Picking your brains - how to move to next level?

[Txtlocal]

I am hoping to pick your brains. I have received much valuable assistance from you over the past year and now that the business is ticking over nicely I am looking for ideas to move to the next level.

Any inspired ideas about where we could advertise, who we should be talking to, how we can raise awareness of our business? Should I be considering investment - can anyone point me to a door I should be knocking on?

I run Txtlocal.com. A website offering a very simple, low cost, yet highly powerful SMS system- and we are currently doubling sales and SMS traffic each month - and have done for the past 9 months. It is an incredibly exciting time, and each day we witness massive use of our SMS services from hundreds of businesses & services across the UK.

Txlocal is a "bedroom business" which I created in October 2005 because I could see a clear gap in the market for a very simple, low cost and accessible SMS communications system that any member of the public could use. Sign up for free in seconds - import contacts into groups from Excel or grow a list of opt-in contacts using your keyword - type your message - send. Full delivery reporting, scheduling, mailmerge, long 640 character messages, fully changeable "from address", very simple contact database. Please watch our 3 minute movie (txtlocal.com/group-text.php) showing how quickly you can set up and send your campaign!

We try and promote an opt-in approach. Every account comes with a free mobile number + keyword. These can be printed on marketing material to grow a list of customers who choose to hear from you. For example: "Text FOOD to 07786200350 to receive news from the Red Lion Inn"

We also launched a very simple programmers API a few months ago which has really set things alight! In minutes anyone can integrate SMS with existing online databases and SMS-enable any website or desktop application. Again, all free except for the low cost messages.

We found many of the other SMS companies were either:

1) Too technical - talking about SMPP and SOAP on the homepage is not great for chinese restaurants
2) Overly simplistic - did not feel like a serious business - could not trust that messages would actually be sent
3) Marketing agencies - no published prices, all gloss and no real info about just how simple SMS marketing is. We phoned one and were quoted £5000 +10p per message just to manage a simple SMS campaign! Daylight robbery - SMS is not complicated and there is no need to charge for anything other than the texts themselves at half that rate!!

Mass adoption is starting to happen - elements of the media (radio text-ins, TV adverts with shortcodes, reality voting shows, county council schemes etc) are raising awareness of SMS as a communications medium with simply awesome potential. How else can you so quickly, cheaply and personally reach out to a group of associates or customers?

In 1 year we have grown to over 4000 customers - have a look at some of the feedback. txtlocal.com/text-advertising.php Very impressive I'm sure you will agree. Everyone from nightclubs to churches to darts teams to stag do's. Anything you can imagine. We are in constant contact with hundreds of customers and have never had a single complaint, just very positive feedback

Every day we hear fantastic stories about how SMS marketing is changing businesses across the UK.

- Opticians, doctors, driving schools - texting personalised appointment reminders - much more effective and cheaper then calling customers directly or writing letters. Total outlay of less than £5 to insantly contact 100 people!
- Football teams announcing a change of fixture, match results, team updates - directly into the hands of people that have chosen to receive them. Read by 100% of receipients unlike email or letters.
- Charieties co-ordinating team members and filling rotas.
- Last minute cut-price ticket availability at the theatre
- Poker tournement meet-up information
- The big match at the city centre pub - "Come down this afternoon and show this message on the door for free entry"
- Confirmation of salary payments
- the list is simply endless...

We have blue chip customers like Pizza Hut, Rileys Snooker Halls, Tetley, Lloyds TSB, AXA Insurance... and although this is fantastic, Txtlocal was created with small businesses in mind - and we are seeing scores of these come to us each day.

We are now in a position to really start shouting about Txtlocal - and introduce the concept of opt-in group SMS to the whole UK business community and local community groups.

If you have any ideas about how we can push Txtlocal further and raise awareness then please get in touch!

Alastair Shortland
Operations Director
Txtlocal Ltd
07740 101098
MSN: al.shortland@btinternet.com
Simple Low Cost SMS Marketing - Txtlocal.com

[Peter Bowen]

Congratulations Alastair,

This is a fantastic story!

You've probably done this already but just in case you hadn't it might be worthwhile running a few "what if" scenarios to see the impact of growth on your business.

Is the business scalable relatively easily? What I mean is can you add another 4000 customers without having to invest in additional equipment and humans?

Have you done a sensitivity analysis on your current business model to see what the optimum growth steps are?

Once you've decided on the most profitable number of customers you'll know what kind of advertising spend you need to get to that number.

PM me if you want to discuss this in more detail

Cheers

Pete

[stratigen]

Alastair,

I'm involved in an SMS-related business, which doesn't directly compete with TXTlocal. In short, I've an interesting product that you could roll-out to your existing Clients.

I'd be glad to sign some paperwork, (e.g. NDA), so we can discuss in more detail. If this is of interest, conceptually, just PM me. If not, I wish you continued success.

Regards

Steve Jones.