Text messaging is no longer just for our personal mobile phone but small and large business can now have a corporate SMS end point. We can now use our voice over IP phone (VoIP) line for short message service (SMS), texting. While this has been around for a while, carriers are trying to clamp down on abuses such as spamming.  Today I registered my SMS “brand” and “campaign” on the SMS portion of my corporate number (216-307-1100). There is a one time charge of $19 and a monthly low-volume charge of $1.50. The revenue generated by the provider, GoTo Connect, is passed directly to the The Campaign Registry.

GoTo collects these fees without markup and pays The Campaign Registry directly

I truly don’t mind paying this fee if it eliminates SMS spam but I am not sure the The Campaign Registry can eliminate SMS spam. I’d like to see ProPublica research this and tell me it’s not a revenue grab by the carriers but in fact a useful tool so SMS isn’t the new email regarding spam.

Part of the process is they ask for sample messages I intend to send. Here is a sample message I used to register my “brand”:

It would have been so nice to see you. This is first taco Tuesday we’ve made in a long time. Must feel great to be working. Really miss you. We’re crazy at work. Would love to see you.

Using my VoIP SMS like I would my personal mobile phone, personal interactions with my clients. Granted, this registry is for marketers, not individual users such as myself and my customers so low-volume probably means under 1000 SMS a month (guessing, I do not know the fact, I probably send less than 30 a month). I think it is great for a small business to have a central SMS contact point instead of various staff mobile phones, this is why I offer this service to my small customers.

My good customer with Chagrin Valley’s premier realtor, Karen Eagle Group, prompted me to investigate this process because they use SMS on their business line and the emails from the VoIP provider are warning that outgoing SMS might not be delivered by mobile carriers if out of compliance.