSScript Features Include
Mobile Coupons – Create beautiful Mobile Coupons to send to
your customers. They are a great way to build a loyal customer base while also
rewarding your current customers. Each coupon is completely customizable and
includes many settings and features allowing you flexibility with how you want
to set them up.
Q&A SMS Bots – Create automated SMS questions and
responses which are kicked off by texting in a keyword. You can create as many
questions in a sequence as you want. Great for customer support, quizzes,
gathering valuable feedback, and growing your list.
Send Bulk SMS – At the heart of an SMS marketing campaign is
the ability to send SMS messages in bulk to your subscribers. Send to 1 group
or multiple groups at once! Send messages to your customers to announce deals
or discounts you want to promote which can bring in massive business.
Unlimited Mobile Keywords – The ability for users to engage
in keyword marketing. Mobile keywords are an element of mobile marketing
campaigns to appeal to a certain target market. You get access to unlimited
keywords! People can sign up for your text marketing by texting a keyword.
Bulk SMS Scheduling – Scheduling out messages in intervals
is a great way to ensure your customers won’t forget about you. Our script
allows you to have full control of when SMS messages get sent out so you can
schedule out messages months in advance.
Autoresponders – After a person joins your subscriber list,
automatically send them a custom message back. You can also set up the
autoresponders to automatically send SMS back to the subscribers after they
subscribe on a preset schedule much like email autoresponders work.
Send MMS / Picture Messaging – MMS brings the best of email
and urgency of SMS to your customer communications. Paint the whole picture
with rich media on every mobile phone, with near-100% open rates and fast
response times.
2-Way SMS Chat – 2-way SMS chat connects you or your
customer service department to your mobile customers, via SMS. Gather valuable
feedback and make communication with your customers a 2-way street, all via SMS
with an instant messenger interface!
Sub-Accounts – Have team members that you want to delegate
work on different modules within the platform and only give them access to
specific features? You can do that with our sub-accounts!
Recurring Messages – Need to schedule a series of messages
on a recurring basis? You can repeat events daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly,
and the frequency of those scheduled events(every day, every 2nd day, every 5th
day, once a week, every 2 weeks, etc…)
SMS Contests – Create SMS contests as a way to engage and
reward your current customers while also using them as a great tool to grow
your list. There’s nothing more important than keeping your customers happy and
growing your list at the same time!
Birthday SMS Wishes – Easily collect your contacts’
birthdays when they subscribe to your list. Then, on their birthday or even a
certain amount of days before, our system will automatically send them your
birthday text message.
Facebook Integration – Ability to share your message to your
Facebook page! Spread the word and increase participation among your fans
giving you the ability to grow your subscribers by sharing your messages on
your Facebook account.
Bulk SMS Delivery Stats – View detailed stats like # of
successful messages, # of failed messages, and the reason the message failed,
and allow the user to delete any subscribers from the list that have failed to
receive messages.
Detailed Campaign Analytics – Track your campaigns to take a
deeper look into which keywords are performing the best, detailed SMS logs, and
new subscribers and unsubscribers over a certain period of time.
Website Signup Widgets – Allow potential customers to join
an SMS marketing list through a web-based form that is placed on a website.
This provides yet another cost-effective avenue to reach and attract new
consumers.
SMS Polls – Create text-to-vote polls to keep your
subscribers engaged and interested in what you have to offer as well as collect
valuable information and gain insight into what they want and need from you.
Mobile Splash Page Builder – Perfect for users that want to
create their own pages with video, images, or any HTML and then send those page
URLs out to their subscriber list to view. Equipped with a full-featured HTML
editor.
Appointment Reminders – Schedule and send appointment
reminders to your customers ensuring they won’t forget about an appointment
they made. Search for your contact then easily schedule an SMS to go out to
them.
Built-In Link Shortening & Tracking – You have the
option to shorten your links so they don’t take up as many characters in your
text messages and also track how many clicks were made for a given link to see
how effective your message was. A very helpful little tool!
