Of all the legitimate businesses done online today, Bulk SMS attracts the largest share of investment from entrepreneurs as it is considered the most reliable of all the web-based businesses with predictable stream of income. This development can be attributed to the fact that Bulk SMS business is hardly affected by currency fluctuation, stock market conditions, international factors or government policy.

Bulk SMS business is one of the fastest-growing, low-capital requiring businesses in Nigeria. The growth is predicted by researchers to experience a record boom by year 2020 due to geometric increase in the use of mobile phones. It is a business for everyone, even a student with N30,000 savings can run a functional Bulk SMS website. In addition, the market for this business is wide open and easily accessible namely religious bodies, event organizers, political parties, NGO, corporate businesses etc.

What are the possible steps required in running a profitable Bulk SMS business? This is what we will be looking into in the next couple of paragraphs.

Get your facts right: Preliminary research is necessary in starting up a Bulk SMS business, just like any other. You need to study what you are going into and learn about the basics. Define your target market – this will help simplify pursuit of prospective customers. Research and study top industry players and close competitors, learn about associated challenges – so not to be caught unawares. Find out about the start-up capital. Inquire about reliable Bulk SMS dealers to do business with. Knowing all these will help you decide whether you are ready for the business or not. In case you are not ready yet, you may pass this up from here. But if you’ve decided to join the bandwagon of successful Bulk SMS entrepreneur, let’s dig it together.

Choose a domain name: This is the first step of the entire process. Before delving into the design of your website, there is need to search and decide on the domain name for the site. This, I can say, is the most important aspect of the business as your choice of domain name will greatly influence traffic positively or negatively. For the purpose of clarity, I will outline the steps to employ in simplifying the naming process.

ü  Make a long list of sensible names you wish to give your Bulk SMS website on a piece of paper. Get on any hosting website and use the domain lookup panel to check the availability of each of the names on your list. More often, most of the names would be picked already. But hey! There is no cause for worry. If none is available, come up with many more names.
 
ü  Ensure your domain name reflects the business you are venturing into, in this case, Bulk SMS. For instance www.trialsms.com. This tells people what you do as soon as they see your domain name.
 
ü  Keep your name short and clear. It is better to use common terms. The best standard is to keep the name below 15 letters. This will make it easy for people to memorise your domain without much rehearsal. Short domain names are also quickly crawled and indexed by search engines. For instance, www.foremostsms.com is short, has common word and easy to remember. That’s why you are here without hassle.
 
ü  Try as much as possible to avoid symbols and punctuations like dash(-), underscore(_) within your domain name. It makes it messy. Believe me, it’s even unprofessional.
 
ü  Avoid trademark infringement. Don’t try to imitate or replicate a competitor’s name with the aim of profiting from the latter’s goodwill. It is called Cybersquatting. This is a serious crime which will even belittle your business.
 
ü  You can as well consult an experienced web developer or better still a reliable Bulk SMS Dealer to help choose a winning domain name for your Bulk SMS business.

Setting up your site: Now that your business is named, let’s get started with creating your Bulk SMS workshop – the website. This is where bulk of the work lies, and apparently the part that scares people away. But take it from me; while setting up any workshop can sometimes be a strenuous task, it is a form of adventure for passionate and determined entrepreneurs.

In setting up your Bulk SMS website, you have two options to choose from. You can either set up your business as a reseller/user sub-domain on a hosted platform created by a Bulk SMS dealer. This system of hosting a Bulk SMS website is what we call SaaS (Software as a Service) system in that you don’t have to create anything, you only modify. All you have to do is customize the provided theme with your own logo, domain name, slogan and colour. Simple! But this often comes with a setup fee.

On the other hand, you can negotiate the design and hosting of your own independent Bulk SMS website with a Bulk SMS website specialist who incorporates all necessary components into your hosted money-making website and hand over the management of the functional site to you. Here, you have 100% control over the content of your Bulk SMS website. The easy-to-navigate backend of the website provides the medium for content update. In our subsequent articles, we will do in-depth justice to the pros and cons of self-hosted Bulk SMS website versus SaaS/customized dealer platform. But if I forget, do send me a reminder!

