Esendex UK Blog - Email SMS, PC SMS, SMS API, Reliable SMS services

Co-founders of Esendex make the '42 under 42' list for 2009

Ann — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:51:00 +0100

Co-founders of Esendex, Adam Bird and Julian Hucker have been announced as two of the Midlands Business Insider's '42 under 42' for 2009. The list celebrates the talent and flair of 42 companies in the midlands region whose MD’s are under 42.

Midlands Business Insider says:

“the list represents a cross-section of entrepreneurs and managers from a range of sectors. It’s a group we believe can succeed in the long term, to the greater good of the midlands economy."

Adam (37), and Julian (42 – he was 41 when the list was announced by the way!) are really pleased to be included in this year’s list and have their achievements for the Midlands region recognised.

Adam Bird told me:

“We’re really pleased to receive this recognition. The strength of the other appointees shows just how strong and innovative the business culture is in the Midlands. I’ve seen this here in Nottingham too with the Notttuesday events.”

Esendex signs up for growth

Ann — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:12:00 +0100

Esendex is delighted to announce that it has been accepted on the East Midlands Development Agency's (emda) HighGrowth program. Their recent press release is below:

4th June:

Nottinghamshire companies sign up for growth

emda today announces the names of the 27 ambitious high growth companies who have been accepted to take part in the agency’s flagship High Growth programme, part of HighGrowth East Midlands in 2009. Funded by East Midlands Development Agency (emda) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), HighGrowth East Midlands provides intensive, tailored and rigorous support to help businesses prepare for and sustain high growth.

This is the second year of the £4.3 million HighGrowth East Midlands programme, 24 businesses signed up for the High Growth programme in 2008 including Lincoln’s Dynex Semiconductor Limited, Leicester’s Lastolite Limited and Nottingham’s Asiana Limited.

The High Growth programme provides 18 days of intensive coaching and includes specialist support such as a three-day residential masterclass for Managing Directors and Chief Executives, which has been designed by the Nottingham Business School. This support is provided over a 12 month period, helping businesses to address and exploit areas of their business to maximise and sustain their existing growth.

HighGrowth East Midlands is part of emda’s long-term strategy to stimulate high quality innovation and accelerate regional economic growth. Targeted towards ambitious and forward thinking businesses, the scheme aims to help growing businesses achieve their full potential through increasing profits, enhancing competitive edge and creating the ideal conditions for long term success.

Speaking about the HighGrowth East Midlands programme, Michael Carr, emda’s Executive Director of Business Services said: “I am delighted that we have been able to recruit another class of ambitious businesses for this year’s HighGrowth programme. Despite the challenging global economic climate, it proves that opportunities for growth do remain for businesses with the right vision and that the East Midlands is well poised to benefit when the up turn comes”.

He added: “The diverse range of sectors represented on the 2009 programme reflects the strong diversity of the regional economy. Businesses from sectors as diverse as cooling systems to digital communications and producers of specialist cleaning products for the healthcare sector are represented in this year’s programme. I wish the businesses every success and look forward to seeing the results of their engagement in the coming months”.

Speaking about why they joined the 2009 programme Julian Hucker, CEO of Nottingham based Esendex Limited said “The business has achieved very rapid growth over recent years. However we recognised that we’d benefit from support from the High Growth programme to challenge the management team to think differently about our growth and help us drive the company forward in a structured way so that we can maintain our growth over the next 5 years. We look forward to working with our Growth Coach over the next 12 months”. Esendex is an international provider of Business Communications. They deliver Web SMS, Email SMS, PC SMS, SMS API services and a range of other communication services to over 7,000 businesses large and small across the world. The business was founded in 2001 and now has offices in Spain, France, Ireland, Australia and Germany and employs 35 people worldwide. Their customers range from large corporations to SMEs, in sectors as diverse as financial services, local government and public sector, travel and transport and retail.

Business SMS price offers for summer

Ann — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:08:00 +0100

We’ve got some great offers on our Pay As You Go SMS and SMS Tracker Tariff this summer so you can send more SMS, and save money at the same time!

Firstly, we're offering 25% extra SMS messages for free with Pay As You Go – to take advantage of this offer you can buy online now. Alternatively sign up for a free trial, then when you go ahead and purchase, the extra messages will be credited to your account.

Alternatively, you can receive 500 extra SMS messages for free with our SMS Tracker Tariff. Our Tracker Tariff is already one of the most competitive around. The price you pay changes month to month depending on the volume of SMS you send, so send more SMS and the price per message goes down. And with this offer you’ll automatically get 500 extra messages for free when you sign up to the SMS Tracker Tariff.

