Best SMS gateway for Startups
Startups are growing fast and require flexibility in terms of scaling to meet their target audience. Bulk SMS allows all business entities to communicate with their customers instantly. Moreover, SMS marketing is a highly cost-effective option. This makes SMS marketing worth considering, especially for start-ups, as they might not have big marketing and advertising budgets.
Additionally, as a new entrant in the market, it is important to understand your consumers better. Bulk SMS gateway providers offer analytics on your SMS marketing campaigns. You can even send personalized messages to customers and build ever-lasting relationships. Affordable SMS marketing enables you to consistently informs them about your products/services and ensure continued brand loyalty.
How to choose an SMS gateway that accelerates your growth as a startup?
Cost of service
One of the most important aspects of choosing an SMS service provider for startups is the cost. Often functioning on limited budgets, they need an SMS service that provides them the highest return on investments (ROI). Getting information about operational costs, bulk SMS prices and price per SMS will help compare different providers and get to the one that is most economical. Since SMS gateway price is a huge factor to consider, examine the different service providers to figure out a provider that offers the most value for your investment.
Delivery and bounce rates
While everyone looks for a cheap SMS gateway, it’s important to remember that low cost should not mean less efficiency. Reliability is a key consideration along with cost while choosing an SMS solution right for your business. Delivery failure can be a huge cause for concern. SMS may not be delivered on time due to errors at the device level or at the network level. Therefore, pay attention to how dependable your gateway is.
The initial years of a business are most crucial in building a customer base. Thus, choosing an SMS gateway that ensures fast and guaranteed delivery is important. You can use statistics from previous years to assess SMS providers’ bounce rates and average time of delivery to get an idea of what to expect from their future services.
APIs
The application programming interfaces (APIs) are a set of tools that allow two different systems to interact with one another. When looking for a bulk SMS service provider, you must seek one that has a full set of functional and well-documented SMS APIs. They should also have the ability to integrate these APIs into existing systems and platforms. This will take away your burden of switching to a new CRM system for the functionality.
Scalability
Even if you’re starting out with a few hundred messages, you must choose an SMS provider that is scalable. Its services must be able to keep up with the growth of your startup. You must not have to think twice about your capacity of managing business communication with customers when your operations are allowing you to expand into new market segments.
Customer service
When you start using SMS providers that are a startup, with relatively newer operations and customers, you are likely to have a lot of glitches. These need to be fixed immediately so that it does not hinder your business operations. Selecting an experienced SMS service provider that focuses on customer care, and offers instant support and advice on your SMS campaigns will be highly beneficial for your firm.
The best SMS gateways for Startups
Keeping in mind all the concerns and limitations startups might face, we have created a list of 5 SMS gateways they can choose for their communicational needs.
- TextLocal
They have a special pricing structure for startups which includes 1,000 SMS credit. As you expand, you can use features like multi-user roles, locked templates, campaign approvals, audit trails, and numerous integrations. It provides a wide range of packages to choose from to make your communication more efficient. However, they have slightly higher prices than their competitor’s services. - Kaleyra
Kaleyra is an international enterprise that specializes in mobile messaging services for startups, banks, large companies, and SMEs. Its platform is strong and fully scalable, allowing you to integrate multi-channel communication services featuring messages, push notifications, emails, instant messaging, and voice services. It also provides extended SMS features – Bulk SMS, 2-way SMS, number authentication, and real-time data reports- to help startups strategize business communication and build strong relationships with their clients. - Clickatell
Through its personalized SMS and real-time interactions, you can get in touch with your clients immediately. Their technology is easily integrable with most CRM systems and can even be built into your websites. Through its option of having a single account interface for multiple business users, you can make your internal communication stronger as well. - Msg91
Started in 2010, Msg91 provides credits SMS for other startups. It allows clients a chance to use a variety of add-ons like Excel plugin, Google spreadsheets, and Email2SMS. It provides data reports, giving you access to customer analytics for a better understanding. - Mob Texting
A startup itself, Mob Texting aims at empowering other startups with messaging and cloud telephony services. It may not have as much experience in the field but provides affordable packages for startups to get their SMS campaigns started. They provide a simple and inexpensive marketing approach to make interaction with customers more efficient.
This list is exclusively designed for startups to give them a better understanding of the different offerings from the best SMS gateways in India. Through cloud-based SMS services, you can exponentially improve your business communication. This era of messaging, when people are constantly checking their phones throughout the day, is the ideal time to get into SMS marketing. This guarantees that information will reach and be acknowledged by your customers in turn, increasing their involvement with your product/service.
No matter how good your marketing campaign is, it is of no use if you can’t get the information out to at least the majority of your customers. SMS providers determine the success of your marketing campaigns and thus, it is important to carefully select the one that is ideal for your business.
Disclaimer: The information produced in this article does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Kaleyra or any other agency, organization, employer or company. Information in the article is updated as of 15 August 2018, and is based on publicly available information. In addition, the thoughts and opinions indicated in this article are subject to any change made from time to time as is necessary to cater to our unprejudiced mindset. All information (including any links, quotes, opinions, reviews, etc.) here is provided on an AS IS basis without any liability whatsoever.
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