Get the best deal in resellership:  There are numerous Bulk SMS resellers/dealers in Nigeria who offer services on varying gateways at different rates. Look for a tested and trusted reseller with quality service delivery on an Alphanumeric gateway. This is equally important. Your choice of reseller will not only determine the level of satisfaction your users get but also affect your customer base and profit margin.

Contact your reseller who masterminds the design of your Bulk SMS website and the provision of API (Application Programming Interface) which serves as a set of protocols that queries the reseller gateway for responses when actions like sending SMS or checking balance are triggered on your website. In other words, the API is the link between your Bulk SMS website and that of the dealer.

Don’t be deceived, resellers will only charge you for the units of SMS you purchase from them or service of developing your website. Releasing the API to you is at no additional cost.

Bulk SMS business is characterized by price fluctuations as GSM operators change prices as they wish. Look out for the period when prices are low and fund your Bulk SMS website with large volume of SMS units. This will keep against stock-out as well as buying at loss or breakeven prices. The good news is, SMS units don’t expire!

 Run a profitable marketing campaign: Of what value is a well-designed Bulk SMS website without a paying user/customer? To get your business out of the dark, there is need for a dependable marketing strategy.

At the early stage of your Bulk SMS business, one-on-one advertisement often proves more useful and economical. Meet as many people as you can and introduce your website to them. By now you know where your service is most needed. Visit church group/committee leaders, political campaign groups, event organizers including individuals and introduce your site. If a trial convinces them, they will come back for more.

Marketing campaigns can also be launched on advertising networks like Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, Ad Dynamos etc. These forms of advertising come at a cost but can be highly effective if well-planned and targeted. If not, you only get a stream of website visitors who are not converted into paying users. Anyway, that’s not a complete loss as visitors today may still turn users tomorrow.

You may also advertise your business on newspaper columns, TV or Radio Stations if you have the resources. Whichever mode of advertising you employ, just showcase your business.

Social media engagement: Social media like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn are not for posting leisure pics or chatting alone, people still do business there. Create pages for your Bulk SMS website on social communities and link up with your website. Engage fans regularly by posting interactive messages and pictures that facilitates two-way communications. This keeps fans visiting and commenting on your pages thereby becoming acquainted with your brand.

If well managed, social community traffic is the surest of all forms of campaign. It also has highest conversion rate.

Blog as a tool: If there is one thing blogging does so well, it is announcing your professionalism to the world. The content of your blog, if they are genuine and authentic, tells your readers how well you know your onion. As a Bulk SMS business entrepreneur, you can share your knowledge and experience on the business (even if that’s all you know) with visitors and users of your site. If you know more, bring all to bear. But keep your content relevant.

Everybody wants to do business only with a professional, not someone who only plays around words. Stand out from the crowd of people who put up “Bulk SMS business” materials for sale or hold seminars on the discourse without knowing how a Bulk SMS website operates. Practical knowledge over time earns you experience. Experience in turn makes you a teacher.

Managing users: If you have only one paying customer, which happens at a point, make the user feel like owning the site. Treat every user as important as you can. This won’t only make them stay for as long as nature permits; they won’t hesitate to recommend you to anyone that needs the service. A satisfied user is the best advertiser of any business. Don’t forget that.

Some people may see incentives, discounts and promo as ways of keeping users. But I can authoritatively say that intimacy with users by way of timely birthday messages, congratulatory SMS and unique customer service are worth more than year-long discount. Mind you, I never said all users on your site will stay forever. In business, you win some you lose some.

Monetizing your content: Who says you can’t make extra cash from your website traffic? Well, if you so wish, there is no rule that says otherwise. You can register your domain with an Affiliate programme or sign up for Google AdSense which enables you to help advertise other people’s products for a share of the return.

This is where some site owners and bloggers make extra cash. However, the site must be 100% yours. People who run Bulk SMS business on SaaS may therefore be cut off this deal.

Having said so much, if you are still undecided about making extra cash running a Bulk SMS business even while you are employed, you are definitely on a long thing.

 

Foremostsms.com is Nigeria’s leading Bulk SMS platform owned and developed by a team of experienced developers at REIGNET SYSTEMS – a sister company. If you need the services of a seasoned Bulk SMS website developer as well as reliable Bulk SMS resellership programme that keeps up your profit margin as a Bulk SMS business owner, contact us today or call our 24-hour customer service on +2348093277564.

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