texting Archives

3 differences between long code and short code in text message marketing

SMS text message marketing is a powerful tactic in any company’s digital marketing strategy.

Not only do about 59 percent of consumers respond to their text messages within five minutes, but nearly 100 percent of people at least open all of their text messages.

But as you’re entering the world of text message marketing, you begin your efforts with a very important decision: whether to use a long code or short code.

Long codes and short codes merely refer to the type of number you’re sending your text messages from. Long codes are a standard 10-digit phone number, while short codes are an easier-to-remember 5- to 6-digit number.

The following are three differences between long codes and short codes so that you can decide which is best for your company and goals behind text message marketing.

Capabilities

Long codes can be used for more than just text messaging. They can also be used for faxes and making calls. Short codes can only send and receive text messages.

Typically, long codes are used for customer service-related communication, such as:

Informing a customer that his or her package is out for delivery.
Updating customers with their account balance.

But companies often use short codes for mass marketing, security and emergency communications in text message marketing, such as:

Sending ads, coupons and other promotional information. For example, customers can opt in for a discount or other type of loyalty program by texting a keyword to the short code number.
Two-factor authentication for security purposes.
Alert notifications, such as hurrican warnings or flight delays.

While long codes can work worldwide, they don’t support delivery receipts. But there are still ways to know if delivery was successful when using particular SMS messaging platforms, such as DailyStory. However, short codes are considered to be the most reliable from both a technical and legal standpoint.

Volume

Of course, a big difference between long codes and short codes is the speed and volume of sending text messages in your text message marketing.

Long codes limit sending to one message per second, so companies typically use them for person-to-person communication. Short codes, on the other hand, can send 40 messages per second, so companies often use them for high-volume messaging, such as voting on TV shows.

In addition, according to carrier regulations, the ratio of inbound-to-outbound text traffic should be better than one-to-three for long codes. Short codes do not have this restriction.

Learn more about carrier violations and how to avoid them during SMS text message marketing.

Cost

Short codes can be much more expensive than long codes. The cost of a short code, for example, can begin at $500 per month in addition to any set-up fees.

Long codes are considerably more affordable.

In conclusion

The decision whether to secure a long code or short code depends on your budget and your intended uses for SMS text message marketing. Keep in mind that technology continues to evolve, and 10DLC is something to explore as well.

Check out our 10 best practices for SMS text message marketing.

As you’re deciding on whether to use a long code or short code, consider leveling up your digital marketing with DailyStory and our 21-day free trial. Features include automating various marketing tasks, dynamic audience segmentation, powerful SMS text message marketing and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

4 tips to grow your SMS text message marketing subscribers

With SMS text message marketing continuing to grow in popularity, every business should work it into its digital marketing strategy.

But with strict opt-in procedures required, you can’t leap into your first text message campaign before you have a confirmed subscriber list (regardless of how many contact phone numbers you might already have simply through conducting business).

The good news is that about 91 percent of consumers would opt-in for text messages from brands.

Assuming you’re already prepared to use best practices for your first text message marketing campaign or program, the following are four tips to help grow your text subscribers the right way.

Advertise your text program on all channels

This likely sounds obvious, but it cannot be overstated. How can your customers and potential customers opt into your texting if they don’t know it exists or the value it offers?

It could be as simple as including a line everywhere you can about texting a keyword to a phone number to receive exclusive deals. It also can be a full-fledged promotional campaign.

You’ll want to think about how you can raise awareness about your text program on your:

Website, where you can include an online sign-up form
Social media accounts, where you can use compelling visuals and direct users to your online sign-up form
Emails, where you can dive into all the benefits of signing up and include a link to do so (a great way to convert your email subscribers into text subscribers)
Analog paper (such as fliers, posters, even your receipts), where you can either use a QR code to make signing up online easy or offer paper sign-up forms

Use a memorable keyword

We mentioned that potential text subscribers could text a keyword to a phone number to opt in.

The more memorable you can make that keyword, the better. Don’t overthink it. Just put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What would make sense for your brand, reflect the point of the texting program and be easy to remember if a customer doesn’t act immediately?

Offer an incentive to text subscribers

To help grow your text subscribers, consider offering an incentive for signing up. After all, you’re asking for direct access to their most-used device. Opportunities include:

Offering a discount on a first purchase
Giving away a free swag item (or some other product that makes sense to give away)
Hosting a contest or giveaway (just keep it legal)

Be upfront about your texting frequency

To avoid the risk of looking like spam, it’s best to be clear about how often you plan on texting subscribers.

