Guide to Short Code Texting: Setup, Compliance, and Best Practices

According to Pew Research, 97% of Americans own a mobile phone, and 85% own a smartphone. Another study reports that 65.5% of Americans check their phones a staggering 160 times per day. With stats like that, it’s clear that leveraging SMS in your strategy can help you reach a broad audience.

What is SMS marketing? Essentially it’s your way to send concise and attractive messages to your subscribers. Similar to email marketing, it’s imperative to gain customer consent before you send messages to them. Once you do, you can stay front of mind by sending short texts, MMS, and even links to further information to engage your prospective and current clients.

Companies can use SMS marketing for a variety of purposes.

SMS is not limited to marketing outreach, of course. You can also use SMS to communicate with customers to add value to their experience of working with you. Relationships are everything in a highly-competitive business world, so the better you connect with and support your customers, the higher your retention.

Sending SMS to your customers can be done en masse to all subscribers, relevant segments of your audience, and even one-to-one texting. An SMS platform will help you craft and distribute messages with ease. CRM integration ensures you deliver your texts to the right group and are transparent to any relevant departments within your organization.

If you imagine the cramps in your thumbs that you’ll get from sending business texts, don’t worry. The process isn’t the same as sending texts to your friend from your sofa. Professional SMS platforms enable you to create and send messages to your subscribers at scale in a few short steps.

To get started, though, you’ll need a short code. Short codes are five- to six-digit numbers that display as the message’s sender on your recipient’s device, much like a traditional phone number. These numbers are for business use only and are easily identifiable in SMS inboxes.

Short code texting enables businesses to send actionable messages that align with marketing strategies easily. It is mainly designed for high-volume texting and suits both one- or two-way communication.

When you’re ready to start with business SMS, you’ll need to get your short code. This dedicated number is assigned to your business as your unique identifier and function as your text-only phone number.

Start by deciding if you want to have a number selected at random or if you’d like to have a vanity short code. Randomly selected short codes are assigned to you by the provider without any influence on your part. Since short codes are only five- to six digits, you don’t have to consider area codes when requesting and receiving a number.

The benefit to a randomly selected code is primarily cost. These numbers cost about $500 per month, making them more affordable than their vanity alternatives.

Your other option is a vanity short code. Like a vanity license plate on your car, vanity short codes allow businesses to select their number based on their personal choice (if available). For instance, if you’re a luxury boat tour company, you may encourage subscribers to sign up for events and promotions by texting YACHT (92248).

Vanity short codes benefit from appearing nicely – and memorably – in print advertising and verbal communications. However, this convenience comes at a cost, and vanity codes are more expensive than those randomly selected. Vanity short codes cost about $1,000 per month, depending on your provider.

An SMS platform is your best ally for business text messaging, and the benefits come before you even have your short code. Choose your platform provider early, and they’ll be able to offer support and expertise to get you set up quickly.

Choose a provider with comprehensive tracking and analytics. To ensure your ROI, it’s essential to see your efforts’ direct impact and fine-tune based on ongoing learnings.

It’s also essential to choose a provider with seamless integration opportunities. The last thing you need is to implement a new system or approach that stands independent of your existing workflows. Your platform should connect with existing systems such as your CRM and make it easy to integrate future solutions.

Ensure your platform is scalable and able to support you as your needs evolve. You may start with a small subscriber list or limited ideas for SMS, but you don’t want the limitations of your platform to dictate your options.

We could detail the steps here to take you through getting your short code set up, but the reality is, there’s no reason you should have to do it yourself. More than that, it isn’t recommended.

Applying for and registering a short code is a lengthy and cumbersome process with many steps and many pages of “legalese” that you can easily get lost in. Each step depends on the other, and there is no room for error without significantly delaying an already lengthy process.

That’s why it’s best to have someone on your side taking care of things on your behalf. Choosing an SMS platform provider at an early stage will alleviate a lot of pressure on your behalf. Your SMS platform provider will ensure all of your application documents are in order and submit them for the requisite stages of approval.

Once you’re ready to get started with short code texting, where do you begin? There are things unique to your business that will become more clear with trial and error, of course. You’ll be able to fine-tune your strategy to what your audience responds to and ensure success.

There are, however, some best practices to keep in mind regardless of objectives and industry.

When it comes to marketing or outreach, a good piece of advice is always to keep your messaging concise. Long-form articles or whitepapers have their place, but when you want to entice or connect with your audience, you bring the most value to clear and digestible messages.

When it comes to text messages, brevity becomes even more crucial. You’re limited in the amount of space a message can contain, so you need to keep it short while capturing your recipient’s attention. When you send a message, it’s liable to arrive at a device already in the hands of your recipient. Make sure you don’t annoy them when you interrupt.

No one likes to be bombarded with texts, even if they love your brand. Timing is everything when it comes to text messages, so be mindful of how frequently you’re sending messages to the same audience.

Don’t send messages too often, or you risk becoming a nuisance and losing subscribers. Keep your messages in line with your brand tone while encouraging an action – click a link to sign up, see more, or enter to win, for example.

When it comes to gaining subscribers or encouraging participation via text, keywords are a great and memorable way to facilitate communication from your audience. Choose a word or phrase for things like opt-ins, joining contests, or requesting help from customer service.

For instance, you can choose a keyword like “LET’S SAIL” for your boating raffle. When someone responds to your short code message with that keyword, they can automatically enter the contest.

Automation helps you to connect with your audience without needing to send personalized responses to every inquiry. Automated messages can be responses to requests for information or confirmation of receipt of a text. They can also lead a customer through a customer service journey, responding with further options based on the messages received.

You can use automation by setting event triggers. When an order is received or a package ships, you can send a text automatically. You can also automate thank you messages or send an update at every stage of the shipment process until delivery.

The best way to track the effectiveness of your text strategy is to ensure you’re monitoring and measuring their performance. When it comes to text marketing, the tracking benefits are numerous, as you have a direct and measurable marketing channel at your fingertips.

Ensure your platform not only has intuitive, comprehensive reporting tools but that you’re leveraging them to your benefit.

We’ve saved the most critical piece for last – consent. Not only is it polite, but it’s a legal requirement to obtain opt-in consent from your audience before texting. We’ll go more into compliance in a moment, but it’s important to point out that before you employ any of the above best practices, your recipient needs to place themselves on your distribution list.

That means your SMS best practices begin before you even have an audience list. All of those recommendations to be concise and enticing? That same school of thought will help you craft enticing marketing campaigns or in-store notices to encourage participation.

Show prospective and current customers how you will add value if you can reach them via text message.

Before you enter the world of business SMS, it’s vital to ensure you’re aware of the legal requirements you have for making contact. We have a few essential tips to keep in mind to ensure you don’t cross any compliance boundaries.

Short code texting is the key to a robust business and marketing plan. Reaching your audience in the modern era relies on modern methods and SMS is the most effective way to reach potential and current customers from outreach to conversion and retention.

TrueDialog has a business-class SMS platform to help you the entire way. We will help you obtain and set up your short code, then provide all of the tools you need to craft and distribute effective messages.