Broadtexter was started to promote one musician – ME. As a touring singer/songwriter, I wanted to find a way to send regionalized text alerts to my fans around the country.
Before Broadtexter I sent out mass emails to my fans at the beginning of the month with all my tour dates, but I knew that shows in the middle and end of the month were getting lost in the mix. I hated sending out reminders about specific shows on email after I had already sent a big monthly email, for fear that my fans would feel like I was spamming them. However, I knew that people who genuinely would have liked to know about my gigs were missing them. Email also had a few other problems:
• I struggled with the best time to send the reminder emails. If I had a show on a Saturday, I knew that many people did not check emails over the weekend. If I sent it during the work week, I was concerned that it would get lost in a sea of emails.
• I couldn’t regionalize the emails. People who lived in Nebraska were getting emails about a show in Chicago. My email list became quickly outdated since many people moved or changed their email addresses over the years.
• I was tied to using a computer, not very convenient when you’re on the road. Often, it was hard to find an internet connection. When rushed, I simply had no time to get to a computer.
When musician friends started sending me text message reminders of their gigs, I thought, “Wow, this really works great!” If not for the text message reminder, I would have missed their show. How could I make this work for me…and eventually other artists and fans. First, the Broadtexter Team came together, and we set up a service that would allow me to:
• Put a sign-up module on my website for fans (or any other shared site that I promote my music on) that would collect the necessary information for sending text messages.
• Set up a security feature that would ensure that the person signing up was actually the person holding the phone.
• Create a region selector.
• Make it very easy for the fan to unsubscribe themselves.
• Set up a database that separated all the fans into their appropriate resident state.
• Send an alert from either a computer or from my own cell phone.
• Make it so that when my fans got my alert, they did not see my cell phone number but rather an email address. (You know, groupies)
Then, I sent out my monthly mass email and told my fans that they could sign up for “text message alerts.” BAM! The fans started signing up! I showed the fan sign-up module to some of my other musician friends and they all wanted to know if they could get the same thing for their websites. Some additional features the Broadtexter Team added were:
• Customizable modules, since no two artists sites are alike, that allow the artist to change the color of the module and what it says.
• A privacy policy that keeps both the fan and artist numbers secure.
• A simple way for artists to sign up and immediately receive a code that allows them to post their module on a variety of web sites.
• A secure backend that allows artists to have their own login so that they can manage all their alerts and messages.
I am very excited to introduce Broadtexter to the music community. With my friends who are serious music fans, I have spent endless hours thinking of every possible want and need for the artist and the experience. We feel great about this service and look forward to making it even better as the artists and fans who use Broadtexter give us feedback.
