It should come as no surprise that individuals who are given reminders to take better care of their health, actually do so. But through text message? Yep!

The Center for Connected health determined that individuals reminded to apply sunscreen, were 55% more likely to do so than those who weren’t contacted! The same study was done on prenatal care, curbing alcohol intake, and mental health. In all cases, people reacted positively and wanted the reminders to continue!

Think your audience could use a friendly nudge now and then? Betwext Broadcast makes it easy (and cheap!) to contact current and potential customers. Use Betwext to communicate reminders with your audience about:

• Upcoming sales
• Upcoming events
• Providing feedback
• Pending deadlines
• Bill payments
• And more!

See just how big of an impact your text message marketing can have:

Courtesy of OnlineCollegeCourses.com

Original Post at Text Message Reminders are Good for Your Health, Study Says

Wedding planning is one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. From coordinating vendors, to rounding up the wedding party, to contacting guests, there’s a ton of communication that needs to happen to ensure a smooth event.

One bride, Kim Higdon out of Scottsdale, Arizona found a use for Betwext Broadcast’s SMS messaging in keeping all of her bridesmaids and groomsmen up-to-date on times, dates, and locations of events they were expected to attend. Since all members of the wedding party kept their phones close at hand, this seemed like an obvious way for the bride to keep tabs on everyone.

“I was using Facebook to communicate less timely messages such as announcements and updates on some of the DIY projects I was doing, but I needed a tool that I could rely on to deliver important information about the wedding and all of the events leading up to it, especially if it was at the last minute,” said Kim Higdon. “Betwext made it so easy for me to create lists and send SMS messages to specific sets of people. I had my wedding party, family, vendors, and guests who wanted text message updates. All of them signed up through our Facebook group so it was welcomed when they received an SMS message update from my or my soon-to-be-husband.”

Kim used Betwext to remind the groomsmen of the rehearsal dinner location and time, and then reminded bridesmaids to bring pearls to accessorize their outfits for the big day. Betwext Broadcast came in especially helpful when the weather ended up chillier than anticipated, and Kim could quickly inform attendees to bring a coat for the outdoor reception that evening. Keep in mind, she did this all from the hotel suite while getting ready for her big day!

Kim continued, “my bridal party was amazed at the level of communication they received and loved getting addresses, dates, and times right on their phones so they could easily pull up a map, or call for directions if needed. It was perfect!”

Betwext Broadcast is ideal for any size group, whether it’s a few close friends trying to coordinate a casual night out or for communicating important information on one of the biggest days of your life.

Original Post at Bride Uses Betwext Broadcast for Coordination of Wedding

Springtime means we’re doing some cleaning around here, and we’re rolling out the new and improved Spring 2012 Betwext Broadcast.

Redesign and Rebuild of Broadcast Interface

First, we’re proud to announce a brand new redesign of the Betwext Broadcast user interface. We’ve adapted Twitter’s Bootstrap visual framework, making the Broadcast user experience significantly more intuitive and easier to use. Along with the pretty stuff, we have re-engineered the admin area and drastically improved the speed and responsiveness of the system. How much? A LOT, enough to where you should easily be able to tell a difference. So enjoy that!

New Feature! Dynamic Dates

In addition to the new redesign, we added an advanced component to Betwext Broadcast that allows users to dynamically insert a date into a keyword response. With the new Keyword Response Dynamic Date feature, subscribers can receive a valid coupon response for a set period of time after an initial text. This gives Broadcast users the ability to set up a single, automated response for a keyword instead of worrying about updating the response dates on a daily basis.

Let’s look at an example. If you create a keyword called “icecream” and set the automated response for the keyword to

Thanks for texting us! Come in before {date+7} for a free ice cream cone

The system will take the date the message is sent (today) and add 7 days to the response. Therefore, if today is May 11th and the user texts the keyword “icecream,” the text response will read,

Thanks for texting us! Come in before May 18 for a free ice cream cone

Pay Only 1 cent for Messages, no Monthly Fees

In conjunction with our redesign overhaul and newest feature, we are immensely excited to offer you two great deals:

• Users can now send all Betwext Broadcast messages for only 1¢, AND
• Betwext Broadcast is now totally free with no monthly cost. That’s unlimited subscribers, unlimited keywords and a dedicated number for FREE!

