Businesses and organizations that are starting short message service (SMS) marketing campaigns may want to consider short message service resellers to provide them with the ability to send SMS text messages. By knowing about the pros and cons of short message service resellers, businesses can decide if an SMS reseller will meet their text messaging needs.
Setting up an account with a short message service reseller is one of several ways that businesses and organizations can start an SMS text message marketing campaign. SMS resellers buy bulk SMS text messages, often in the form of credits, from SMS text message service providers, then resell these messages or credits to organizations at a profit, though usually for less than it would cost the organization to buy the messages on their own. For example, the short message service provider might sell text messages for 10 cents each, but by buying in bulk the reseller can get a large number of text messages for 6 cents each. The SMS reseller then sells some of those SMS bulk text messages to a business for 8 cents each.
There is often a partnership between short message service providers and resellers. The short message service provider usually offers support for the SMS reseller, such as templates for creating their website and tools for managing customer accounts. The SMS provider oversees the technical aspects of sending the SMS text messages, while the reseller handles the customer service. This can benefit the customer in several ways:
- Short message service resellers can offer SMS text messaging packages that are designed specifically to meet the needs of particular types of organizations, such as SMS text message marketing for retail businesses or medical text alerts for health care organizations.
- SMS resellers may provide a more cost effective way for businesses to send international SMS text messages than businesses are able to find on their own.
- Short message service resellers often have deals that are more economical for businesses than they might get by buying directly from short message service providers, especially if the number of bulk SMS messages the business sends is relatively small.
There are two main drawbacks to using an SMS reseller. The first is that it is fairly easy to become a short message service reseller and the industry is relatively new, which means that it can be difficult to know if a reseller is going to provide quality, ongoing service to businesses.
The second potential drawback of SMS resellers is that no matter how reliable the reseller is, they may have little to no control over the technical aspects of the SMS text messaging, so if they are not partnered with a high quality short message service provider the business may end up with unreliable service. The SMS provider is often invisible to the customer, so it can be difficult to know if a company offering SMS text messaging is a reseller and which provider they work with.
Businesses should consider the pros and cons of short message service resellers before deciding to use one. If they decide an SMS reseller is right for their business, they should look for one that has established a good reputation both for customer service and for reliability. In addition, the business should make sure the reseller’s pricing fits with their budget and offers them a good deal, and they should read all the fine print so they understand the service that they are purchasing.
Some businesses that deal with a lot of bulk SMS text messaging may want to consider becoming SMS resellers themselves. The advantage of this is the opportunity to buy SMS messages at a discount and make a profit on the ones they resell, but the business will also need to find a reliable SMS provider and be equipped to handle the customer service end of reselling SMS text messages.