Messaging has the power to transform your business. Anything new takes time to master, but SMS-Magic makes it easy to get started quickly with successful messaging campaigns, without extensive training. Check out our tips for success, designed with beginners in mind!

1. Use Your Support Network

You’re not in this alone! Our customer care team is here to answer questions and provide guidance as you start your conversational messaging journey. SMS-Magic also offers an extensive, user-friendly library of help documents with step-by step instructions, guiding you through common setup and usage pathways.

Depending on the size and scale of your business, it can be helpful to train and designate more than one admin user. Sharing admin responsibilities among multiple users helps you build a whole team of qualified professionals, so you’ll have an effective support network as your messaging journey continues.

2. Follow Successful Examples

Studying how other companies have used messaging successfully can help you jumpstart your own campaigns and avoid reinventing the wheel. It can also be an encouraging reminder that your decision to implement conversational messaging will pay off!

Here’s an inspiring example to get you started. A higher-education program wanted to boost college enrollment among its audience members. They recognized the power of messaging for their specific use case, especially since students constantly have cell phones available. Social media campaigns and email outreach weren’t driving engagement, so the company turned to messaging for a solution.

This company used conversational messaging to touch base with students every week of summer vacation. They asked questions designed to prepare students for the coming semester, initiating meaningful conversations. They also sent application reminders, scheduled meetings and calls, and answered questions. Using messaging to keep students’ academic journeys on track, this company saw real results.

What can we learn from this example? First, when one form of outreach isn’t working, it’s important to pivot and find a winning strategy. Second, the most successful messaging campaigns don’t just send messages to make noise. They offer substantial, valuable content that actually makes readers’ lives easier.

3. Understand Compliance Requirements and Best Practices

The most creative, appealing messaging campaign can be derailed quickly if you’re not following compliance requirements. Know the laws pertaining to your country and telecom provider, and follow them. Avoiding policy violations will protect your company’s reputation.

Even if you’re technically within compliance, your audience can still view your messages as spam if you aren’t following best practices. Make sure each message you send offers valuable content your readers will appreciate, and remember that less is more. Only message within standard business hours, and remember to offer clear opt-out opportunities and honor customers’ requests to unsubscribe from your messages.

4. Leverage the Power of Time-Saving Features

Messaging should make your life easier, not harder. Take advantage of all the time-saving benefits of conversational messaging! Schedule campaigns ahead of time, and automate repetitive forms of outreach like appointment reminders, thank-you notes and follow-up surveys. Use the power of bulk messaging campaigns to quickly reach a broad audience. When you filter your contact list appropriately, you can still send personalized, relevant, targeted outreach to a bulk recipient list. When you free yourself and your reps from the daily grind of repetitive outreach tasks, you have more time to focus on meaningful, personal customer relationships.

5. Consider Multichannel Opportunities

SMS messaging is part of just about everyone’s daily life, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. As an SMS-Magic customer, once you get started with SMS messaging, it’s easy to add more! You can expand into other channels too, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and LINE, handling all your conversations from a single inbox. Research your target demographic and discover what channels might engage them effectively, beyond SMS messaging. You don’t have to pick just one channel to focus on. With SMS-Magic, you can carry on cross-channel conversations with ease!

Ready to take the plunge and start saving time, engaging your audience and creating wins for your business? Reach out to SMS-Magic today for a demo or a free trial!

That rule is courtesy of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a law enacted in 1991 to govern phone calls and then updated to include texts and emails. TCPA seeks to protect consumers from receiving unwanted marketing solicitations, and its fines and penalties help ensure businesses take it seriously. The fines can be as much as $1,500 per message sent. In one of the first class-action lawsuits concerning texting, Papa John’s settled the case against it for $16.5 million in 2013.

Fortunately, with a little planning and a savvy text messaging partner like SMS-Magic, you can gain consent, reach out to your customers legally, and keep the necessary records to defend any actions against you. And most importantly, you can establish a relationship with your customers that lets them know you’re not going to fill up their inboxes with unwanted messages.

What Does the TCPA Require?

TCPA guidelines require that you must:

• Receive consent before any message can be sent.
• Mention your company name
• State the coupon or value proposition
• Mention the frequency of messages that will be sent monthly
• Disclose possible carrier costs and fees
• Give an option to ask for help and opt out of future texts

How Can You Approach Customers to Gain Consent?

Remember: You can’t text until you have permission. So don’t even think about buying a list of phone numbers and starting without consent. But if you play by the rules, where can you solicit customers for your text marketing campaign?

In a recent blog post, we provided a list of 20 ways to attract new customers to your texting campaigns and there are many more. As you design your campaigns to grow your text marketing list, you can include the initial TCPA information your customer needs in a small text block on the emails, trade show materials, business cards, product packaging, or other marketing materials. Here’s an example of how you can structure that text for a fictitious pizza restaurant:

Headline: Want Great Pizza Deals Sent Directly to Your Phone?

Subhead: Text CHEESE to 999999 to Start Receiving Weekly Offers

Graphics: Include your logo or other graphic

Small text: Message and data rates may apply. Max 5 msgs/mo. Consent not required to buy goods/svcs. Terms and conditions at pizzastore.com/terms. Privacy policy at pizzastore.com/privacy. For help, text HELP to 555111. To opt-out, text STOP to 555111.

If your company requires additional legal text for offers such as “May not be combined with other offers” or “Limited time only,” you can include the necessary text in the small text block. Notice that you can provide the web address for terms and conditions and your privacy policy. If your customers have questions, you’ve given them a resource for answers. You’ve even provided information about opting out before they need it.

Consider Using a Double Opt-In

Let’s assume your customer has opted into receiving text messages from your company with the offer we’ve just discussed above. They’ve texted CHEESE to your short code. Now what happens?

