Textingly: A Simple Text Messaging Service for Small Businesses

If you’re a small business owner and harbour a desire to use SMS messaging as a way to market your products or services then this one might be for you.

You won’t even have to get your own thumbs working either as this web based app is controlled from the comfort of your PC and depending on the size of your customer base you can get the starter package for $15 a month giving you capacity to send 400 messages.

The marketing potential of text messaging is obvious. Everyone has a mobile phone these days and texting is the preferred choice of communication for a lot of users. The application isn’t just a read only-no reply system either and so "conversations" can be initiated giving feedback on how your marketing effort is going.

Get customers to contribute to polls and give coupons, discounts or free offers in return. You can also schedule messages to be sent on future dates. The app also has a HTML widget allowing customers access to your contact list via your own website or Facebook page and a Wordpress plug-in giving similar capability for any blog you may have.

Of course the application has far more uses than just a marketing tool. All kinds of businesses can take advantage of using text messaging to remind customers and clients of pending events, appointments and deadlines. And with live chat an option, issues and problems can be handled with a simple text message too.

Conclusion
This type of functionality used to be out of the financial reach of many small businesses but this application makes it available to a whole new market and should be looked at seriously as an additional marketing tool.