Text Blast Software Rules for SMS Marketing

1. Just because you have a number doesn’t mean you can Text Blast!

This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions with text marketing services and the people who want to use them. There are opt-in based rules for compliance that the FCC has set forth as well as the http://CTIA.og (non-government agency). Just because you have a customer’s phone number DOES NOT mean you can start sending messages. This is different than the Do Not Call list exclusions where you’re allowed to call your own customers. There is a lot of case law and settlements going on over the last few years regarding businesses who assumed they had permission to text blast their customer list, but in fact they didn’t. One example is Papa John’s pizza chain – fined/settlement for over $20 Million+ for adding into their text marketing campaign the list of numbers from the people who have given their phone number. Next up is Jiffy Lube – also huge settlement for doing the exact same thing – adding in large amounts of customers to blast text messages too.

2. Even if you have permission – timeliness of entry matters.

This is a rule set forth by the mobile marketing oversight organization. They have specified that you must enter the numbers into your text software system within 48 hours and get a disclaimer message containing certain information on how to get help or stop the messages. So if you got permission last year through some event or at the cash register that won’t constitute permission in our book unfortunately. With our system before you’re able to blast your text to customers – they will receive this disclaimer message if they are uploaded or added manually.

3. Web opt-ins must double confirm!

If you’re collecting phone numbers for text blasting purposes they must double confirm with a reply Y or Yes to an optin message. So in our web collection widget – this sends a message which they must reply yes to before they are moved into your contacts list. This is to prevent people from entering in random phone numbers into the web forms which could be a serious issue if the person didn’t want those blasted marketing messages. A lot of companies don’t follow these rules, but it’s for a better user experience and you’ll see more success if you do it this way. This is also a rule by the CTIA which was created by the wireless carriers to set these types of rules for text message blast services on short codes.

4. Moving Text Blast Providers has rules as well!

If you’re moving text marketing software providers – there are rules to follow which have been set forth by the CTIA as well.  Best practice is to blast your text list from the old short code letting them know you’ll be sending them messages from a new number. Then once you begin messaging from the new number it’s best to acknowledge that you’re using the new number. We assist businesses with the switch of bulk sms blasting software services all the time so if you’re using a competitor of ours – come on board!

5. The BEST way to gain optin permission for text blasting is via TEXT!

This method of the customer texting into the business via their keyword to the short code is the BEST way to get permission to text the individual. Then there is no concern about text blasting spam on the system and less liability for all those involved.

Text message blasting software is an effective way to reach your clientele within minutes for a variety of uses – marketing, alerts, coupons, loyalty, etc. What will kill business or drive people away is texting them SMS messages that were not wanted – it will backfire and you’ll lose the trust of that person. So it’s always best to have FULL permission according to the law and the oversight organizations for the best user experience when doing texting blasts!

We just created our first of many infographics. This one include the sms marketing response statistics. Some companies reported seeing up to a 31% Response Rate on text coupons/mobile offers! The stats don’t lie…Text Message Marketing is the most cost effective method of advertising!

Nobody likes spam, and it is illegal in the United States to send any unsolicited messages. Sadly, however, nearly 9 billion unsolicited text messages are sent per year in the United States. For this reason, the Mobile Marketing Association has recently released a document titled An Introduction to Permission Based Mobile Marketing. According to this document, the average mobile user in the U.S. “receives no fewer than 40 unwanted messages per year.” These are startling numbers, yet it still only makes up 0.5% of text messages sent in the United States per year. The MMA wants this number to stay low and keep it from increasing. Regulations are put in place specifically to prevent unsolicited messaging from occurring, but obviously it will continue to happen no matter what regulations are in place. However, the MMA and companies such as ourselves try to reduce spam as much as we possibly can. Permission based mobile marketing is the answer to preventing spam from happening. This article will focus on what the MMA has to say about permission based mobile marketing, particularly 3 questions:

#1) What is it?
#2) How does it work?
#3) What are the benefits?

