How to Run a Successful SMS Marketing Campaign: 8 tips you need to know

10 minutes after leaving the house, someone will send you a text message or you will send a text message. Do you ever wonder how many text messages you send per day or how many text messages you receive per day from friends, family, or retailers? Did you know that more than 750 billion text messages are sent per month in the United States? That’s more than 26 billion texts a day, and more than 9.3 trillion texts a year coming out of the U.S. Did you know that 97 percent of SMS recipients open their text messages in the first three minutes and view their smartphones on average 52 times per day?

According to Accenture, there are 262 million smartphone users in the U.S and that Americans spend three hours and 35 minutes daily looking at their smartphones. Did you know there are now more mobile phone subscribers in the world (4.68 billion), than there are landline phones subscribers? According to Pew Research Center, most households - 53.9% - now only use cell phones and a third of American households have three or more smartphones. Keep in mind numbers do vary by study.

Our phone is with us everywhere: when we go for a run, when we are in meetings, when we are on the train/bus, when we're out for a dinner with family/friends or walking the dog. We start using our device the minute we wake up. When was the last time you spent an entire day without your phone? How did you feel? I'm sure you felt lost. Disconnected from friends, family, and from the world.

It is this personal relationship we have with our devices that makes targeting phones so attractive to businesses and organizations. However, this channel is monitored closely and requires a well thought out strategy. Before you add SMS (Short Message Service) to your customer journey, consider these 8 tips.

These are only tips, be sure to consult with a lawyer to understand all the relevant laws and regulations especially if you going to launch to international markets (each country or territory has its own restrictions and regulations), know if your company has internal SMS guidelines and most importantly obtain legal approval. Every situation is unique, but hopefully these tips will help you run a successful SMS marketing campaign.

1. Build a cross-functional SMS team. Crucial first step is to create a cross-functional team to help implement and operate SMS. This is the team responsible for building out the strategy, understanding the various use cases, getting alignment across the organization, executing and measuring results and most importantly ensuring you have the right technology in place. This could be a cross-functional team that includes members from marketing, email operations, IT, analytics, creative, social media, legal, compliance and data science. Gone are the days where everyone work in silos. Everyone needs to work cohesively and on the same page as the ultimate goal is the same: your customers satisfaction. There’s no “I” in team. It takes a cross-functional village to implement a successful SMS program!

2. Design a SMS strategy and Build the strategy. Never dive into SMS execution without developing strategy. Establishing a strategy is a critical building block to your company’s success. This is one of the biggest challenges for marketers. What are you trying to accomplish by reaching out to your members through this personal channel? What role does SMS play in your overall marketing mix for your product, brand, and company? Do you have the right use case? Have you established objectives for the campaign to identify if it was successful? What's the overall message? How will you cross pollinate with other channels such as email, social media, web, print, and media? Make sure these goals are S.M.A.R.T goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time Specific) to assure alignment with your overall objectives. Once your strategy is in place, you need to make sure that the capabilities to deliver are in place. Do you have the right platform? Do you need to build an SMS infrastructure? What other systems needs to be a part of the strategy if it is to be successfully implemented?

3. Know the regulations and guidelines. It is important to understand the do’s and don’t when it comes to text messaging regulation.

• Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a government organization that regulates the SMS laws. They are also known as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The TCPA ensures that businesses gather consent-to-text from the consumer, and the specifics around how this permission is gathered, and what is allowed after the permission from the consumer is received.
• CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association) is an industry association focused on the message content and the associated disclaimers. They provide guidance and best practices to text message marketing. (Msg&Data Rates, help & stop commands, messaging frequency, links to terms & conditions, privacy policies, etc.). Familiarize yourself with these guidelines in the CTIA Short Code Monitoring Handbook. The Handbook is not intended as a comprehensive guide to compliance with laws and regulations that apply to short code programs. Service providers are responsible for meeting legal requirements that apply to short code programs they offer, and CTIA and its members make no representation that meeting the guidelines in this Handbook is sufficient to assure legal compliance. Consultation with legal counsel is recommended strongly.
• MMA (Mobile Marketing Association)'s U.S. Consumer Best Practices (CBP) committee developed a recommended set of guidelines to ensure a better experience for the wireless subscribers in the United States. The committee is comprised of wireless operators and aggregators – as well as members of the MMA and CTIA. The U.S. Consumer Best Practices for Messaging is a compilation of accepted industry practices, wireless carrier policies and regulatory guidance for the United States.

4. Keep Cost in mind: There are three types of fees to keep in mind:

• Platform/Software: You will need a software platform to host your short code, to send and receive short code messages and report out metrics. This is usually an annual cost.
• Short Code: This is an annual cost for the short code. The cost varies by what type of short code you're looking to lease.
• Messaging: To send and receive SMS message on your short code, you'll have to pay a per SMS fee to either an SMS aggregator, or to your Application Provider. The cost per send is typically based on volume.