You can include the expected frequency in your advertising. Of course, we recommend including it in your confirmation message when text subscribers do sign up as well.

It’s best to be as upfront as possible in any texting program.

In conclusion

Any successful SMS text messaging campaign or program should include a component to help grow your text subscribers.

DailyStory can help. Our platform offers dynamic audience segmentation, automation capabilities and other features that can level up your text message marketing, email marketing and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

10 best practices for SMS text message marketing

Text messages should be part of your digital marketing strategy.

About 85 percent of consumers in one study say they want to receive text messages from brands.

And when done right, businesses can see SMS response rates of about 45 percent (while email marketing shows about 8 percent). When not done right, thought, you can lose about 65 percent of your subscribers who will unsubscribe because you’re texting too much and/or your content isn’t relevant to them.

So, how can you do SMS text message marketing “right”? The following are 10 best practices to make your text messaging efforts as successful as possible.

Get permission

The biggest mistake a business can make when first getting into text message marketing is to get ahead of itself and begin texting the contacts you have before you’ve confirmed your opt-ins.

But it’s important to do so.

Without consent, you’re breaking the law and open yourself to possible litigation. It also can negatively impact your brand’s image.

Opt-ins can be fairly easy, though:

Texting a keyword to your number
Filling out a web form (or paper form if necessary)

Consider this the most important aspect of your SMS text message marketing strategy.

Include all necessary disclaimers

Beyond just being up front with text subscribers, industry regulations actually require you to share the following disclaimers up front:

That messaging and data rates may apply
How often you plan to text your subscribers
A link to your Terms and Conditions and your Privacy Policy
How to unsubscribe

We recommend reviewing the official messaging principles and best practices from the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) to ensure that you’re operating within the industry guidelines.

Establish consistency with your sending frequency

It’s obvious that you don’t want to text too much and potentially overwhelm and turn off your subscribers.

But you also don’t want to text too sporadically either.

When you don’t text consistently enough, the texts you do send can appear out of the blue (in a bad way) to your subscribers who may have forgotten why they subscribed in the first place.

This can lead to fewer conversions and more unsubscribes.

In general, most businesses strive for two to four texts per month. But every business is different. You could have a daily or weekly need to text your subscribers. The key is to be upfront about your frequency as subscribers opt in so that there are no surprises (and subsequent unsubscribes).

Consider the timing of your texts

Just like how you wouldn’t want to receive a promotional text at 9 or 10 p.m. at night, don’t plan on sending your texts at awkward times for your text subscribers.

Timing considerations include:

What’s right for your audience
Any time-zone differences
The availability of your team if response support is required
Volume pacing, which means that depending on whether you’re using short codes or long codes, this impacts how many texts can be sent per second. For example, you could send an afternoon text to thousands, but if the volume takes time to handle, plenty of recipients could receive your text far too late. Learn more about 10DLC numbers and more.

Think exclusivity

Because your subscribers have to opt in to receiving your text messages, keep that in mind when you create your content.

It’s an exclusive group who’s giving you the ability to contact them directly, yes? Treat them that way.

What can you offer that’s different from your email, social media and website promotions?

The answer depends on your business, but keep it simple. It could be a special discount for one day only, just to test the waters.

Maintaining exclusivity for your SMS text messaging gives customers a reason to sign up and a reason to stay subscribed.

Be responsive

About 34 percent of people will read a text message within five minutes of receiving it. If your plan involves two-way messaging (for customer service, for example), you have to be as responsive as you possibly can be.

Build the necessary time into your or your team’s schedule. Text message marketing platforms, such as DailyStory, also have built-in features that help notify you to replies and can even automate certain responses, depending on the scenario.

Use concise language

A regular SMS text message gives you 160 characters per text message. This space restriction might tempt you to abbreviate and/or use texting abbreviations, but keep your brand voice in mind. You want to sound clear and professional as a brand.

Of course, the use of MMS can give you more flexibility in communicating your message since you can include an image.

But either way, keep carrier violations in mind since they will prevent your texts from even reaching the phones of your subscribers.

Plus, see our eight tips to write a text that won’t get ignored.

Personalize your content as much as possible

Mass text messages offer the automatic one-to-one connection with customers simply because of the medium.

But you have to elevate your content to speak directly to that one customer rather than general language that feels like you’re talking to everyone.

