Just got a demo of Txtio from my bud Eugene Belenky. Eugene bills Txtio as “SMS marketing done right” and he may be onto something. Txtio is launching next week.
The service is basically a SMS marketing platform for local businesses. They provide you with a local phone number instead of the short codes that most SMS marketers use – the idea being that local phone numbers are more familiar and easier to use than short codes. You then build your subscriber list and can easily message them with custom texts. The texts can be posted to Twitter, Facebook and ShowMeLocal (Eugene’s site).
I am not a big fan of getting unsolicited commercial messages via SMS (thanks AT&T), but when you opt-in I think it can be pretty powerful. And I really liked the simplicity of Txtio’s platform.
While Txtio is one of thousands of marketing services being thrown at SMBs these days, it definitely seems to be more useful then “let me set up a Twitter account for you”. Check it out.
Full Disclosure: This is not a paid endorsement, but I am a fan of Eugene’s 🙂
And while we’re on the subject of promoting stuff, if you are looking for a great Hawaii Wedding Photographer, I highly recommend checking out Modern Twist Photography.
8 Response Comments
Thank you Andrew! TXTio will be live next week. (http://twitter.com/txtio)
They say that text message marketing has a 90% read rate, which is way better than email marketing or print advertising. The key is creating incentives that would make people want to opt in to your list. Text coupons for free drinks at a bar would do it for me! But dude, you better only text me when I’m AT your bar.
Jenn, it would be even cooler if you could text me while I am at the bar down the street which charges way too much for a drink.
TXTio.com is scheduled to fully launched on January 18, 2011 Thank you.
TXTio.com is scheduled to be fully launched on January 18, 2011 Thank you.
Hey Andrew, funny you posted about this… I wanted to do something similar for WordCamp Phoenix that I just ran down here in ‘zona… found http://betwext.com and their ‘broadcast’ product… Worked like a charm and setup texts to drop during the day to alert people of track schedules and conference announcements.
I think text marketing isn’t totally utilized to its potential yet, and txtio and betwext are the start of something new? maybe? And it’s easy for people to opt out if they want. I’m not too worried about spam because any of the ones I’ve gotten in the past randomly I’ve texted stop and never saw them again… wish email was as easy lol!
I’ll check out txtio for sure too! cheers
Chuck, I haven’t looked at other players in this niche, but I found Txtio’s UI and feature set to be pretty compelling.
right on, I’ll def check it out
cheers