Is SMS a viable business idea?

[bobreynalds]

As I move into the new year I find myself evaluating different aspects of my life, and the financial aspect of my life is really gaining solid attention. I am ready to finally build some degree of financial freedom, or at least a solid foundation and stability. This has me searching for ideas that can help me get to my goal as quickly as possible. One idea I have been giving serious consideration is an internet marketing company for local businesses.


I have seriously been thinking about starting with providing SMS marketing services. From here I believe I could easily expand into other types of marketing and even build websites eventually. I would begin with the SMS, move into building Facebook and Twitter accounts for people, provide increased local search marketing, and other services.


I was looking for more information about how to go about doing this. I ended up on Wikipedia eventually. I found several pages which offered a few different ideas about mobile marketing and SMS marketing, but it didn't cover enough information to help me understand what I am really getting into.


I found several platforms online which provide a variety of services. I am not positive I understand the exact pricing of the services though. If I understand this properly, I need to pay a company a fee each month for messages sent, as well as a monthly fee to another website to actually have a network?


My real concern is in relation to the legal side of things. Are there laws about mobile marketing that I should be aware of? If someone agrees to opt in, and I am able to provide methods for them to opt in, do I really have to worry about this? I know I hear local radio stations advertising contests to get people to sign up for a SMS marketing campaign.


Do any of you have any experience in building a business by offering text message marketing to local businesses? Are there things I should know about before I get started? Do you have any advice that would help me build my business as quickly as possible?

 

[Moneyman]

This is slightly old hat and I think the general feedback is that SMS is a very in your face way of getting to people. I know I hate it, as I consider my sms as private as my phone number and don't want to be disturbed by adds all day. Twitter adds and app adds are not so bad.

 

[KeithP]

Have to agree with Moneyman - I am sick and tired of receiving unsolicited SMS messages and I certainly wouldn't do business with a company sending spammy messages to my phone, regardless if I'd inadvertently opted-in to a list or not.

 

[ryedale]

I think people detest SMS marketing above all other types.

At least emails can flagged as spam or you can set up filter rules for them

 

[Moneyman]

I am not sure what the conversion rates are but I would query if they were high unless there was a fixed purpose to the message, time critical and a product aimed at young people as they are more accepting of this sort of intrusion.