First of all, know who you’re texting. Segment your contacts as much as you can to be as specific with your messaging as possible. For example, you’re not going to say the same thing to a customer who hasn’t purchased from you in 45 days that you would to your most loyal customers.

In addition, text message marketing platforms should give you the ability to use custom fields in your texts that will automatically pull in your contacts’ information, such as the first name. A text using your first name in it (despite being a mass text) is going to be that much more effective than a text that doesn’t.

Again, DailyStory offers all these features and more to boost the success of your text message marketing campaigns.

Offer an easy, clear way to opt out

While no business wants its subscribers to opt out of receiving text messages, you must make it easy and clear to do so.

It’s an industry requirement, but it also helps your brand image. Everyone should know that they can unsubscribe anytime and how to do so. It’s about establishing trust and credibility for your brand.

Simply include “Text STOP to unsubscribe” in your texts and/or when promoting your text campaign.

When a subscriber does unsubscribe, make sure to send a confirmation and then remove that individual from your contact list.

Measure your SMS campaign performance

Just like any other tactic in digital marketing, you’ll want to monitor how your text messages perform.

Text messages don’t necessarily offer all the same analytics that you expect to see in email marketing campaigns. But you can track deliveries, clicks and replies. It just depends on what platform you’re using to conduct your SMS text message campaigns.

As you’re exploring these best practices for your SMS text message marketing, consider using DailyStory. Features include automating various marketing tasks, dynamic audience segmentation and more that can apply to texting, emailing and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

What is 10DLC? Plus, 4 reasons why you should use it

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, SMS text message marketing has only increased in popularity.

This resulted from overall increased texting among consumers. In fact, about 50 percent of people sent more texts during the height of the pandemic.

Of course, pandemic or not, the value of text marketing is clear. Almost 100 percent of people read all their text messages. Compare that with the average 18 percent email open rate businesses aim to hit.

If you’re beginning to consider SMS text message marketing for your own business, you’ll want to understand 10-digit long codes (10DLC).

Let’s dive into what 10DLC is, as well as four reasons why you should use it in your own text marketing.

What is 10DLC?

In a nutshell, 10DLC is the long-code solution for application-to-person (A2P) business messaging in North America.

Also known as commercial long codes, 10DLC is just a standard 10-digit phone number that supports high-volume messaging that’s required by businesses.

The first version of 10-digit A2P messaging years ago could only handle very low volume and simple one-to-one communications. Demand has helped push for its evolution.

10DLC versus short codes and toll-free numbers

To better understand through comparison, there are three types of numbers:

10DLC
Short code, which is a 4- to 6-digit number used for non-consumer (A2P) messaging globally
Toll-free long code, which begins with an 8 and is available for voice calls but also has been enabled for texts

Each type supports different business needs and desired outcomes.

10DLC best supports a localized, smaller customer base, with typical uses including chat, event-based interactions, service updates, appointment reminders and more. While traditional local long codes send at a rate of 1 message per second and only support sending of a few hundred messages per day, 10DLCs should be capable of sending around 100,000 text messages per month with a send rate of between five and 15 text messages per second. Keep in mind that support for 10DLCs is exclusive to the United States and Canada.

Short codes support an enterprise-level, large-scale customer base, with typical uses including marketing blasts, one-time passwords, fraud alerts, transactional and more. While short codes are appealing, their lease rates are the most expensive and can range from $500 to $1,000 per month or more. Short codes feature unlimited throughput and volume. For example, you can use them to send millions of text messages per day and at rates of up to 500 per second.

Toll-free long codes support either enterprise-level or localized messaging volumes, with typical uses including customer service chat, customer feedback, notifications and more. Its volume capabilities can be more limited, though. Toll-free long codes can only send at a rate of 3 messages per second, though, with the capability of sending a few thousand texts per day.

Short codes do not have voice capabilities, while 10DLC and toll-free do. But 10DLC does not include delivery-receipt capabilities, while short code and toll-free do.

Why use 10DLC in your SMS text marketing?

Low-cost option

When compared to short codes, 10DLCs are far more affordable for small businesses. They typically cost only a few dollars per month. Granted, if you have the budget to use both short codes and 10DLCs, definitely do since they both serve different purposes and have different benefits.

Local phone number recognition

10DLC enables businesses to reach customers individually or in mass with a local phone number. This vastly improves user experience and then customer engagement as a result. Think about your own experience as a consumer. Are you more trusting of a local number being used by a nearby restaurant?

