InvolveMobile is a company that has been in business since SMS marketing first began. Text Message marketing made its debut in 2001 in Europe and 2002 in the United States. Ever since that time, as text messaging has become more popular, the concept of marketing through this prevailing form of communication has the direct attention of businesses. We’ll review InvolveMobile, a veteran in the SMS marketing world.
InvolveMobile mentions itself as an “award winning” company an abundance of times. In this market, features, cost, and support is what gets you award winning status. The awards that InvolveMobile won were back in 2001 and 2002 which is a given because there probably were not any SMS marketing services available. Anyone who came out with the concept would have been award winning. They did it back then, lets see if their features are still up to par with the now well-populated market.
On the InvolveMobile website, they have a big list of features, most of which have somewhat confusing language to those who are new to this form of marketing. If your a beginner, you may want to watch their videos to get a better explanation of what their features are and how they work. For the most part, they offer similar features to that of the rest of the companies out there offering this service. The abilities include: creating and sending bulk SMS messages, receiving inbound messages, contact management and customer relationship tools, analytics, and creating interactive campaigns. None of the features listed stand out as really unique to their company or super innovative.
The cost of using InvolveMobile is fairly inexpensive compared to the industry averages on cost. InvolveMobile charges a one-time setup fee of $75. After this is paid, the monthly charge for a package of 500 low-priority messages is $45 per month. Low-priority messages, as a presumption are probably sent via SMTP, the same protocol used for email. This method of transferring messages isn’t nearly as reliable, end-users cannot always successfully respond back, and they are limited to 120 character messages. Additional low-priority messages can be purchased from InvolveMobile for 2 cents per message when purchased in a $10 package.
You can purchase priority messages at 2.8 cents per message when you purchase them in a $20 bundle. If you just plan to purchase them as you go, they are 5 cents a message. Priority messages are transferred through the higher-speed, reliable carrier connections through shortcode. These messages are fully featured and allow you to send 160 character messages.
Additional keywords can be purchased for $25 per month and you have a maximum amount of 3 keywords per account.
InvolveMobile provides support for their customers, mainly through FAQs. They have plenty of questions and they are divided into categories of:
- General
- Mobile Marketing Tips
- Contacts & History
- Broadcasts
- Interactive Campaigns
- Accounts and Billing
- Messages
Your question is probably found somewhere in these FAQs. If not, they offer phone and email support for the United States and Australia.
Overall, InvolveMobile keeps things simple. None of the features they offer are anything unique to just them, in fact they are quite common among other SMS text messaging providers. If you are looking for a company with the latest technology and techniques in the marketing world, you may want to try somewhere else. However, if you are just looking for a basic system to send messages and manage your contacts, InvolveMobile might work for you.