5. Get Permission! Know the difference between Express vs Implied Consent. If you live and breathe email marketing, then you already live in the world of permission. One of the top rules of SMS marketing (most critical) is to ensure you have permission to contact the people on your list and that you maintain a record of each customer’s consent. The TCPA mandates that you receive “express written consent” before you can start sending marketing messages. You can’t just add mobile numbers to your database and then message those customers or just because you have your customers mobile numbers doesn’t mean you have permission to send them a SMS marketing message. If you contact users unsolicited, you run the risk of facing legal repercussions, losing your credibility, and having your subscribers unsubscribe to your messages. There’s no shortcut with this one. Failure to comply can cost an organization hefty fees! Anywhere from $500 to $1,500 per unsolicited message. You can obtain the permission through email, webform, text messages, dial pad or voice recording. If you send text messages to subscribers outside the U.S., you may be held accountable to other anti-spam or other legal requirements. Implied consent applies when it’s “reasonable to believe” you have permission to contact that person based on the phone number provided when the person signed up on your website. As always, it's best to consult with a lawyer who knows the SMS spam laws in your jurisdiction.

6. Got Data. Always think about the privacy of the customer and how you are properly managing that data. A few things to consider:

• Do you already have phone numbers for your contacts? Do you know if the number is home, work or mobile? How is this information tagged in your database?
• Is the mobile number the number the customer consented for you to use?
• Do you have a way to keep a record of all mobile-terminated and mobile-originated messages to and from all SMS subscribers?
• How are you segmenting your mobile audience?
• How are you handling mobile opt outs? How would you handle a member opting in to a keyword they previously opted out of? 
• Are you able to keep a record of all mobile opt ins and opt outs?

These are the types of questions you should discuss as a team before you execute the campaign – uncovering these gaps early on will help with how you setup your data.

7. Get to know the short code provision process. Usually you won't find yourself directly negotiating with the carriers. The easiest way to get a shortcode approved is to go through an application provider who specializes in SMS. They will handle all of the carrier interaction for you. They have a better understanding of the process and able to guide you through the short code provisioning process.

Step 1: You have to lease a short code.You can lease a non-vanity short code, which is a 5-6 digit phone number that is selected at random by the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA), and given to you to use or you can lease a vanity short code, which is a 5-6 digit phone number, and is selected specifically by you. Vanity short codes are easier to remember since you are deciding the sequence.

Step 2: Submit short code application.  After you've successfully leased a short code, the next step will be to submit a short code application also known as a campaign approval form to the aggregators. This is a lengthy document that requires you to disclose to the wireless carriers who you are, an overview of the program, how you'll be using the short code, link to your mobile Terms and Conditions page and an example of call to action (CTA). This is only for US dedicated codes. Here are two SMS checklist created by the Salesforce Marketing Cloud team to help you get started with activating a short code:

SMS Checklists: For US and Canada: https://success.salesforce.com/0693A00000779Ws For global (outside US and Canada): https://success.salesforce.com/0693A00000779Wn   

Step 3. Once the documentation has been approved by the Aggregator, the short code will be provisioned in the platform. You’re still not able to use the short code because the carriers have not “allowed” the short code to be used on their network.

•  The Aggregator submits to the carriers the documentation.
• The carriers will review and test the keywords and confirm that the messages match what was supplied in the documentation.
• As each carrier approves the short code, they allow the short code to be used on their networks.
• Once all carriers have approved the short code, you can begin using their short code.

The Mobile Carriers review process can take anywhere from 8-12 weeks. Carriers carriers may reject or deny the application -- or significantly delay approval process. If the short code application is denied, you will have to re-submit or modify the short code application based on the Aggregator and/or wireless carrier feedback.

8. Understand what is meant by a Short Code, Long Code and Keyword.

Short Code: What is a common short code (CSC)? A common short code is a number to which an SMS or text message can be sent. A CSC is either 5 or 6 digits long so that an individual can easily enter and send messages to you. Short codes are widely used for value-added mobile services such as traffic, weather, sports, banking, and charity donations. There are two types of short code:

Dedicated short code: A dedicated short code is leased and exclusively used by only one brand. All of the setup costs and fees associated with a dedicated short code are the responsibility of that one brand, which can make the option of buying a dedicated short code out of reach for some organizations. For example, the Subway(TM) SMS promotion instructs customers to text the keyword OFFERS to “782929” (which spells ‘SUBWAY’) to receive weekly offers. Marketers need only one short code that can be shared internally across campaigns and divisions.

Shared Short Code: Shared Code is shared by different companies which share the setup costs and fees, making it affordable to smaller brands. One example is Southwest airlines and Fandango used to send transactional messages from the same shared short code. Keywords makes it possible for brands to share one short-code. It is the keywords that partitions each user to his own account without interference of other people sharing that code. By using different keywords, which you ask consumers to type in when they text to your short code, you can funnel that customer into the right bucket for future communications and track the source of acquisition of your new subscribers.

Long Code: Long codes are 10-digit phone numbers designated by the mobile operators for person-to-person communication. Examples include chat applications or customer service communications.

Keyword: A keyword is a short word which a mobile user places at the beginning of an SMS message, which triggers a particular response from the application that receives the message. In the Subway example above, ‘OFFERS’ was used as the keyword.

It’s important for an organization to include a strategy around the Short code and Keyword. You’ll want to to decide if they want to share a short code between campaigns, identify the keywords being used for the various campaigns, and decide on the number of short codes required to support the marketing programs.

Be sure to consider these 8 tips before embarking on this new channel. Please feel free to share your SMS tips! Thanks for reading!