Why? Our goal is to make SMS marketing a viable product for everyone, and we’re proud to be able to provide a superior product while making it the most inexpensive solution on the market today.

Sign Up for Betwext Broadcast for Free!

Let us know what you think. The Dynamic Date feature was requested by one of our long-standing and happy customers so if you have an idea that you think could improve your experience with Betwext – let us know – we’d love to hear it! Support.Betwext.com or on Twitter @Betwext.

Thanks and stay tuned for updates and new features in the coming months!

Original Post at Big Updates and How They Will Make You Happy!

This month marks the 19th birthday of the oh-so-popular SMS text message. According to Wikipedia, the first SMS text message was sent on December 3, 1992 from a man using a personal computer to a man using an Orbitel 901 handset on the Vodafone GSM network. The content of the message was, “Merry Christmas”.

Since then, SMS text messaging has certainly come a long way! Happy birthday text message, may you continue to connect us to one another, 160 characters at a time.

Original Post at Happy 19th birthday, text messaging!

An effective SMS marketing campaign is one that relays pertinent information to those who’ve elected to receive it. So what happens when subscribers no longer want to receive your marketing or event-related messages? Are there any enforced rules for allowing users to opt-out of text message marketing campaigns?

According to the Mobile Marketing Association’s 2011 U.S. Consumer Best Practices report, users should be able to send any (or all) of the following responses to your phone number, short code, or in reply to any marketing messaging to immediately opt-out: STOP, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE, and QUIT. They also state that instructions for opting-out should be included with every message sent. (For example: “Reply STOP to be removed”)

Some rights reserved by TimmyHamster

After a user has opted-out, it’s always recommended that a confirmation of their removal be generated to ensure they know they’ve been removed. Failure to comply with these regulations doesn’t have any direct repercussions as of yet since they’re not strictly enforced, but it’s best practice to do your best to structure your marketing campaigns around these rules.

Want to reduce the number of people opting-out of your SMS marketing campaigns? Make sure you’re following these guidelines for happy customers: 

1. Make sure you never add subscribers who’ve not opted in!
2. Keep messages short, to the point, and relevant.
3. Include your company/event name, links, addresses, and pertinent contact information with each message sent. (Some subscribers may be new and not know who the message is from yet.)
4. Segment your list as much as possible to ensure people are getting targeted messages.
5. Keep an eye on frequency! Being annoying is the quickest way to scare people off.

Original Post at STOP Protocol and Regulations for SMS Marketing

Did you know you can import your attendees directly from EventBrite into Broadcast to start sending targeted, 1¢ text message campaigns? Since registrants using EventBrite typically require a cell phone number to be included upon registration, you can quickly and easily segment your attendees into useful lists and send relevant, informative campaigns to any and all registered attendees.

You can use Broadcast to inform registrants of:

• Last-minute changes to the schedule
• New speaker announcements
• Day-of-event notices
• Reminders before the event
• Sponsor messages
• Links to maps, important phone numbers, or event website information
• Anything you can possibly think of!

Connecting your EventBrite event with your Broadcast campaigns is simple! Just follow these easy steps:

1. Login to your account and go to “Account” on the primary application navigation

2. From here, you’ll scroll down until you reach the section that asks you to connect to your EventBrite API key. (Need help locating your API key in EventBrite?)

3. Once you’ve located your EventBrite API key, enter it in the form field and click “Update EventBrite API Key” and a confirmation message should appear at the top of your browser.

4. You can now go to your “Subscribers & Lists” page and select “EventBrite” from the application subnavigation to begin importing lists from your EventBrite event.

5. Once you’ve imported the list you’d like from EventBrite, that list’s summary page will appear detailing how many subscribers were added and information about each subscriber.

6. From here, you can begin to send campaigns to this list by selecting “Campaigns” from the application navigation and selecting your event list when you define recipients.

7. You’re ready to start sending as you please!

This easy integration allows you to easily communicate important details about your upcoming event to the people who care about it most: those who’ve registered to attend!

For more information about EventBrite’s integration with Broadcast and all of their other partners, check out the EventBrite partners page.