Translation: Permission based mobile marketing is getting consent from consumers BEFORE you ever send text messages to them. They exchange their consent to receive text marketing messages for something of value such as a product, service, discounts, updates, promotions, etc. Permission based marketing, in general, has been around since the early 1990s with the birth of email marketing and advertising.

The document emphasizes the word explicit when gaining such consent from a consumer. When getting consent, a consumer must be explicitly told what it is they will be receiving. They must understand that they will receive text messages as well as what value they can expect to come from giving their consent (a discount coupon for example). Text message marketing is expected to be a form of communication, not an interruption which is what spam tends to do. Violations can result in hefty fines for you, the business owner.

As expressed above, consumers exchange their consent to have messages sent to them in exchange for a produce, service, or any other offer they find interesting or of worth to them. In text message marketing, this consent is given when a subscriber opts-in through their mobile phone, or when they give permission to have messages sent to them. Once they have made this exchange of consent for something of value, it now becomes the responsibility of the company to maintain the consent of the subscriber. Opt-out information is provided to subscribers when the opt-in, and on every message sent from a campaign, giving them the option of revoking their consent and withdrawing from receiving the messages.

In order to maintain the interest and consent of the subscriber, a company must continually communicate the value the subscriber is obtaining from this service. Remind them why they opted-in! Also, make sure to understand the consumers interests and try to target the messages to your consumers interests. Marketing is a constant effort to keep the consumers happy and interested in your product or service. The third, and perhaps most important thing, is to respect your consumers privacy. Don’t sell their information to other people. By opting-in to receive messages, they are trusting you to keep their data private. A good practice is to continually explain how you value their privacy and that you are keeping their data private.

Great benefits come from permission based mobile marketing, both to the subscriber/consumer and the business itself. A trust factor is established with permission based mobile marketing and can quickly lead to a loyal customer, if done properly.

Benefits to the Business

When this is executed correctly, permission based mobile marketing will provide you with a much higher response rate and great returns on your investment. The higher response rating comes from the fact that you are targeting only those who are interested in your service or product. This effectively reduces the waste of advertisement because of the specific targeting. Your greater returns on investments will come from a higher percentage of your subscribers responding to your marketing because of their interest. Statistics show the response and conversion rates are much much higher with business who practice the principles of permission based mobile marketing. Everyone is happy, both the consumer who benefits from the value exchange and the business who is cashing in on the response from the consumer.

Benefits to the Consumer

Since consumers have the freedom of choosing the campaigns they receive messaging from, obviously the experience becomes more personal and targeted to them because it is based all around their preferences. Permission based mobile marketing eliminates the interruption that comes to a consumer from unsolicited messaging. A statistic from the MMA shows:

Out of 2,223 youth mobile users in 11 different countries:
63% would be more likely to purchase a product or service from a business practicing the principles of permission based mobile marketing.

81% of users consider it EXTREMELY important to acquire their consent before sending advertising text messages to them.

You can obviously see the benefits that will come to both a business and a subscriber when permission based mobile marketing is practiced. Hopefully, this article has cleared up any questions you have about why we have to do everything within our power to adhere to permission based mobile marketing and stop unsolicited messaging from occurring. Certainly permission based mobile marketing doesn’t solve every problem for mobile marketers, but it does certainly eliminate many of them. Without all the hassle of unsolicited messaging, a business can focus on key elements of mobile marketing such as: what’s the best message frequency? How should I word my campaigns to increase customer engagement? What is the most effective time of day to send my messages? Which creative marketing strategy will deliver the best responses from my consumers? With all these things in place, and permission based mobile marketing driving your campaign, you can begin to see your response and conversions bring the business a company desires.

Those include:
Opt-in only – messages can only be sent to subscribers that opt to receive them.

Stop message – gives the user the ability to stop receiving messages from the campaign at anytime.

Help message – gives the user the ability to find out more information on the campaign that they are subscribed to.

