Five months ago I reviewed Txtsignal.com and now it’s one of my favorite means of communicating to my youth group.

Sending mass text messages is so perfect for my youth group.

• Students almost always have their cell phones at hand, so they’ll get the message instantly.
• It allows me to easily cancel an event at the last minute due to weather or something.
• It places reminders about a youth meetings and events where they’re sure to see it.

Txtsignal.com makes the process so simple.

• Kids can easily add or remove themselves by using a special link Txtsignal.com provides. I have the link posted on our website, Facebook and various emails.
• I have multiple groups and multiple teams within each group. I have a Sr. High team, a Jr. High Team and a Parents team so I can send appropriate messages to each group of people or send a message to everyone if I want.
• I can schedule messages to send at a later date and time.
• The interface is slick, clean and very user-friendly.
• I can create multiple login accounts with various permission levels so my other youth workers so they can send text message announcements about their various areas of service in the youth ministry.

Discount Code for Faith-based Ministries
Matt, from TxtSignal, created a special promo code for ministries or any organization that works toward ministry efforts. The promo code is good for a minimum of 10% off and even slightly more depending on the plan (for example, the $14/month plan becomes $12/month, or, 14% off). When signing up for service, use this promotional code: —–

[UPDATE: The promo code is no longer available, but if you set up an account, email support@txtsignal.com and they’ll setup a 10% discount for ministries.]

Sure, there’s other text messaging services out there that are free, like Twitter and Broadtexter, but both of them require a lot of extra registration steps that no one would normally bother to go through just to get youth group updates, especially not parents. Plus, those companies don’t offer the specialty features and outstanding support that Txtsignal does. Txtsignal is just simple, easy and incredibly effective.

The only drawback
Unfortunately, Txtsignal.com currently does not allow students to reply to my text messages. Matt, the owner of Txtsignal.com, told me that this feature is under development, but it’s too soon to know when it will become available.

One little tip
Several times now students have given me their cell numbers to add to our text messaging list without providing their carrier information. Since Txtsignal.com wants to know that information to ensure messaging quality, I found this free tool for looking up someone’s mobile service provider based on their phone number. Sometimes you have to Google the company name it returns, though, to find out what the commercial brand is.

[tags]Txtsignal, Twitter, Broadtexter, SMS, text message[/tags]

Posted on October 24, 2007