sms marketing in the US question >

hi there all
i have a newbie question.

i am interested in establishing an sms marketing campaign to the US market.

As most of you may know While There are many companies that offer the text sending systems -
you still need to provide the phone numbers to their systems .

You can buy a Faux phone list on the web - but the law as i understand this - says you are only allowed to send SMS to somebody who has gave u their number by consent.

setting up a campaign only to obtain phone numbers -well - that a costly option u try to avoid by using sms marketing in the first place.

SO how do you overcome this ?
Can you partner with another brand who already has a phone list?

any suggestions ?

thanks

 

Spamming someone by SMS may be worse than spamming someone by email, because a text message tends to be much more intrusive for the average person than an email. I get "spammed" by my mobile phone company with new offers, etc., and all it does is annoy me and make me want to switch providers.

I suppose that if you can connect with a company that has a list of clients/prospects who have agreed to receive promotional texts from them, it would be an option for you. Of course, it will only make sense for both companies if your products/services are complementary or have some relevance to the clients/prospects.

But be very careful about this. It is one thing to send an email spam to someone in the U.S. It is entirely different to use the phone system to do the same thing. The laws are much stricter about unsolicited calls, faxes, etc., and I suspect that texts will fall more into this category in the eyes of the law.

One potential approach might be to develop a free smartphone app that provides real value to your potential buyers. Then work to promote the app thereby getting downloads and building an audience for your promotional messages (via the app, of course.) That could be very effective, if it is done well.

Bottomline: there is no easy/cheap way to contact a list of potential buyers that will actually impact your revenues in a positive way. Build your own list by spending money or working really hard and you will do much better rather than hoping that you will "hit the lottery" with a big list of buyers that come to you at no cost or effort. If the latter were an option, at lot more people would be Internet millionaires.

 

Thanks for your elaborate answer Jrbiz!

yeah - exactly my thoughts . i was asking this question here in order to avoid senseless spamming of unsuspecting US citizens.

Thought maybe someone here is familiar with companies that offer this kind of opt-in lists partnership.