And that’s not all – we are also offering a further 500 SMS messages for free on our Tracker Tariff when you sign up to Direct Debit. That’s potentially 1000 SMS messages for FREE!

During these challenging times we hope these offers will help you get the most from Business SMS. To take up any of these great offers, just email sales@esendex.com.

Free Virtual Mobile Numbers and free Keywords available now with Esendex

Ann — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:20:00 +0100

We’re currently offering a free virtual mobile number or a free keyword when you sign up for an SMS Tracker Tariff so if you don’t already offer an inbound SMS service, now is the time to do so!

A bit of background - a Virtual Mobile Number allows you to receive SMS as well as send SMS. Many of our customers are now realising the benefits of allowing their customers, employees and suppliers to text back replies. It’s often the case that our customers start off with a send-only SMS service and move on to a 2-way SMS service further down the line. We offer a couple of ways to enable inbound SMS:

Virtual Mobile Number – 11 digit number

We can provide you with an 11 digit number, that is dedicated to your company (no one else uses this number!). When you send broadcast SMS messages, people can text you back by hitting reply.

A shared shortcode with a free keyword - 5 digit number

Alternatively (and this is very popular for SMS marketing campaigns) we can supply a shared shortcode to you - this is a 5 digit number. You choose your ‘keyword’ and when people send SMS replies they text using your keyword and send it to the 5 digit number. Not to be confused with a premium rate number (the person replying only pays their standard network rate to text the response). Shortcodes are very useful as a direct response tool for TV, Radio and Print advertising. A couple of other benefits of using SMS shortcodes in SMS Marketing campaigns:

More memorable than long phone numbers
Capture consumer data easily
Allow you to measure the success of SMS marketing campaigns immediately

As for receiving replies, you can set up SMS forwarding rules regardless of whether you use Email SMS, Web SMS or our SMS API. If you use Web SMS for example, just go into the options screen of your Web SMS account and set up the email forwarding rule. All replies to your Web SMS account will then be forwarded onto an email account you choose so you don’t have to be logged in to get the response – ensuring you never miss an SMS message.

Choosing between a standard virtual mobile number or a shared keyword depends on your requirements, but both are free for now so get in touch with us at sales@esendex.com and we can add the reply facility to your Esendex account straight away. Alternatively, text 'OFFER' to 80800. This is our Freetext shortcode, so its completely free for you to text us.

Esendex renews sponsorship of Richard Stannard, British Triathlon Grand Prix Champion

Julian — Tue, 12 May 2009 10:01:00 +0100

Esendex will again be sponsoring Richard Stannard this season. Not only will Richard be defending his British Title, he’ll also be making an assault on the Toyota Cup Series in the USA and the World Aquathlon and Biathle Championships on the Gold Coast and Monaco.

Most importantly of all he’ll also be racing under Esendex colours at the Esendex Last Minute Triathlon on Sunday 20th September!

His proposed race schedule is below. The phrase “it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it” comes to mind but as Richard travels the world he’ll be using Web SMS to keep people up to date with his results. Good luck Richard.

17th May - BTF Series Race 1 - British Championships
24th May - French Grand Prix Bordeaux
7th Jun - The Blenheim Triathlon - British Grand Prix
16th Jun - Royal Windsor Triathlon - British Grand Prix
11th Jul - Minneapolis Lifetime Fitness Triathlon - Toyota Cup
18th Jul - BTF Series Race 2 - British Championships
26th Jul - New York City Triathlon - Toyota Cup
2nd Aug - The London Triathlon - British Grand Prix
16th Aug - Dextro Energy London - ITU World Championship Series
30th Aug - French Grand Prix Sables d’Olonne
9th Sept - WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Aquathlon, Gold Coast
19th Sept - WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Biathle, Monaco
20th Sept - ESENDEX Last Minute Triathlon
26th Sept - French Grand Prix La Baule
4th Oct - L.A. Triathlon Venice Beach California - Toyota Cup
11th Oct - Dallas Triathlon Series Final Texas - Toyota Cup

Esendex featured in UKTI Case Study

Julian — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:49:00 +0100

Esendex has recently been working on a number of UK Trade & Industry initiatives including the Passport to Export Scheme and the UK ICT Marketing Strategy.

