You have a choice of two: SMS or MMS.

You probably already use SMS messaging in your daily life. SMS stands for “Short Message Service” and is the type of service that comes with most mobile phones. When you text a brief message to family members with a quick reminder about the day’s schedule, you’re probably using an SMS message. It’s no more than 160 letters and numbers and doesn’t have any attachments. The technology has been around since the 1980s and is the most widely used messaging protocol.

If, however, you send a photo with your message, you’re using an MMS message. MMS stands for “Multimedia Message Service.” You can include photos, videos, audio clips, GIFs and more in an MMS message. MMS also allows you to send up to 1,600 characters in your message. Combining a message and an attachment generally creates a much larger file than a simple SMS message, but more about that in a minute.

What About iMessage, WhatsApp and the Other Services?

When you send or receive a plain SMS message, you’re using the cellular service on your mobile phone. If you’re using iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat or any of the other “Over the Top” apps, the app is using the internet to send the message, not a cellular service. The recipient of the message must also have the same app to receive the message.

For example, if you send an iMessage (which comes with your iPhone) your recipient must have an iPhone, too, or the message will be delivered as an SMS message. You can tell the difference because the bubble on your iPhone goes from blue to green when you message someone who doesn’t have an iPhone.

When you’re sending one message at a time, of course, it doesn’t matter much how it’s being delivered. When you start sending hundreds or thousands of messages at a time, however, the details become much more important.

What’s the Difference Between SMS and MMS?

At SMS-Magic, you have the capability to send either SMS or MMS messages from the minute you sign up for our service. If you have unlimited time and an unlimited budget, you can send MMS messages exclusively. If, however, you are tracking time spent and managing a budget, you’ll need to know when to choose one or the other.

SMS

• SMS messages are limited to 160 characters – text or numerals.
• One credit buys one SMS message.
• Each single SMS message or auto-reply generally takes 5 seconds to be delivered. Group SMS messages depend on the group size for delivery rates. You can expect 10,000 SMS messages to take about five minutes from the start of the send.

MMS

•  MMS messages can contain up to 1,600 characters.
• Four credits buy one message.
• Each MMS message may take up to a minute to be delivered through the messaging system and the carrier.

If you’re running a “text-to-join” campaign or something similar and expect a high rate of return, you probably will opt for SMS. Transactional messages like appointment confirmations, package tracking or password resets probably make more sense as SMS messages, too. Consider SMS when your messages are short, urgent, or concise or direct recipients to links with more information. Be careful with emojis because sometimes they can bump your messages into an MMS category.

Although budget may limit your choice to less-expensive SMS messages, you might have occasions when an MMS campaign will attract more attention. Humans remember pictures better than other information. If you hear something, you’ll remember 10 percent of it three days later. But if there’s a picture, you’ll remember 65 percent of it.

In 2008, BMW launched an MMS campaign to sell snow tires and enjoyed an outstanding 30 percent conversion rate. The campaign cost them $60,000. If they sent to 117,000 customers and 30 percent bought tires at an average cost of $1,300, the campaign brought in more than $45 million. That’s over $750 in revenue per dollar spent on the campaign.

Of course, not every company will experience that kind of result, but you may have campaigns that warrant higher send rates than others. In a 2012 study by ROI Research, 44 percent of respondents say they are more likely to engage with companies that post pictures in their ads. Your audience’s preferences will help guide what types of messages you send.

Managing Relationships with Carriers & CRMs

Do you have staff members who are experts at managing relationships with all the carriers you might encounter? Don’t worry! SMS-Magic does.

As part of our service, we handle everything you need from a carrier – from acquiring short and long codes to troubleshooting issues. We work with carriers every day and can save you the trouble of dealing with them.

In addition, SMS-Magic works seamlessly with Salesforce and Zoho and has the capability to work with most CRM systems. We can help you even if you don’t use a CRM at all.

Does SMS-Magic sound like the partner you’ve been looking for? We hope so!

Contact us to set up a demo or to start your free trial. Let us show you how to accelerate your messaging campaigns with SMS-Magic!

But before you plan your first campaign, you need to choose the inbound number your customers will use to talk to you. Will you choose a short code or a long code? Either one will work, but one may be better than the other for your use case.

