Explore Panacea Mobile

• What to look for in your SMS Provider

  01 Mar 2011 by Hannah Moore / No Comments

  An SMS provider (also known as an SMS Gateway provider) fulfils the position of the middleman between mobile networks and the SMS service user (that’s you). More specifically, an SMS provider carries out the task of sending Bulk SMS’ across mobile networks, having signed the necessary agreements with the networks in order to do so. SMS service users are provided with an interface through which they can control the flow of these messages; some providers even offer an online web interface with which to do this.

  All this may sound fairly simple at first, but choosing the right SMS provider to manage your SMS campaign can be a daunting task. Indeed, the choice you make will largely determine the eventual success or failure of your SMS campaign down the line. In order to help you gain some oversight in this decision, we’d like to provide you with some crucial points to consider when looking for an SMS provider.

  The first and most obvious issue in this regard seems to be that of pricing. What is the per-message cost of the provider you are looking at using? Importantly too, what coverage do they offer? These two points go hand-in-hand, because you may find a provider whose costs are low when sending messages to the United States, but if your customer base is in Europe, that point will be irrelevant to you. Look at pricing and coverage together, and then decide whether the costs involved would suit your budget. Don’t forget though, your marginal per-message costs should be decreasing- if they are not, you are sure to be able to strike a better deal elsewhere.

  Secondly, you need to look at whether a provider offers well-documented API’s (Application Programming Interfaces) and sample code. These features are extremely useful to developers as they can help save a lot of time and effort.  It is also vital to look at the different types of interfaces offered by a provider, and to ensure that a variety of API’s is offered.

  However, as important as the development and software aspects of an SMS campaign are, you should also ensure that your prospective provider understands the significance of effective marketing. Your provider should, for example, be able to advise you on the correct marketing platforms and channels to use, given your specific target market. Make sure that the people that will be steering your campaign have enough industry experience and insight into your specific business needs in order to be able offer you quality service in this regard.

  To be able to monitor the subsequent success of your campaign, you will need to have access to real-time reporting to ensure your messages are reaching their destination. Find out how detailed these reports will be, and the ease with which you will be able to access them.

  Advanced batch processing systems are another way to ensure that your campaign will run as hassle-free as possible. Selected providers offer batch processing systems, which allow you to upload an Excel file that automates your entire campaign for you. Although not all providers are able to offer this feature, it is worth finding out about since advanced bath processing can be an extremely useful and time-saving tool.

  Moreover, it is important to verify that your account will be easy to access and manage, since this is will ensure that you have ultimate control over your campaign. Make sure that you test out the user-friendliness of a potential provider’s account management system before making any decisions: It should be straightforward, easy to navigate and well organised. If you feel that a provider has failed in this regard and that managing your account would be a complicated task, then it means that they are missing one of the basic principles of good service delivery in the SMS industry.

  Finally, make sure that your prospective provider offers reliable online and telephonic support. Not only should a support team be ready to answer any questions you may have during your SMS campaign, they should also respond to your query as quickly and efficiently as possible. A response time of more than 24 hours is undesirable, especially if technical help is needed urgently.

  Having done extensive research on this topic and on our competitors, we feel confident that Panacea Mobile performs exceptionally in terms of each of the above aspects. Firstly, our pricing system works on a decreasing marginal cost basis, meaning that the more messages you send, the less your per-message costs will be. Not only is our pricing competitive, but our coverage is also worldwide, offering our clients access to a variety of markets, both locally and abroad.

  Moreover, Panacea Mobile has ensured that any developer can interface with its Bulk SMS Gateway by providing them with detailed API’s and sample code. And as much as we love to focus on the technical side of things, we are equally committed to offering our clients expert campaign management, making sure that they have peace of mind throughout the entire duration of their SMS campaign. Panacea Mobile is also proud to offer advanced batch processing, user-friendly account management systems and a skilled support team that is able to respond to clients’ queries within 12 hours.

  Sounding good so far? We think so! But don’t take our word for it- sign up for free and see for yourself.

  Leave a comment

• Mobile World Congress 2011 final recap

  25 Feb 2011 by Panacea / No Comments

  We have been so inundated with requests for service after the Mobile World Congress 2011 that our blog post took a solid position in the back seat, until now

  The Mobile World Congress as we said in our previous post, just opened our eyes to how users and consumers of mobile messaging and other services have been mistreated in terms of shoddy products and delivery services.