Simple. You automatically send them a confirmation text immediately. In that first message, you can provide some valuable information to them and keep yourself legal.

Here’s an example of the confirmation text:

Please reply YES to receive updates from the Pizza Store. Std. msg&data rates apply. Max 5 msgs/month. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel.

You’ve repeated your company’s name and asked your customers to confirm that they want to receive texts from you. You’ve provided a reminder about possible texting charges. You’ve told them how many messages to expect, and you’ve given them the tools to ask for help or stop the messages. And you’ve done all of this in seconds without disturbing your customer.

Extend an Offer

Of course, you can offer a special deal, coupon, discount or promotion with either the first touch or the confirmation text. Often, this type of extra incentive will prompt customers to opt in right away by providing a sense of urgency.

In the first example above, the Pizza Store could have offered an immediate discount with the promise of more to come via text messages throughout the month. Adding an incentive would only require a slight rewrite of the copy.

Be careful, however, how you word your incentive. Don’t use a vague statement like “Text us to receive a 10% discount.” Instead, be clear about what the customer must do to earn the discount. This is better: “Get 10% off when you join our SMS text list.”

Test, Test, Test

Your text campaigns will require thoughtful planning, and it will be easy to figure out what’s working and what’s not. Texts are immediate. You won’t have to wait long to determine if your appeals are successful or not. Adjustments are easy to make when you have data driving your decisions.

So, plan some A/B testing with email appeals for your text messaging lists. You can determine which email subject lines and body copy prompt the most customers to opt in. And as you build your text messaging lists, you can do similar testing to see what campaigns produce the best results. The beauty of text messaging campaigns is their immediacy.

Keeping Track of Who Opted In and Who Opted Out

You’ll also need to keep track of who has opted in and who has opted out, as well as who is already in the system to keep one person from opting in multiple times. SMS-Magic can make compliance a breeze, particularly if you have tied your text messaging campaigns into your CRM. No matter what industry you’re in – banking, higher education, hospitality, finance or others, we’ll help you keep up with customer permissions as they opt-in (and perhaps opt-out) of your messaging campaigns.

SMS-Magic is designed to track opt-in and opt-out requests so that you send only to the customers who have specifically asked you to. Our back-end systems are structured so that we can display individual requests, and we can prove you’ve complied with customer requests. You won’t have to worry about regulators asking to see your records. We use on-going processes to collect and store information about distribution and can share it with regulators, if necessary.

Does SMS-Magic sound like the answer 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 lists!

Text messages are not like emails, which are sent easily across the internet. You must follow the text messaging regulations for the recipient’s carrier to assure your messages are actually delivered by that carrier.

Carriers around the globe have different rules for text messaging on their networks. If you don’t follow these rules, there are a number of potential consequences.

• Carriers will not deliver your messages
• You will be charged for the attempted message sends.
• Carriers will also block your business from sending any more messages due to certain text messaging violations.

Following are some key things you need to take into consideration.

Type of number, or Sender ID

You use a phone number as a Sender ID to send your messages. It’s the FROM number or alpha-characters you see as sending the message. Carriers offer different types of numbers for different types of text messaging.

Each type of number has a set of rules around how it can be used, based on the type of route these messages take across a network. Some routes are designed for P2P (interactive) traffic, some for A2P (automated) traffic, and some for both. Numbers also have different costs associated with them.

If you violate the rules around a certain number type, carriers will stop delivery, charge you for the messages and potentially block you from sending any more messages.

Volume and velocity of SMS messages

The volume of messages refers to the total number of messages being sent from a specific number. The velocity refers to how fast these messages are sent, as well as the ratio of inbound to outbound messages.

Automated campaigns and bulk sends generally include larger volumes of messages, and require a Sender ID that uses a route designed for volume sends, as well as a high velocity with a low ratio of inbound to outbound traffic. Interactive conversations, such as with a sales or service rep, tend to be lower volume and velocity with a more balanced ratio between inbound and outbound. Such traffic can use a different type of number for sending messages.

If your messaging sends violate the policies your carrier associates with your numbers, your traffic will be stopped, you will be charged and you may be blocked from sending any more messages.

Type of messaging content

Carriers use spam filtering on text messaging routes. These filters watch for typical spam type behaviors within the message content. For example, if you send the same repetitive content in a series of messages, you may be blocked for spam. Similarly, if you use shortened urls in messages you will most likely be blocked. Your SMS messaging provider should have the expertise and product capabilities for you to avoid any type of spam filters. Be sure to work with them to optimize your message sends.

Structure of messaging content

SMS Messages have specific structure requirements for effective delivery. For example, an English message cannot be more than 160 characters. If it is, the carrier can break it up into multiple messages, send those disjointed messages in an incorrect order and charge you for multiple messages. Your vendor should provide SMS templates that are structurally correct. They should also help you understand the key policies for English and Unicode messages, as well as techniques for sending large messages in an orderly fashion.

The Bottom Line

Carrier regulations for SMS messaging add an additional layer of compliance that your business needs to take into account when defining your messaging strategies and infrastructure.

Be sure you do the following when designing your SMS messaging programs:

• Choose the right numbers, or codes, for specific types of messaging.
• Select a vendor that can manage your message sends to meet your carriers volume and velocity policies.
• Use the proven SMS templates your vendor offers to be sure you understand the optimum content structure for your messages.
• Follow best practices messaging and use common sense. In short, don’t be a spammer!

This post introduces a few key aspects of carrier regulation for SMS messaging. We’ve also created a detailed guide to How Messaging Works that offers deep insights into SMS text messaging  across the globe. It’s yours for free, just click below!

If you have more questions, we’d be happy to answer them. We’d also be happy to demo our automated compliance solution that assures your text messaging campaigns and conversations meet regulatory requirements. To set up a demo, click here.