Long codes are essentially phone numbers, complete with an area code. Short codes are generally five or six digits. Keep reading and we’ll bust a few myths about short and long codes to help you make a decision.

Myth #1 – Short Codes and Long Codes Are Essentially the Same

Short and long codes are not the same. They differ in three ways:

1.     Long codes can send and receive text, faxes and phone calls. Short codes can only send and receive text messages, either SMS or MMS.

2.     Long codes take longer to send – almost a second per message. Short codes are much speedier – 40 messages per second – and they work better when a high-volume response is expected, such as voting during a television program.

3.     Carriers limit inbound long-code messages to one for every four outbound messages. Short codes don’t have a limit – you can send and receive as many as you’d like.

Myth #2 – Short Codes Aren’t Worth the Cost

It’s true that short codes cost more than long codes, but in the U.S., you aren’t allowed to send marketing texts with long codes. Don’t put your business at risk because your communications have been blocked by the carrier. SMS short codes also work better during two-factor authentication and emergency alerts because of their speed. If you plan to send multiple marketing messages to many people, short codes are a must.

Myth #3 – Long Codes Don’t Have Any Value

On the other hand, if you plan to send customer service communications to your customers, long codes may be the best answer for you. A courier company could use a long-code message to inform customers that their packages are out for delivery. A bank could text clients their account balances every month. An airline could reply to a passenger’s seat preference request. Value is related to how well your code choice helps you reach your goals.

Myth #4 – Tracking Message Delivery is Impossible

If you use long codes, you can send messages around the world but the technology doesn’t support delivery receipts. With most text messaging solutions, you won’t know if the intended recipient received your message unless they respond. SMS-Magic, however, tracks long-code message delivery for you for both technical and legal purposes.

By comparison, short codes are country specific and always provide delivery receipts that are useful with two-factor authentication and when SMS delivery is critical. Short codes are considered reliable for both technical and legal purposes.

Myth #5 – It Takes Weeks to Get a Short Code

If you’re dealing directly with the telecom carriers, acquiring a short code could take up to six weeks. SMS-Magic, however, already holds pre-approved short codes that can be assigned to you, shortening the time to a week or two. We have long term relationships with the carriers and will manage that relationship for you. You can leave the details to us.

Let SMS-Magic Help You

The SMS-Magic team helps clients with short- and long-code decisions every day. We would be excited to share our experience and help you decide which one is best for you. Or if you’re already sure which would be best for you, we can help you implement your choice.

Does the SMS-Magic team sound like the partner you’ve been looking for? We hope so!

Contact us to set up a demo or to start your free trial. Let us show you how SMS-Magic can help you build and automate your text messaging campaigns!

Luckily, that doesn’t mean you’re at a carrier’s mercy. There are actions you can take to increase your SMS delivery rates. Here are some simple actions that will make a significant impact for your business.

How to Increase SMS Delivery

1. Use the correct type of SMS phone number (SenderID)

• Different numbers have different rules.
• Long codes: Typically used for interactive messaging. A maximum of roughly 500 messages per day, per long code can be sent. After that the code gets blocked. Repetitive keywords & URLs in the message body will also be blocked by the carriers if these types of messages are sent using long codes.
• Short codes: These numbers are designed for larger message blasts like campaigns, surveys and announcements. Short codes are fully featured and there is no daily restriction on the number of messages or volume of messages that can be sent. But, you can’t have interactive conversations over short codes.
• By sending the correct type of messages on the correct number types, you increase delivery.

2. Avoid repetitive content that triggers Spam Filters

• Marketing campaigns, customer announcements, etc., will trigger SPAM filters and you’ll lose your number and all the messages will be blocked and charged.
• Use merge fields, sometimes called tokens, to add a name to the message to break up repetitive content.

3. Check the destination country’s rules around message timing

• Some countries only allow marketing or other types of messages to be sent during specific hours. For example, during business hours. If you send outside of these hours your messages are blocked. They may or may not be delivered the next day during business hours.
• Always check your destination countries’ rules to be sure you are sending during approved messaging hours.
• Your vendor should be able to program your SMS message sends to always stay within the business hours of your destination country.

