Wishing all of our clients and partners a fantastic and productive 2020! 

As a small business owner, you've tried sales and marketing tactic in the book to reach your customers and increase sales, but SMS marketing is by far the most effective when it comes to actually getting their attention. It's cheaper, has a wider reach, and reaps a higher open and response rate than many other conventional marketing channels. If you’re looking to gain an edge over the competition, creating a text message marketing campaign should be at the top of your list!

However, since your business texts will be interspersed with your clients' personal texts, you have to be extremely mindful of not annoying them with irrelevant or unimportant messages. SMS etiquette is key here, as you don't want to get blocked for text messaging missteps!

Summer is here and you know what that means—summer sales and discounts! Businesses big and small run deals to get customers in the door (sometimes figuratively speaking) and virtual phone numbers are a fantastic way to attract attention, boost sales AND track sale effectiveness.

Earth Day is right around the corner, and each year more than 1 billion people from across the globe participate in the celebration. Founded in 1970, Earth Day has inspired a world-wide call for action and change in protecting our environment. From donating money, to investing your time and spreading the word throughout your networks–there are endless opportunities to give back to the planet we call home, including through your business!

We sat down with our new VP of Wholesale Sales, Debi Yphantides, to get a few nuggets of wisdom..

Q: What are you looking forward to most in 2019?

A: Event networking is an important way for us to keep in touch with clients as well as meeting with vendors and new prospects. In 2018, the Voxox wholesale team attended ITW, Channel Partners, LA Mobile World Congress, InCompass, World Telemedia Spain, and Capacity Messaging & SMS London. We are considering some of these for 2019, and have plans to attend IT Expo in Florida and ITW in Atlanta.

We're excited to introduce you to our latest addition to the Voxox management team -- Debi Yphanties, our new VP of Wholesale Sales. Check out her story in the press release about Debi's appointment (below) and tune in tomorrow for a follow-up post with a short Q&A with Debi about her vision for wholesale sales leadership in 2019.

Voxox just announced its partnership with leading Malaysian carrier Digi Telecommunications, which serves 11.7 million Malaysian customers, providing mobile connectivity and internet services. Digi is part of the Telenor Group, one of the world's largest telecommunications providers. In addition to today's partnership announcement, Voxox has also announced the duo's first offering together. As part of the agreement, Digi is white labeling Voxox Cloud Phone and is now offering the service in Malaysia under the brand Omni Hotline, complete with Malaysian telephone numbers. This is the first implementation of Voxox Cloud Phone with a foreign carrier.

If you’ve ever moved your main business phone number from one provider to another, you are probably asking yourself a couple questions like this:

It only takes an hour to move my mobile number from the red provider to the yellow guys but it takes eight years it seems with my business number. Why is that even a thing?

The Voxox team is reveling in the killer conversations we had at the 4th Annual Global Telecom Solutions Open House recently. Mostly we can't stop talking about the expert panel GTS hosted during the one day event. Voxox was among only four companies represented on the event's industry experts panel. We shared the stage alongside US Signal, 123NetInc and vMOX. We thought we would share some of our takeaways from the panel, as they are timely to many conversations happening right now in channel partner and telecom circles. Both as it relates to hosted PBX and the larger arena of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS).

The U.S. and Mexico have cultivated a dynamic business environment that encourages innovation, collaboration and mutual prosperity for small businesses with partners, employees, and customers across the border. Part of the competitive advantage for both U.S. and Mexican entrepreneurs is the geographical proximity; however, there are also challenges related to cross-border product shipment, delivery, payment, and knowing the key legislation related to taxes, customs, etc. Entrepreneurs with cross-border ties must be able to have effective international communication, and when this comes to the smallest businesses with shoestring budgets, international calling costs (and cost-savings) can really matter.