These two regulations are tested several times over by the wireless carriers before campaigns can be provisioned and lack of compliance keeps a shortcode from being provisioned and can shut down an already provisioned one. The importance of these abilities to the growth of the industry are self explanatory, nobody wants to receive “spam” on their phone and if I can’t ever stop receiving messages after I opt to receive them, I’m a lot less likely to ever opt-in to start with.

There are a few regulations that are not so obvious to the reasoning but they do have heavy implications to the mobile marketing industry. A couple of those are:

Opt-in in confirmation message – When a user subscribes to receive messages from a company, there is information that is mandated they receive. Message frequency, stop, help and message and data rates may apply.

Stop to Stop, Cancel, End, Quit, Unsubscribe – every outbound message must include the information to allow a subscriber the ability to opt-out.

The initial opt-in message that is sent when a user opts-in needs to show the information pertaining to the messaging campaign. This is important because should the subscriber opt-in and find out that they are going to be receiving one message a day and do not want to they have the option to opt back out. Message and data rates may apply, is the disclaimer that needs to be made clear to the user on both the call to action as well as the initial message. This is not saying that they are being charged for opting in to the campaign, rather, if they do not have a messaging plan with their wireless carrier they can incur per message charges.

To keep the steady growth of text message marketing and to ensure the use of it by consumers, the following of these regulations is vital. These regulations are in place to protect the users and also to protect the marketer. Violations of regulations can lead to a complete shutdown of a shortcode and/or fines from the FTC up to $500 per text.

Due diligence needs to be taken when selecting a text message marketing company not just for how than can best suit your needs, but also, is it following the proper regulations.

A program sponsor (i.e. the company name, program name, brand, etc.)

A declaration of what the subscribers will be receiving (e.g. “You will receive coupons”)

Message Frequency (e.g. “You will receive x messages per month”)

HELP for help (In bold typeface)

STOP to cancel (STOP to end, quit, stop, unsubscribe are all valid, in bold typeface)

A privacy policy or link to a privacy policy Advertisements should not be deceiving in any way and you cannot have superimposed graphics or text (graphics or text cannot cover the advertisement in anyway). Make sure to adjust your advertisements to contain this necessary information.

There are certain areas where there is a zero-tolerance policy (such as pornographic or drug related material) a call-to-action is not allowed next to this type of material at all (i.e. text keyword to number cannot be next to any sexually explicit or drug related pictures or videos). Any advertising of the text campaign to age related or illegal business carries much stricter rules, or is not allowed at all. Age related texts include, but is not limited to, tobacco products, bars, pornography, and events/restaurants serving alcohol. While it is not altogether illegal to market to these types of businesses, the rules and regulations are much more restrictive. If you have any questions about those restrictions you are welcome to call us, or ask your local authorities.

In our research we have not found any instances of a text marketing case that has held up in court regarding this issue. We have been closely monitoring a case involving the New York Times and found that just last week, on August 14, 2013, a judge made a ruling “Helferich can’t assert its patent against the Times Co., CBS Corporation, J.C. Penney Corporation Inc., and other companies that send hyperlinked text messages with breaking news and product alerts.” See the full article on law.com Judge Sides with NY Times Over SMS ‘Patent Troll’. While the case mentioned above was not directly questioning using a URL in a text message as part of a SMS marketing campaign, the ruling does state that companies sending breaking news and product alerts via hyperlinked text (which is essentially what all of our customers are doing) cannot have the patent asserted against them. We cannot offer legal counsel so if you have further questions about the legality of sending a link via a text marketing platform like ours, please contact a lawyer. We feel confident that the judge’s ruling is in our favor and that the scare tactics used by other companies saying that anyone that hasn’t paid the licensing fee cannot allow the use of hyperlinks is nothing more than that, scare tactics trying to get you to use their service over another one that may better meet your needs. At Sunnyville we are very diligent in following all legal guidelines and regulations set forth by both the CTIA and Mobile Marketing Association (the governing bodies that set forth rules for text message marketing).