Original Post at Feature Spotlight: Seamless EventBrite Integration

According to the Pew Research Center, a new study was released taking a look at how users interact with their cell phones in 2011. Their research shows that 83% of American adults own cell phones, and over three-quarters of these individuals use text messaging to communicate regularly.

Beyond basic access to their cell phones, it’s most interesting to note exactly what these individuals are doing on their phones. Gone are the days of cell phones being a handy tool people carry around to make phone calls. Instead, these devices are glued to their hands in an effort to be in contact communication with friends, social networking websites, and businesses through app usage, text messaging, and internet browsing.

The only other communication device with this type of penetration is the television. As business owners, digital marketers, and agencies, there’s no more promising source of marketing gold than the cell phone. No other communication device in our history has the penetration, dependency, and usefulness at the cell phone, making it the perfect medium for marketing communication messages.

With the exponential growth that the cell phone has seen over the last decade, it’s truly the future of digital marketing.

31% of your cell-phone toting, text message-using customers prefer to be contacted by text message over voice phone calls. What are you doing to cater to this need? Sign up for Broadcast today and start getting your message in front of them sooner.

Original Post at Smartphone Usage by the Numbers: The Future of Digital Marketing

Every so often we hear of a success story with one of our products and love to share what we hear. One such happy customer is the largely popular WordPress-focused conference, WordCamp Phoenix. Put on completely by volunteers and supported through corporate sponsorships, this event gathered over 750 attendees over a 5-day event, making it the largest-scale WordCamp in the world, to date. One of the sponsors, yours truly, allowed event coordinators to schedule text messaging campaigns for event registrants to communicate important announcements, event schedules over the five days, and specific information to prepare the speakers. The flexibility of Broadcast allowed plenty of day-of messages sent for various last-minute communication that needed to be sent quickly, and ensure that everyone received it.

Photo courtesy of wcphx

Amanda Blum, Operations Director for the event, informed us that they used Broadcast as much the day of the event as they had all the months prior with scheduled campaigns. The easy-to-use interface allowed her to load scheduled text message notifications for the different groups attending different locations and quickly broadcast sponsor messages and giveaways.

Photo courtesy of wcphx

Reactions during and after the event from attendees were that they felt completely involved thanks to the timely updates and simplicity of message delivery. Because of the great reaction to the level of communication provided to attendees, Broadcast will also be sponsoring the upcoming WordCamp in Las Vegas in December 2011. Event organizers are already planning informative text messaging campaigns about hotel information, day of registration, and speaking schedules during the conference as well as keeping their sponsors happy with another way to reach the attendees.

As you can see Betwext Broadcast makes for a great flexible Event Marketing tool. Find out more about Broadcast at www.Betwext.com/Broadcast/ and let us know how we can power your event!

Original Post at WordCamp Phoenix uses Broadcast Text Message Marketing to Organize Event

As many of you know, we’re working hard to make the Betwext Remind and Broadcast APIs publicly available. The good news is we’re super close – we’ve already started beta testing the Betwext Remind API, and we’re hoping to see some really cool stuff from developers wanting to integrate SMS reminders into their apps. Betwext Broadcast API is in an alpha stage as we work hard to make documentation awesome and squash any bugs. If you’re a developer and you’re interested in testing either the Broadcast SMS marketing API or the Remind API, shoot us an email to info@betwext.com or ping @betwext on Twitter.

Original Post at Betwext API Status Update

Based on popular demand we’re announcing the release of the Chrome Extension for Betwext Remind. Thanks to our friends and beta testers we’ve worked out the bugs and have a stable release available in the web store.

Screenshot:

Betwext Remind is a SMS Reminder service that lets you quickly and easily setup text message alerts for the things you need to do, all without cluttering your calendar.

Installing the extension will add the Betwext logo to your toolbar area right of the address bar. Click that and you’ll need to enter your Remind account info. If you don’t have that yet, it’s free! Just sign up here and enter your info when you’re done.
After you enter your account info all you have to do is start scheduling your reminders and simply hit “Enter” or the “Remind Me” button.
Done deal – that’s it!

Download the Remind Chrome Extension at the Chrome web store

Don’t forget to Rate the extension! If you have any problems or feature requests feel free to use our support system for that.

Enjoy!

Original Post at Betwext Remind Chrome Extension