Adding short codes to your next marketing campaign is a great idea! It is an easy way to add mobile marketing to not only direct mail, but email, social media and your other channels. Basically a short code is a 5-6 digit phone number that is used by businesses to opt-in consumers to their mobile marketing programs. Your customer/prospect interacts with the short code typing a new text message on their mobile device, using the short code you gave them. They are most often used to send coupons, offers, and promotions to provide value to the customer/prospect while adding their mobile device number to your marketing database.
Getting started is really not that hard:
- You will register with the Common Short Code Association.
- You will then pick your code which will be either a dedicated one or a shared one.
- Then you will pick your campaign keyword that people will use to text to you. When you share a short code each company using it has to use different keywords in order to keep the marketing straight so you may run into instances where you want to use a keyword that is not available. In that case you will have to pick a different one.
The best way to track each campaign is to assign a different keyword so that you know which ones get the most responses. Think of all the ways you can use short codes. You can do a text to get coupons, text to win a prize, text to vote (people love to participate in a quick comparison survey, they feel like marketers are listening to them) and so many other things. Get creative with it!
One thing to keep in mind is that the wireless carriers set up a group called the CTIA to enforce SMS marketing practices in the best interests of consumers. What that means to you is that you need to know what the best practices are. The link to them on the CTIA site is http://www.ctia.org/policy-initiatives/common-short-codes/best-practices-successes. Make sure to check them out before you proceed with a campaign. Are you ready to get started?
If you have any questions, contact us today. We are glad to help!