  So what have we done that is going to effect you in the near future? We have negotiated with some key partners and mobile network operators around the world to enhance our already great coverage, so your messages will get delivered faster and more reliably than with any other carrier.

  The focus of the congress in general was very much on mobile application development, with the app planet and other exhibitions illustrating the requirements in that space, so we will also be focusing on making sure these app developers have everything they need to develop scalable and trusted applications.

  One final point, which is a bit of a criticism of ourselves, is that although we have better systems and routes than 99.99% of the competitors out there, we have failed to make the market aware of this through our marketing efforts, which we are going to change in 2011 and disrupt the market with our highly competitive offerings. We are saying no to bad systems this year

  Leave a comment

• Education and Mobile Messaging in Africa

  23 Feb 2011 by Jacoba Budden / 5 Comments

  Before the advent of mobile phones, life in Africa was extremely difficult. Over and above the extreme poverty, chronic lack of medical facilities and food, telephones rarely worked, roads were impassable and education, in many cases, relegated to the back burner. Illiteracy and poor education is always a massive problem because it, invariably, leads to poverty and corruption.

  

  Since a good education provides the human capital needed to improve productivity and facilitate development, it seems crazy to pay so little attention to education in Africa! After all it’s the only way people will acquire skills needed to promote growth and development. So where does SMS come in?

  African children travel long distances to get to school, often under terrible climatic and political circumstances so it’s not uncommon to miss school and therefore, homework, tests, lessons, notes or advice as well as much needed help from the teachers. Over and above that, teaching materials are often non existent with a single text book shared amongst many and pencils and paper in very short supply.

  But things have changed. The advent of mobile phones heralded a new beginning for Africans because reliable communication became a reality and not a dream. Today 28% of all Africans use mobile phones and two thirds of the world’s mobile users live in developing countries with the majority of mobile users being teenagers or in their twenties. Donor agencies have known this for years and ABDI & UNESCO sponsored the first Mobile Learning workshop in Tokyo in 2005, the report is available online and well worth the read. It focussed mainly on using SMS to support current teaching and learning processes but not in place of current teaching materials. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s possible to replace a larger part of a current syllabus with SMS technology. Bear in mind that the generation of teachers & educators who currently design school syllabuses do not use SMS to the extent that the pupils do and probably wouldn’t know how to; it’s understandable, therefore, that they will not be as innovative as technology could allow when it comes to designing a methodology whereby the child can utilize SMS to access teaching materials at their own pace. This is where the SMS specialists come into the picture and this is where the mindset of the average educator has to change. It doesn’t mean that the child need not go to school or have access to class mates, teachers and discussions. Of course not (though, long distance learning has been proved to be very effective in Africa). It does mean, though, that we have to look at the situation in Africa and design a system that will ultimately benefit the child and not so much the teacher (who in many instances is poorly educated because of the massive ‘brain drain’ caused when well qualified teachers leave to find employment in developed countries). In order to do this the educators need to talk to children and to the specialists who will design the systems. In Niger, literacy programmes for adults have been taught where to find letters and numbers on a mobile phone to send and receive SMS; students quickly learnt to send SMS’s in their own languages to friends and family & in so doing, they practice what they’ve learnt. In regions without local language newspapers and certainly no libraries, SMS makes literacy functional. Preliminary results suggest that the mobile phone-based participants are learning faster than students in normal literacy classes, achieving levels that are up to 30 % higher! Sure, there are many other pilot projects all over the world from Thailand, Mongolia, India to the Philippines with text2teach project probably the biggest I’ve come across. It’s clear that  SMS is not being used as efficiently as it can be used, especially not in an era where apps can be designed to suit a particular education system. SMS costs so much less than paper and since the world is running out of paper and Africa cannot afford computers for each student, more use should and can be made the mobile phone and SMS. Of course the ideal solution would be to use smartphones but since they won’t be dropping in price sufficiently to make them economically viable for Africa, one would have to look at other solutions and there are many. Once again we’re faced with the clash between the mindset of the average African educator and the technological possibilities that would suit the average African teen.

  Africa doesn’t have time to waste and education is vital to the development and well being of the entire continent so it’s probably about time the generations start co-operating and accept the ways of the past just aren’t going to work anymore.