We're pleased to be featured in a UKTI Case Study that details the international rollout of our Web SMS and Email SMS services to France, Spain, Ireland, Australia and Germany. A number of other impressive growth technology companies are also featured.

New SMS Tracker Tariff - our most flexible pricing ever

Julian — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:41:00 +0100

There's an old Chinese proverb: "May you live in interesting times". Well the current economic environment is certainly interesting!

Esendex has never set out to be the lowest cost provider of SMS services but we've always striven to combine competitive pricing with the highest possible level of service.

However, several existing and potential customers told us that our pricing wasn't flexible enough. So we've now introduced our new new SMS Tracker Tariff.

Every month the price that you pay varies to reflect the number of messages that you've sent. The more you send the cheaper ALL your messages are that month. With just a minimum commitment of £10 per month and 30 day credit terms (subject to status) we don't beleive that there is a more flexible tariff in the market.

Full details are now online or give us a call to discuss the new SMS Tracker Tariff.

Esendex hits the Nottingham streets!

Julian — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:44:00 +0100

It's always good to see our clients using our services "in the wild". This was captured on the way into work today (note the short code at the bottom of the ad)

The Best Form of Defence is Attack

Julian — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:43:00 +0100

The worldwide recession is proving difficult for everyone – personally and professionally. However, Esendex continues to grow at over 50% pa and now we’re ramping up to continue our success.

Late last year we opened in Germany and are starting to get some real traction now and have further plans for the rest of the year.

Most importantly, we’ve also got a crowded release schedule planned for Q2-Q4 that’s got everyone in Esendex very excited.

And we’re recruiting – check out our recruitment pages. We’re looking for developers, designers and marketers to help us take Esendex forward.

Esendex Sponsor Nottingham Twestival

Adam — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:21:00 +0100

Esendex are proud to announce their sponsorship of Nottingham Twestival on Tuesday 12th February.

Twestival is a global initiative to raise funds and awareness for the Charity: Water. Charity: Water are committed to bringing water to the 1 in 6 of the worlds population without access to it.

Twitterers are organizing and meeting at fundraising events in 175+ cities around the world, all on 12th February. The Nottingham event is meeting at the Castle Pub, Nottingham from 19:30.

Adam Bird, said “I am really pleased to be involved in this initiative, many of us in Esendex are committed tweeters and benefit greatly from connecting with people all over the world.

“Bringing the twitter community together to help raise funds to support Charity: Water is a truly laudable initiative and I encourage everyone to take part.”

To find out how to get involved visit the Nottingham Twestival web site

On Twitter: @nottstwestival, @esendex, @adambird

Esendex Outage - update

Nicholas — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:31:00 +0100

The planned maintenace has now been completed, many thanks for you patience.

Esendex Outage

Nicholas — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:35:00 +0100

Urgent,

Please note that at 10am Esendex will be conducting a planned outage of all services, this outage is plnanned to be complete at 10.30am

An entry will be posted on completion of the outage

Happy New Year!

Julian — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:18:00 +0100

To all our present and future customers and suppliers:

Happy New Year – Feliz Año Nuevo - Bonne Année - Frohes Neues Jahr

Here’s to a prosperous and successful 2009

Still not sent your Christmas cards? Send an SMS instead

Julian — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:09:00 +0100

The pace is quickening as we all move towards the holiday season and there still seem to be 101 things that need to be done. If you’ve not sent your Christmas cards yet, either on behalf of your business or your personal cards, why not send an SMS instead.

It’s cheaper, quicker and more likely to be read.

Simply load up your contacts into Web SMS and use the Group Send feature. Or use the Schedule Send feature to time the delivery. If you’ve got staff working at the weekend or on Christmas day itself why not send them a quick thank you.

Of if you use our Email SMS service, browse through your contact list and send an SMS to everyone you’d have sent a card to.

That’s one more think ticked off the To Do list – pass me a mince pie!

Major Update to Web SMS - Call for Early Adopters

Paul — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:50:00 +0100

The new version of Esendex’s Web SMS tool is due for Beta release early next year. This new version is based on extensive feedback from customers and will provide a much simpler interface.

It also builds on the cleaner site design of http://www.esendex.co.uk/ to deliver a better aesthetic experience.

The new version will be released in stages and the first will focus on sending messages and the “Upload and Send” facility. If you’re interested in getting involved at an early stage, particularly if you are a regular user of the Upload and Send feature, then please let your account manager know.

The “classic” version will of course still be available and will remain the default interface for the time being.