Media marketing made simple - contact your clients, grow your customer base.
We know our stuff. We've been doing it since 2002.
Communicloud have been providing online SMS services and shortcodes since 2002. We were one of the pioneers providing cost effective, feature packed online SMS solutions for UK business. We've almost seen it all and had the opportunity to work with some big brands along the way.
You can be sure of one thing - our expertise in the market means we offer honest and professional advice on the best solutions for your business then back it up with a great range of services that meet and exceed your expectations.
We're here to help bring your ideas to life. You can call us anytime, here in the UK and talk with professionals who will guide you on the best solutions. And if we can't offer a solutions, we're humble enough to recommend someone who can. We're here to help your business grow and we've partnered with hundreds of businesses like yours.
Your first steps.
You've had a meeting. You've decided you need to use SMS. But you're not sure how. And now you're here. Great - let's get started.
Well let's start at the beginning and tell you what we do and then hopefully inspire you and conjure up some ideas of how you can benefit from a great range of services we offer.
Exporting clients the proper way.
The main purpose of our website is the ability we give you to do marketing using SMS. For most companies, exporting data - such as mobile numbers - from your CRM is easy enough, but before you jump in lets talk about the best way to export it.
Firstly, if your customer base can be filtered before exporting, this is a good idea. So let's look at at an example business.
"Joe Bloggs Car Sales" wants to export their customer mobile numbers. Our first advice would be to export customers as groups. For example, export them by 'male', 'female', 'new car buyers', 'used car buyers', 'service', 'parts' etc.
Pinpoint precision marketing tools.
The Communicloud platform allows you to create "client groups" within your online phonebook. You can upload each batch of exported clients into their respective groups. Our system allows clients to co-exist in multiple groups (example a 'new car buyer' that is also a 'female').
Now you've done this you have a great way to target your customers using pinpoint precision. You can simply type the message you want to send within your admin panel and pick just the groups you want to reach.
What's more, you can schedule messages to go at any time in the future. So if you've got an advert running at 7.12pm in the break of Emmerdale, you can reach your clients by SMS, literally moments after they watch your advert.
Track who you reach and de-activate those you don't.
We give comprehensive delivery reports that work in real time.
Better still, we tell you not only that your message was delivered, but exactly who received it. If some clients didn't receive it we go one step further than our competitors; we tell you WHY they didn't receive it - such as 'number invalid', 'number not in use' and many other reasons.
We also include a quarantine system. With the press of a button, you can de-activate customers that our system knows cannot be reached. Next time you send a message, those customers are ignored and you save valuable messages.
It's more than just a text message. Link to websites and documents.
Modern smartphones recognise hyperlinks in text messages. You can include links to other content such as your own website or a page, or if you prefer upload PDF files and images to our server and link to them from your message. People reading your message can follow the link to download the image or PDF easily.
You can also link to your very own mobile friendly webpage you can design and create from within your admin panel in just a few minutes.
Configure the webpage your way with coloured text and backgrounds, video's, social sharing buttons, feedback forms and more.
Mobile webpages keep customers engaged and give you the opportunity of providing detailed information or asking for feedback.
And you can create unlimited mobile webpages completely free.
Your customers can opt out.
Obvioulsy some customers may not want to receive your SMS messages. No problem. We offer a free unsubscribe option which can be added to your text message which allows them to simply send a text to opt-out.
Our system is also clever enough to recognise numbers that have opted out in any files you upload in the future. So if you ever try to upload opted out numbers again our platform automatically removes them for you.
Shortcodes, virtual numbers so your customers can opt in.
Sending SMS is only half the story. Our shortcodes and virtual numbers provide a great way for customers to opt-in to receive your messages.
Texting a keyword to a shortcode.
5 digit shortcodes (such as 82055 or 81888) are easy to remember and popular on TV and radio marketing adverts. Shortcodes only work on the networks in the country of origin. Ours are UK based.
Our "virtual" mobile numbers look like a mobile number but are software based and are an alternative to shortcodes and can also be used outside of the UK.
Either a shortcode or a virtual number can be used to provide a customer with an opt in route. You simply choose a keyword on our system and when customers text the keyword they automatically opt-in. They can also include one of your group names in the message they send and the platform will add the customer to the specific group.
We give each account a free keyword on one of our virtual numbers as standard. If you like we can provide you with your own unique number (see SIM Hosting) or upgrade your account to either a dedicated or shared 5 digit shortcode (follow the link for further info)
When customers opt in, our system can be set to do one of many things including sending you and/or your colleagues an email with information, send the customer an automated reply text you can configure, save the customer in your phonebook or group and if you have developer experience even post the information to your own applications via HTTP via our SMS API
Onward and upward.
We recognise that all this can be a bit daunting. Why not chat to us and ask your specific questions and let us advise you on the best solution.
You can call 0845 27 82055, email us or chat online.
Further reading.
Why not read more about 2 great products, Send/Receive SMS to send and receive SMS online and SMS Conversation the perfect 2 way SMS chat service for call centres and sales offices.