  Leave a comment

• 10 Uses for SMS in Small to Medium sized Businesses

  21 Feb 2011 by Hannah Moore / No Comments

  Over the past fifteen years the mobile phone has become the world’s communication device of choice- far more preferred than the use of land-lines, television and radio, for example; and not surprisingly so. The magic of the mobile phone no longer lies only in its portable nature, but also in its simplicity, its usability and its adaptability. As a personal device for individuals, it can literally be said to have revolutionised the way that friendships, families and relationships function. Importantly too, however, thousands of successful businesses have recognised the power and reach that can be achieved with Mobile Marketing. Why? Because a mobile phone represents an immediate and highly personalised channel to the consumer that other media battle to attain.

  One of the most successful forms of mobile marketing has been in the use of Bulk SMS (SMS Marketing). Although SMS Marketing has spread like wildfire between businesses of all sizes, the small to medium sized business, particularly, stands to benefit from this form of advertising.

  Because we so strongly believe in the power of SMS and because we like to help out, we have here listed ten ways in which SMS Marketing can powerfully enhance the advertising capacity of your small to medium enterprise:

  1.      Mobile messaging can effectively level the playing field between large and smaller enterprises because of its cost-effectiveness. Small businesses with limited budgets are able to reach as wide an audience as larger enterprises, due to the low per-message costs.

  2.      Global coverage means that as a smaller enterprise with a fittingly smaller advertising budget, you are no longer restricted to reaching local audiences only.

  3.      Messages are targeted and always based on the consensus of the consumer; and if you know your target market well you will be able to relax in the knowledge that your messages are appropriately tailored and that you have spent your money in a worthwhile way.

  4.      Due to this targeted nature of SMS Marketing, response rates with mobile messaging are much higher and the revenue of your small to medium sized enterprise thus increases.

  5.      Mobile Marketing is instant- you can reach people wherever they are, whenever you need to. There are therefore no long delays that may draw out the process of seeing a return on one’s investment.

  6.      SMS Marketing is viral in the sense that messages can easily be forwarded from the original recipient to additional consumers.

  7.      With Mobile Marketing, small enterprises are able to retain their existing customers, as well as gain new ones.

  8.      The interactive nature of SMS Marketing creates the opportunity for a dialogue to ensue between you and your customers, meaning that you are more informed about your clients than you would be using other means of advertising.

  9.      Access to real-time reporting of each message that is sent out means that the small to medium sized business is able to exercise control over its communication.

  10.  Finally, messages can easily be automated and there is no need for personnel to have to monitor the process: You save both time and money.

  With Africa fast becoming the most exciting emerging market to be in, small to medium sized African businesses can benefit (and certainly already are benefiting) from the uses of SMS Marketing as they expand their horizons. Panacea Mobile is the leading SMS provider in the industry- both locally and abroad, with its exceptionally low pricing, expert campaign management and the most advanced, stable and reliable platform for text messaging around the world. Indeed, having just re-established its competitive edge at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, the company is approaching its African and overseas clients with renewed energy and confidence.

  Want to be part of the movement? Sign up for free with Panacea Mobile.

  Leave a comment

• Mobile World Congress 2011 – The half way recap

  15 Feb 2011 by Panacea / 3 Comments

  I can’t believe it’s already half way through the Mobile World Congress 2011, it feels like it has just started. For us at Panacea Mobile, it has been a great two days as we have made some crucial connections which will benefit you, our client. How will you benefit? Well quite simply we have extended our reach to more networks around the world and negotiated contracts with more operators to make sure your messages get delivered as quickly as possible.

  More important than this is, we have had a close look at our competition in the industry, and we are feeling more confident than ever. Why, you may ask? Well we have looked at some of their tools and systems and it is very apparent to us that we have the premier platform for text message delivery around the world. After seeing this, we have decided to press on with our innovating ideas and continue to shake up the industry with even better and easier tools and API’s to use. Just this year we launched our new SMS API system which has more system coverage than any other API on the market, allowing you to be more flexible with your development.

  We have had little time to roam the halls as yet due to our meetings but so far the outstanding item for us has been the Android proliferation and the marketing presence of the Android. We will continue to focus our expertise in this area as it is definitely going to be the mobile OS to watch in future.

  That’s it for the quick half way recap, we will post a full update after the congress. We look forward to seeing you there.

  Not a customer yet? Sign-Up Now View API documentation

  Leave a comment