The patent is held by Helferich Patent Licensing LLC and is pertaining to URLs being sent through commercial text messages. Helferich patented this in 1997 and has been launching campaigns of licensing demands, and $1,000,000 infringement lawsuits, since 2008. They have licensed every major phone handset maker in the country – and arguments say that anyone using a mobile device to send hyperlinked text is already covered by those licenses. The highly publicized case against the New York Times, which was just settled with the judge siding with the New York Times, made a ruling on the suspicion of patent exhaustion. Patent exhaustion prevents the patent holder from creating a patent monopoly by gaining double recovery from infringements or selling licenses piece by piece. It has been decided that the licensing deals that Helferich made with the phone makers prevent them from suing third parties, as that license also covers the phone(s) they produce.

CONFIRMATION TEXT – One of the biggest changes that will be seen within the text marketing industry is the use of a confirmation text. Previously as long as customers received a message notifying them they had agreed to receive messages (at opt-in), as well as some other legal verbiage, it was okay to start sending them marketing texts. It will now be required for customers to reply ‘Yes’ to the notification text prior to being added to your database, unless they opt-in directly by texting your keyword to the shortcode..

ADD CONTACT – In the past there have been no time constraints on when contacts may be added to the database, under the new requirements there is a 48 hour rule. This rule allows contacts to be added to a database ONLY within 48 hours from the time of written consent. When adding a contact manually the customer will still receive a notification of opt-in, and be required to reply ‘Yes’ prior to being confirmed within the database.

IMPORTING – Restrictions on the importing of phone numbers is going to be extremely tight.

PERMISSION – Some customers have been confused in the past about getting explicit permission to use a number for text marketing purposes. Just because a customer makes a purchase from a business does NOT give the business permission to use that number for text purposes. A business may not require a customer to share their phone number for text marketing purposes in order to make a purchase. The VERY BEST way to obtain a customer’s permission, and cover all legal requirements, is to have the customer text the keyword to the short code. When a customer opts-in from their cell phone they will still get the default text with disclosures and be added to the database.

PRINT ADVERTISING – While print advertising regulations have not changed much, everyone should be familiar with and follow all rules and regulations required in print advertising of your text marketing campaigns.

Any customer not adhering to all FCC text marketing rules and regulations, in all aspects of their marketing campaigns, are subjecting themselves to removal from the Sunnyville system and lawsuits.

CONFIRMATION TEXT – One of the biggest changes that will be seen within the text marketing industry is the use of a confirmation text. Previously as long as customers received a message notifying them they had agreed to receive messages (at opt-in), as well as some other legal verbiage, it was okay to start sending them marketing texts. It will now be required for customers to reply ‘Yes’ to the notification text prior to being added to your database, unless they opt-in directly by texting your keyword to the shortcode..

ADD CONTACT – In the past there have been no time constraints on when contacts may be added to the database, under the new requirements there is a 48 hour rule. This rule allows contacts to be added to a database ONLY within 48 hours from the time of written consent. When adding a contact manually the customer will still receive a notification of opt-in, and be required to reply ‘Yes’ prior to being confirmed within the database.

IMPORTING – Restrictions on the importing of phone numbers is going to be extremely tight. Because of the 48 hour rule and confirmation text, the importing of numbers within Sunnyville accounts will only be allowed if the database has recently been used with another text marketing provider and is just being moved over to the Sunnyville short code. Customers may be asked to provide documentation of previous provider information.

PERMISSION – Some customers have been confused in the past about getting explicit permission to use a number for text marketing purposes. Just because a customer makes a purchase from a business does NOT give the business permission to use that number for text purposes. A business may not require a customer to share their phone number for text marketing purposes in order to make a purchase. The VERY BEST way to obtain a customer’s permission, and cover all legal requirements, is to have the customer text the keyword to the short code. When a customer opts-in from their cell phone they will still get the default text with disclosures and be added to the database.

PRINT ADVERTISING – While print advertising regulations have not changed much, everyone should be familiar with and follow all rules and regulations required in print advertising of your text marketing campaigns.

Any customer not adhering to all FCC text marketing rules and regulations, in all aspects of their marketing campaigns, are subjecting themselves to removal from the Sunnyville system and lawsuits.