How To Make Money From Bulk SMS Business Even As a Nigerian Corper

March 18, 2016 Collins Latest Jobs 12
I wrote a post here, sometime ago, where i stated different easy ways corp members can generate extra income for themselves during their national youth service.

And from my observation, it’s obvious many people prefer the bulk SMS business to any other businesses on the list. I can confidently say that due to the numerous mails thronging my inbox about it.

Though i do take some time out of my busy schedule to explain to many corpers how they too can start the bulk SMS business and generate reasonable income from it in the mails.
But i think it will be good to just write somethings about the business here for all to read and benefit from it. And that’s exactly the reason for this article.

In case you missed out of the former post, you can find it here; “12 Brilliant Ways To Make Extra Earning As a Corper”

It’s really a smart idea for any serving corp member to create another source of income to support their monthly allowance. If you think the alawi will be enough to sustain you, then i think you don’t need to proceed with this article.
Perhaps you are being posted to a good environment.
But if your PPA is in such an environment where the cost of living is damn high, you will soon realize what am saying about making extra income when your Allowance start collapsing before the month end.

In this post, am going to be introducing you to the Bulk SMS retail (or reselling) business.
Am going to tell you everything you need to know about it and how you could make extra income from it as a corper.



Now let’s get straight into business.

What is Bulk SMS?

As the name implies, Bulk SMS refers to text messages that are sent out to a large number of recipients at once.

Let me try and bring it home more. Do you ever remember receiving some text message from your service provider or other establishments in which their names will be written on it as the sender.
For example, you just opened your inbox and you see some messages like “Gtb”; “Airtel”, “MTN”, “Caller tunz”, “JAMB”, “UNILAG”, “PDP 015”, “BUHARI 015” e.t.c.
All this messages are customized bulk SMS sent to you from the corresponding establishment whose name were on the messages.

And due to the rapid technological advancement we are experiencing today, bulk SMS has now become widely used means of communication by many individuals and establishments (both private and public). Such as schools, banks, churches, mosques, supermarkets, politicians, groups and associations.

They make use of bulk SMS to have a quick reach to their customers and members, either to notify them of some new development, sales, deals or to give them a reminder about a meeting or event.

This method of information dissemination has the following advantages over the other methods of telecommunication:

 It’s much cheaper, compared to sending regular messages fro your phones. It is very convenient, as the messages can be delivered to several thousands of recipients at the click of a button. Messages can be custom-branded (i.e the sender can choose to deliver the messages in his/her name or company name)


What do you mean by ‘Bulk SMS reselling’?

This business involves you buying SMS credits at cheaper rates and sells in smaller volumes to end users for profit making.



Why Bulk SMS for a Corper?

Part of the reasons you should consider this business are:

It’s easy to start;
You can do it from the corner of your room…. no office is required;
There is ready market for it, because many establishments are now ready to use it;
Little start-up capital is required.

Bulk SMS business was actually one of the businesses I did while I was serving in Aba, Abia state. It was of course, a convenient business for such a busy Nigerian corper like me. I remember i only started it with a few Naira together with some plans.

How Does it work?

Doing a bulk SMS business simply means you want to be helping those busy establishments and desperate politicians to send text messages to their clients on their behalf.
And for you to do that, you can either be running the business as a retailer or as a wholesaler.

A bulk SMS retailer buys SMS unit from the wholesaler and sell to his/her customers at higher cost.

While running it as a wholesaler means having your own SMS portal and sell in large quantity to retailers who also are going to sell to their customers.


One lady asked me some months ago that “when you say we will sell SMS, how am i going to do that, cus i can’t be selling anything on the street o”

I know you are an educated fellow. So i wouldn’t be suggesting such a thing for you either.
When i say you will sell to your clients, i mean you will help them deliver messages to their people.

For instance, a politician can ask you to help him send a reminder messages to the people of his ward about the forth coming election. You will charge him and do that for him.

