Thursday, February 22, 2018

Difference Between Short And Long Codes For SMS Marketing –

The world is slowly going mobile day by day, and more than 50% of the web traffic comes from mobile devices due to smart mobile marketing. Most companies are forging a bond with their customers by taking a spot in their phone inbox. They are sending out reminders for package or service contract expiry, they are notifying transactions, sending appointment reminders and even sending personalized wishes and discount messages to increase lead conversion and traffic. 

SMS marketing is an effective promotional channel that boasts 98 percent open rate. However, that’s not all you need to know before beginning your SMS marketing campaign, you must also figure out the decision between short code or long code SMS.  



Confused as to what they may be and how you make the decision? Here’s all you need to know about Short codes and Long Codes:

What is Long Code SMS and should I choose a long code service provider?

Long code SMS could be a great choice for a company’s SMS marketing for several reasons. The first being the fact that is it actually a 10-digit phone number, which can be a great thing if your business is local. This can be useful for businesses like a food delivery company situated locally handling local orders, once the order is dispatched you can send out an SMS notification from the long code phone with the same area code, which will appear as if to have come from the driver’s own number. 
Long codes are also a great choice for companies trying to go global with their marketing reach. They are usually less expensive than short code SMS packages and are pretty easy to use. Long codes are unique 10-digit numbers that are tied to an area code and are great for communications such as person to person/Google Voice, group messaging, agent to person, peer to peer apps etc.

However unlike short codes long codes do not come with definitive guidelines for acceptable use in most countries, the text throughput can also be slower with this choice as long code service providers can only still send 1 SMS per second through long code. Carrier regulations disallow long code to be used for SMS broadcasting. 

What is short code? How will it help my business?



Short codes are as understandable short 5 to 6 digit numbers which can be used nationwide. They are usually the best choices for a full-fledged SMS marketing campaign and recommended in best practices as well. This is due to the fact that they are guided by consumer protection laws and regulations and messages sent via such methods require the companies to first get permission from the receivers and also offer some value to the consumer. Consumers opt into a company’s marketing program through urging them to send a response text with a keyword to a specific short code number, staying compliant with all the TCPA norms. Shorts codes are also advantageous for the following reasons:
  • Brand recognition and awareness
  • Memory
  • Copy for ads
  • Targeted and value added messages to customers that forge a lasting relationship.

No comments:

Post a Comment