There was a night over the holiday season when the house was quiet, the fireplace was lit, and I had some time to skim through a few of my favorite web forums. I came across a question on Stack Overflow from March 2010, where a user was looking for recommendations for SMS gateways with API support. It’s hard to believe that API support has been part of SMS marketing for the better part of a decade.
The truth is you can be successful today as a mobile marketer without sophisticated APIs. If your SMS service provider has an add-on that integrates its SMS portal with your CRM system, you can continue to manage all your contacts and relationships within your CRM, and manage all your mobile marketing efforts, and communicate directly with your customers via compelling SMS messaging from within your CRM. It’s simple to use, and keeps all your mobile marketing data in a single location.
However, if you want to be able to integrate data from your text message campaigns with your company’s CRM systems, mobile apps, or backend architectures, you’ll need an SMS API. APIs may never trend on Twitter, but they are the key to connecting the data generated from your campaigns with your marketing platforms. They allow easy integration of information and protect you from spending six months developing complex back-end integration tools.
APIs have gotten much more robust since that Stack Overflow question in 2010. At MessageWhiz we use HTTP protocols for our APIs which enable our clients to optimize conversion, manage triggers, links, and campaigns. APIs also help them manage recipient lists, unsubscribe requests, and their broadcasts.
As a marketing manager all this technical talk might not make any sense, but your IT guys will appreciate the ease that they can integrate your data into your CRM systems. It will make the data you’ve been cultivating that much easier to work with as you generate leads and sales from your marketing efforts, and convert them into real revenue.
Message Whiz is a leading business text messaging service provider, having developed an innovative SMS messaging platform and business SMS API service, designed to deliver the results that companies are seeking from their mobile messaging activities. Contact Us and start improving your business conversion rates today.