What you just did is that you just sold your SMS units to him.

Hope you get it now!



How do i get started with the business?

As i said earlier, you can decide to set up this business as either a retailer or an wholesaler.

I wouldn’t advise you to start the business as a wholesaler due to some things it entails.

It will require more money from you (of which our primary aim is to venture into something that will not cost us too much money). because you will need;

A domain name registered; A web hosting plan; A programmer to help you code a dynamic SMS website; An SMS gateway account; and may require you to have some basic knowledge of HTML too.
But as a retailer, all you have to do is register with a site selling bulk SMS and buy at cheap rate from them. You can buy as low as N1.5 and sell to your clients at a price as high as N3, which is still a good price for your clients to get a customized message from you.



Take for instance; let’s assume the church you attend where you are being posted to, have 5000 members where everyone knows you as a corper. And you are fortunate to be running a bulk SMS business.

You walked up to the pastor one day and you let him know that you render such service and made them patronize you.

Now let’s say they send SMS twice a week to their members. It means in 6 months (24 weeks), you would have sold 240,000 SMS units to them.

If you make a profit of just N1 per SMS unit you sold, it means you would earn N240,000 in the six months from just one church alone.

And you can also have these people as your clients too:
Churches
Schools
Mosques
Business owners
Banks
Boutiques
Hospitals
Salons
Associations and Clubs
Politicians contesting for elections e.t.c


I could remember i started mine from my CDS group, where i send messages to my fellow corp members on behalf of the group executives and collect my money from the group pulse.

Hence i latter moved to my Zonal Inspector who agreed that i should be helping them (the office) send SMS to corp members in the whole zone in times of emergency. And the scheme was paying me #3.5 for each SMS sent. I also had some schools and banks as my clients too.


These are some of Bulk SMS sites I used during my time. But i wouldn’t want to mention any name here because of some reasons. But we do have lots of them on the internet you can work with.

I chose the two sites i used then because their price was ok for me and they also permit me to pay for their SMS units using recharge cards. So i don’t need to visit the bank before i buy from them. These made it much more convenient for me.

But you can also search through the internet yourself to see other sites selling their bulk SMS units at cheaper rate. Just make sure you are not buying more than #1.75 per unit, so that you too can make considerable profit over it.

How do i get customers for my Business?

After already signed up and purchased SMS Units, the next thing you need to do is set up a plan to get your prospective clients interested in your service.
To do that, you can:

share your business on some social media like facebook, twitter e.t.c.
Actively participate in Nigeria forums and make your business known there.
Talk to your friends and people about it.
Reach out to people and establishments with a proposal letter.

Using a proposal letter was one of my most effective means of getting prospects for the business then. in fact, am sure with time, you are going to only focus on this and forget about the other means because it will bring tremendous results.



But this can only be made easy if you can package yourself and the service you want to offer very well.
Yes! Package yourself.


Have a well written and printed proposal letter you will be submitting to anywhere you will like to patronize you,

In the letter, tell them the


Name of your venture (Choose a good name for this, but try and let it have SMS in it).
What you do (you render bulk sms service).
Tell them why they should start using bulk sms (cheaper and will reach everyone unlike the weekly announcement in church).
Tell them why you think you are the best to offer such service (give them testimony of many establishment that have patronize you and the wonderful result it brought them).
Let then know your pricing (make sure it’s not too much and consider giving discount on large purchase).
Make sure its not an hand-written proposal. But type it on a letter headed paper or a well designed template paper.

When you have your letter, submit it to those establishments and am sure very soon you will be smiling to the bank over little job you do in your own very room, even with your phone.

I think that’s all you need to start making money from bulk SMS as a corper. But if you still have anything bothering you, you can decide to use the comment box to ask.

I will be happy to hear your testimony very soon.

If you enjoy this article I’d really appreciate it if you could help me get the word out –
just share it on LinkedIn , Facebook , Twitter, or even by mail with anyone you think might need it too.

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12 Comments

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