Both text- and voice-enabled

10DLCs support voice, which means customers can send and receive text messages on the same number they call you on. Again, this contributes to a better, less-confusing and more-seamless user experience. The better the experience, the better your results.

Higher messaging volume (but not the highest)

10DLC numbers feature a higher messaging volume than traditional long codes and toll-free numbers for about the same cost. They can’t compare to the volume that short codes feature, but depending on your SMS text messaging goals, that might not matter to your business.

In conclusion

SMS text message marketing is a powerful tactic that businesses should be using in their overall digital marketing strategies.

And 10DLCs can help you drive results. Plus, check out our eight tips to write a text message that won’t get ignored. Just make sure that you’re avoiding all carrier violations so that your texts deliver to customers.

DailyStory can help you get started with SMS marketing. Our platform features dynamic audience segmentation, automation features, text carrier violation checker and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.

MMS marketing: Using images in your text messages

Using images in your text messages (otherwise known as MMS marketing) is a great way to convey brand identity and other important content in your text message marketing.

It is often said: “A picture is worth a thousand words,” which can help you communicate more than the typical character limit for a standard text message. Plus, using MMS can also help avoid carrier violations!

But, as great as it sounds, it’s not as simple as just picking an image and sending it. There are important considerations for the type of image and implications surrounding delivery.

Check out our eight tips to write a text message that won’t get ignored.

The following are some tips and recommendations to get the most out of your MMS marketing messages.

What is a MMS text message?

As defined by Wikipedia, a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network.

Examples include: images, video, JSON and more. For the purpose of MMS text message marketing where hundreds or thousands of messages may be sent, we’re limiting our discussion to images.

Use JPG or GIF file formats

MMS supports many image file formats, but we recommend staying with a more standard and common format.

Unfortunately, not all devices you are sending to will support all the newer formats, and the goal is to always maximize deliverability.

For images, we recommend using JPG or GIF, but only use GIF when sending animated images.

Image resolution should be less than 640 pixels wide

The image used should not be wider than 640 pixels and no taller than 1,138 pixels. This ratio (9:16) is a portrait ratio and is optimized for viewability on mobile screens. However, you can use other ratios, such as a square, while staying within these dimension constraints.

Larger, high-resolution images will not be as easily viewed on a mobile device. They also will cause the file size to exceed the recommended 300 KB, and carriers will reject the message if the image is too large.

Image size should be less than 300 KB

Image size, or how much storage space your image uses, is important to consider.

Generally, images that are larger than 300 KB should be avoided.

While the newest specification for MMS allows for larger formats when sending marketing text messages, we typically recommend the smaller the better.

You can easily find the size of an image by right-clicking and selecting properties. Below is an example from Windows for the MMS Image Dimensions image (used above) that is 36.7 KB. Well under 300 KB!

Images that are too large will not be supported by all devices. Staying within the preferred size will prevent carriers from rejecting messages for MMS file sizes being too large.

What to include

We typically recommend using imagery associated with your brand — as this helps people identify who the text is coming from. You can also include text, too.

Using text in the image is one way to work around carrier restrictions for certain words or phrases.

For example, the text phrase “20% OFF” would get flagged by carriers as part of their carrier violation score. However, the same text used in an image can bypass this restriction.

An MMS text can still include additional text content, too. We recommend including the standard “Reply STOP to opt out,” but other content can also be included. We recommend limiting the text content to no more than 320 characters, though.

What not to include

Don’t take one of your large images used on Instagram or your website and just downsize it to use for MMS. The image quality will suffer and most likely the content will be unreadable.

Keep it simple and always design for MMS, just as you would design specific assets for social media channels like Instagram.

Sounds great, but … it’s triple the cost

Text message marketing isn’t free. Carriers charge based on the number of characters sent. For example, a “segment” consists of 160 characters. Billing is calculated per-segment times the number of messages sent.

MMS text messages are no different. They effectively cost 3 segments and may go over that depending on additional text (varies by carrier).

Therefore, sending an MMS is effectively triple the cost of a regular text message.

MMS deliverability

The No. 1 concern with any text message is deliverability. And, while MMS text message marketing is a way to enhance your messages, it, unfortunately, doesn’t guarantee delivery. The tips above will help, but they can’t prevent carrier violations.

Additionally, all mobile phones do not support MMS. For example, pay-as-you-go phones have limited support for text messaging.