Text message organizing: yes we can?

March 19, 2009 1:40 PM

Does anyone here have any experience working with SMS/Text message broadcast vendors? A client of mine is a very large membership organization (in the US, California if it matters) that is interested in beginning to use SMS to communicate with its members. But the whole scene is hard to get a handle on.

I would especially appreciate any input or experience anyone might have regarding the companies Message-Media and Distributive Networks. Of course, any other vendor insight would be welcome. And beyond that, is there a reputable vendor out there that anyone can recommend?

The costs just seem so variable, and the whole enterprise exudes a mild shadiness (though I should note that Distributive Networks, while very expensive, seems completely above-board in every way) that shouldn't be there given that what we'd be doing is completely legal, ethical and opt-in.

Finally, is there anything here I'm likely missing or not thinking about?

posted by Ignatius J. Reilly to technology (8 comments total)

And beyond that, is there a reputable vendor out there that anyone can recommend?

I would recommend VoiceSage. (Full disclosure: they are a client.) They do this with a cool system with excellent reliability at a low cost. I'm not sure what kind of prices you're getting off DN, but I know that VoiceSage only charges for the messages delivered - there's no monthly cost or sign up or anything. They definitely do US message delivery, and a lot of it.
posted by DarlingBri at 3:58 PM on March 19

If it's a one-to-many broadcast, then how about Twitter?
posted by schrodycat at 5:33 PM on March 19

Thanks for the suggestions. I am looking into VoiceSage, though they do seem more focused on robocalls.

Twitter is an interesting suggestions, but I just don' think it's an appropriate solution here because we're targeting folks who just aren't online--mostly working poor/lower-income. Many of the don't have computers and virtually none of them sit at a desk all day.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 6:05 PM on March 19

Twitter does SMS too.
posted by hattifattener at 10:30 PM on March 19

hattifattener:
That's interesting. I will contact them. My concern is that it seems like people would have to sign up on Twitter to get the SMS messages, but maybe there's something I'm not getting. I haven't ever before heard of people without internet access of any kind using Twitter.

Thanks.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:25 PM on March 19

ExactTarget is a traditional email marketing company that offers SMS marketing as well. The cost of getting your own short code and time necessary for carrier approval (in the US), often makes it worth paying a vendor to handle the delivery.
posted by paxton at 6:02 AM on March 21

Hi there, I'm the Innovation guy at VoiceSage. You are right that from our site it doesn't look like we do Text messaging, but we do, and also premium text, and we can organize short codes etc. But I'm not going to sell to you, because I'm crap at it, so here's some advice first: (1) there are different quality levels of text. For some you are happy enough to fire and forget, and not worry too much about when they get there, or if they get there. This kind of text message is fairly cheap. the more expensive type has a service level agreement attached and have to be delivered within a time frame, and can also come with a receipt. (2) what do you want to achieve with the text? if they are "status updates", then simple text should be fine. If you want to trace back the affects of texting (versus say email updates, or advertising), then you need to be able to track back response rates. (3) do you need to insert particular personalised line items into the text, i.e. name, membership number, etc.? if so, the solution might be a little more complicated. (4) how do you get the membership data from the system you use to the text service vendor (believe me, this one is a real pain). (5) How are you going to deal with those that want to be taken off your list (for whatever reason: a bit like the do not call registry. Hope that helps.

BTW: we wouldn't classify what we do as Robocalls. There are vendors out there that do dumb polling solutions. We are Interactive Voice Messaging providers, and there is a fair amount of sophistication behind such solutions, that I would be happy to explain if anyone wants further clarity on that.

Also, twitter is a super way to do this for membership solutions, as long as people sign up for it. There are other vendors out there that have stepped into the field and offer text messaging for twitter (now that twitter have withdrawn this from some geos).

For sure, check out www.ning.com to build our own community as well.
posted by PaulSweeney at 1:29 PM on March 23

Paul, I know this is months late, but I want to say that I didn't mean anything disparaging by my use of the word "robocall." As a political consultant, I looooooooove robocalls.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 6:47 PM on April 29