Local Numbers – Gather valuable feedback and make
communication a 2-way street all from local recognizable phone numbers! Add
multiple local numbers to a user account. Send messages from a pool of phone
numbers to speed up delivery or slow it down.
Email Alerts – Get new subscriber email alerts as they
happen or in a daily summary. Also, get low credit balance email alerts so
you’ll always be aware of when to replenish your credits.
Message Templates – Save common or often used SMS messages
so that you will not have to re-enter the same message repeatedly. Simply
select which template to use and have it populate the message for you.
Broadcast From Phone – On the run? No problem at all! You’ll
have the ability to blast out your SMS marketing campaigns with a simple text
message! No need to log in to your account to manage this process.
QR Codes – Generate QR codes as a way to bridge your offline
marketing campaign to the online medium. Our software comes equipped with new
subscriber and web page URL QR codes.
Segment Your Contacts – With our group segmenting function,
you can easily create groups within your text marketing lists. This organizes
your contacts into groups and allows you to keep organized all your subscribers
and where they are coming from!
Voice Broadcasting – Broadcast a voice message out to your
contacts! Either type in a message and the system will convert the text into
voice, or upload your own message via an MP3 file. Another great way to
communicate and keep your contacts engaged in your offerings.
Upload Your Subscriber Lists – Have an opt-in SMS list from
somewhere else that you want to migrate over? Provided you have explicit
written consent from your subscribers that they agreed to receive messages from
you, you can upload your list as well. We’ve made that process incredibly easy!
Voicemail / Call Forwarding – Voicemail and call forwarding
capability. Have the option to have your calls go directly to voicemail, where
you can then listen to them inside the control panel, or have your calls
forwarded to any number you wish!
SMS to Email / Email to SMS – Get email notices when someone
texts something to your online number(SMS to Email). You can then respond
directly to that email from your email client, the system will take that email,
and text them back(Email to SMS). A great and very useful tool!
Name and Email Capture – Have the option to collect the name
and email of a new subscriber joining your opt-in list! Collect names to
personalize your SMS messages and emails if you want to promote to them with
your email marketing campaigns.
Contact Management – Very simple to use contact management
system that contains your contacts/subscribers. Search on and manage all your
subscribers here.
SMS Punch Card Loyalty Rewards – Forget those archaic and
often misplaced paper punch cards. Offer SMS “punch card” loyalty rewards to
your customers and build loyalty to your brand to keep customers happy and
coming back.
Kiosk Builder – A digital loyalty kiosk is a cutting-edge
tool that lets you create an easy-to-use kiosk display. It provides your
on-site customers with a user-friendly display – letting them join a mobile
club, check in to a loyalty program, and check their current status.
API – Access the most core features of the UltraSMSScript
platform through the API. Integrating the UltraSMSScript API into your
application will enable you to extend the functionality of the platform into
your own app!
Email Integrations – If email capture is turned on,
automatically add the emails to your favorite email services like Mailchimp,
aWeber, GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, or Sendinblue! All handled seamlessly
behind the scenes.
Online Fax – Send and receive faxes between UltraSMSScript
and a fax machine! Migrate the manual, offline process of faxing and turn to
fax documents into a software experience while giving businesses more
flexibility with moving away from old legacy hardware.
Double Opt-in – Optional double opt-in capability that if
turned on, people will get an additional text message asking them to reply with
“Y” to confirm their subscription. Double opt-in is not mandatory, however, it
is highly recommended in certain situations depending on the content of the
messages you will be sending.
For the encoded version of the PHP script, you will receive
all the source code to allow you to change the front-end design elements if you
wish to give it whatever look and feel you desire. However, most of the core
back-end files will be encoded. UltraSMSScript uses ioncube to encode and
license the files. Most hosting companies already have the ioncube loader
installed and enabled since ioncube is the industry standard for protecting
sensitive files. For the Level 4 & ULTRA packages of the script, you will
receive 100% of the source code and, of course, you sign a non-resale agreement
that states you will not resell the actual script.