FireText Director James Huff has written the following statement in response to rising costs in the UK SMS marketplace, and what FireText is doing to fight for our customers. Over the last 36 months, the UK Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have announced a string of unprecedented price rises in the Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS marketplace. These increases have risen well above the rate of inflation. Being at the heart of the UK A2P SMS marketplace, FireText is not immune to these rises. Each UK MNO has complete control over pricing access for SMS to reach its own mobile users without regula ..read more

Data segmentation means to take ‘data’ (e.g. a group of people you want to contact) and split it into smaller groups based on your chosen criteria. Here, we explore ‘behaviour-based’ segmentation, and how it helps you create content that’s personalised to your customers. How to segment your contacts Think about how you can split you group of customer into smaller categories, and the types of behaviours or interests that make them different. A category can be as simple as purchase history, splitting up your list of customers based on when they last purchased. The end goal is to split a big grou ..read more

CoppaFeel! is the first breast cancer charity in the UK to solely create awareness amongst young people. They educate, encourage and empower 18-35-year-olds to get to know their bodies. We interviewed Sophie Kirby, Health & Services Manager at CoppaFeel! on how they use FireText to remind over 120,000 people (and counting) to check their chests every month. Illustration source: CoppaFeel!Tell us a little bit about CoppaFeel! CoppaFeel! was founded in 2009 by Kristin Hallenga and her twin sister Maren, after Kris was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer at 23. At the time, there was littl ..read more

There’s no right or wrong way to do Black Friday, but our SMS marketing experts have created this blueprint to make your life easier. Check out the whole thing, or skip for tips! September: Start planning & plotting Consumers have Black Friday and the festive season on their minds. They may hold back on purchasing knowing that deals will soon be coming their way. It’s a good time to prepare yourself: Start by growing your SMS list and choosing your promotion. Grow your contact lists When it comes to shouting about your awesome offer, the more the merrier! Grow your SMS contact list by sho ..read more

Black Friday is a chance to gain more customers, hopefully for the long run. To get prepared, why not start generating SMS leads right now before the big day? Use social media to pre-empt big offers Social media is an easy way to encourage your followers to opt in to SMS. As a mobile-dominated medium, it makes sense to naturally guide followers from socials to SMS. And a Black Friday offer is just the hook for new leads. As an incentive for your users to opt in, you may post something like: Opt in to SMS for early access to our Black Friday deals. Head to the link in our bio. Our tap-to-text f ..read more

Not much time to do the research? Read our no-nonsense guide to bulk SMS marketing. Step 1: Generate your SMS leads Already built a list of customers who have opted in to SMS? Skip to step 2. Whether you’re introducing SMS as a channel or encouraging new leads to opt in, here’s some awesome lead generation options: Checkout opt-in: Why not add an opt-in tick box as part of an existing customer journey? For example, you could include an SMS opt-in in your checkout process. A website form: Use a ready-made integration with FireText via Zapier, so that when a user signs up, they are automatical ..read more

FireText, the UK’s largest independent SMS provider, has earnt a place in the Commercial Crown Service public sector framework, Network Services 3. FireText has been awarded a position in the NS3 framework after a stringent selection process, including a focus on security and environmental impact. Frameworks like NS3 enable those in the public sector to confidently enlist CCS-approved suppliers across a wide range of services. FireText is accredited towards additional frameworks such as G-Cloud 13 and CARAS. FireText continues to reinforce its credibility in the tech and communications secto ..read more

Love Hemp is the UK’s leading supplier of CBD and hemp products. With a mission to educate people, Love Hemp takes a holistic approach to health and wellbeing – promoting the benefits of CBD alongside everything from yoga and meditation to diet and hydration. They came to FireText from another SMS provider and instantly appreciated our awesome customer service. What was Love Hemp’s objective? Wellbeing education is a core part of Love Hemp’s mission. Their objective when first coming to FireText was to dedicate more time to SMS as a channel. With a hefty email list, Love Hemp wanted to give th ..read more

SMS can be incredibly effective for your business, but there’s more to it than just sending texts. Here’s everything to look out for when you’re shopping around – from price to security. How much will you be paying for your business texts? You know how the old saying goes: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Make sure there are no hidden fees or ‘add-ons’, such as monthly charges for sender IDs. Look out for these things before you sign up. Top tip: If you’re new to SMS, we’d recommend trying a pay-as-you-go option. It’s flexible. You don’t have to commit to contracts, especially ..read more

We never rest on our laurels here at FireText. We’ve made some tweaks to keep evolving the platform and make it even smoother. For seasoned professionals, the changes are seamless and integrate with your current flow. From clear data field mapping to more detailed contact upload reports, here’s 4 stand-out updates you’ll see in your account. 1. Data field mapping just got a whole lot smoother We’ve converted from the drag-and-drop function to dropdown options. So now you can select the data header in the dropdown box. Not only can you upload CSVs with many more columns, it’ll give you some rea ..read more