4. Clean your lists

• One of the main reasons messages fail is due to incorrect mobile numbers. This can be caused by human error or changed numbers.
• You still get charged for messages sent to wrong numbers, so cleaning your lists can save your lost/undelivered messages and wasted money.

5. Understand the rules for your specific messaging numbers and carrier

• Every carrier has specific rules for different types of messaging numbers (what they call codes and/or SenderIDs.)
• Rules vary concerning  what type of messages you can send, how many messages you can send in a specific time period and the ratio of inbound to outbound messages that’s required.
• Be sure you understand the rules and follow them. To learn more about carriers, SMS messaging and their requirements, check out How Messaging Works.

6. Choose an SMS vendor that understands the diverse carrier requirements for global messaging

• A vendor that has direct connections and tight relationships with the individual carriers is more likely to have increased delivery rates due to those connections, vs an aggregator.
• Such a vendor is also more likely to understand the rules for each carrier and number type, to guide you in your selection and use of messaging numbers.
• These vendors are also more likely to offer proactive management of SMS delivery within their SMS gateway, assuring that parameters such as volume, speed and time of message sends match the carrier’s rules.

The Bottom Line

Any vendor who says they deliver 100% of messages isn’t telling the truth. There are always blocked or undeliverable messages, just as there are always bounced emails.

By following the simple steps above, you can and will increase your SMS delivery rates.

The problem: Failed SMS delivery across carriers. This problem is inconvenient for personal texting. For business text messaging it causes significant issues.

With text messaging, you pay for every message that you attempt to send, not just the ones that are delivered. Managing SMS delivery is just as critical as your messaging strategy. If your audience doesn’t receive your messages, your strategy fails. You don’t want to be unaware of undelivered messages and then run into problems in the future.

Controlling SMS Delivery impacts more than just getting a message to a recipient.

• You need to check on individual SenderIDs as well as aggregate information.
• You need to track the budget given that failed messages are charged message credits.
• You need to create your own alerts around volumes, budgets, trend changes and other behaviors that warn you of coming issues

That’s a lot of things to keep track of just to make sure your messages get delivered. The good news is that the right SMS partner can simplify this for you, so you don’t have to spend extra time and stress on deliverability.

What your SMS Delivery Service Should Do For You

Your messaging vendor’s delivery service should make it simple for you to quickly track and control all of the above metrics. Here’s how:

Interactive vs Automated Messaging Delivery

The numbers used to send automated campaigns vs have interactive conversations carry different rules for how many messages and at what speed you can send. Your vendor should:

• Know the difference between short and long code rules.
• Be able to proactively manage traffic to meet these rules.
• Also be able to track different SenderIDs and unique delivery trends.

Monitor Individual and Aggregate SenderIDs

Your vendor should provide dashboards that you let you monitor and aggregate at a granular level. The dashboards should allow you to:

• Gain insight to know how you’re doing overall with message delivery.
• Gain insight at an individual sender ID level – for example, you need to know if a certain rep is sending messages that contain content that triggers SPAM filters or if a campaign is sending too high of a volume too quickly and is breaking carrier rules – resulting in failed deliveries. These types of activities affect your SMS delivery, but if you have the right dashboards in place, you can quickly correct any problems.

Track Budgets

Every time a message fails, you are charged a message credit or credits. That means SMS delivery impacts your overall budget control. Your vendor should provide:

• Dashboards that provide real-time status of message credits used and trends for message credits.
• Ability to compare budget to actual spend for planning purposes.

Alerts

Your vendor should offer simple ways to send alerts concerning delivery based on what matters to your business, using pre-defined rules. You should be able to:

• Track message delivery over time, changes in delivery, and other trends.
• Track message budgets and credits used over a specific time, changes in budget over a certain threshold, and when budget gets low.
• You should be able to easily instrument an alert for any result, or combination of results, that you need to know about.

The Bottom Line

SMS delivery is critical. Messages need to get to recipients and you should know right away if that’s not happening. You need budget tracking for missed deliveries so you know when inappropriate content triggers SMS failures. That way you are quickly able to correct the problem.

Be sure to find a vendor that offers what you need. Don’t fall for SMS delivery reports from carriers. They simply aren’t enough.

If you’re interested in learning about how SMS-Magic provides optimized SMS deliverability, reach out and we’d be happy to chat!