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SMS marketing is one of the fastest ways to increase customer engagement. 80% 100 percent of consumers will read and respond to a text within 30 minutes. But it’s not enough to just buy a contact list and send a text message to everyone. There’s a process you can follow to send compliant SMS marketing messages. Done correctly, it will ensure that the messages you send are accepted by both your customers and regulators. This article will help you make that happen.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I’ve worked with tens of thousands of businesses on this over the past decade.
Related: 5 Ways to Use Text Messaging to Grow Sales and Marketing
TCPA and FCC: What it means to you
Federal Communications Commission The FCC is the agency that implements and enforces America’s communications laws. In 1991, it enacted the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which prohibited companies from using automated dialing machines to randomly call consumers. Updates and clarifications About the ways in which businesses can and can’t text consumers. Key takeaways include:
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Contacts must explicitly opt-in to receive texts from your organization
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You must instruct your contacts how to opt-out of receiving text messages from your organization.
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If they opt out, you have to stop texting them
Although you may be exempt from opting in if your contacts have had a previous commercial relationship with you (purchased something from you or contacted you about a purchase), it’s best to explicitly ask your contacts to opt in to SMS marketing messages.
Register with your mobile phone company and 10DLC
Mobile phone carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile and their telecommunications partners want to ensure that their customers only receive text messages that they want to receive from legitimate organizations (i.e., the carriers are trying to eliminate spam). This is a tough challenge, but they have done a lot to get there. The most important step they have taken is:10 DLC Registration” This is jargon for registering a business phone number so that you can send text messages over your company’s network. To do this, you’ll need:
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Company information including employer ID
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The phone number you use to send and receive texts
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Text messaging use cases
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Example of a text message to send
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Proof of how contacts opted in
You must submit this information to Campaign Registry Please wait for approval before you start sending texts. Once approved, you can start sending SMS campaigns. Text messaging services Registration for 10DLC is processed automatically.
Related: 5 SMS marketing best practices to help you boost your sales
Get your contacts to opt in
There are two easiest ways to get your contacts to opt in to receiving SMS messages:
To get your contacts to send you text messages, you typically use keywords and promotions. For example, a promotion could be “Subscribe to SMS messages and get 20% off your next purchase. Text me the DEAL.” [our number] To subscribe, you’ll need to enable an autoresponder on your text messaging service to confirm that they’ve subscribed, share a discount code, and add them to your keyword-specific contact list. You can also have your contacts send you text messages on your website by replacing “Call us at…” with “Text or call us at…”
Make sure your contact form has a field for entering a mobile phone number. Then add an opt-in statement to the form: “By submitting this form, [company] You authorize us to contact you via the information you provide, including with SMS marketing messages and updates.”
Send SMS campaigns your contacts actually like
You need to make sure people actually like the messages you send them, which will improve their experience and prevent them from opting out. A successful SMS marketing campaign has the following characteristics:
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Related — Based on subscriber selections
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Timely — Seasonal promotions, last minute opportunities, and reminders
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Clear and persuasive — Tells you what to get and how to get it
Follow this and your SMS marketing campaigns will be compliant (and more profitable).
Avoiding carrier spam filters
Just like with email, mobile carriers have spam filters that look for content that is common to messages that were previously classified as spam. Things that can trigger your carrier’s spam filters include:
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Too many emojis (one or two is fine)
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Use of dollar signs ($), especially multiple
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Send them a shortened or Bitly link (your customer won’t know where the link leads)
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End the message with a URL (followed by text)
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Email-length messages
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Excessive typos
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All uppercase
While it’s possible that using any of these is fine, the more emails you send and the more likely they are to be flagged as spam and blocked, which is something you want to avoid.
Related: 3 SMS trends businesses need to know about to succeed in 2024
Grow and organize your contact list
To be most successful, you need to continually attract new SMS subscribers, but also, for lack of a better word, remove bad subscribers. Sometimes people enter the wrong number or a phone number that can’t receive texts (such as a landline). Remove such subscribers, as their messages will not be delivered and will reflect poorly on your carrier.
Also, it’s inevitable that someone will try to unsubscribe by replying with something like “leave me alone” or “stop texting me.” Although these replies won’t trigger your unsubscribe automation, they should be removed. This improves customer experience and also improves deliverability by proving to mobile carriers that the messages you’re sending are appropriate and desirable.
With anything that helps your business, it’s best to start early, and SMS marketing is no exception. By following the advice in this article, you’ll be sending compliant SMS marketing campaigns that will benefit your business.