FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

We have your SMS answers!

If you do not have phone numbers already, fear not! You do not need to collect phone numbers manually. Your customers will “subscribe” to you themselves by sending a special word to a 5-digit number that we provide. For example, if they Text “ABC” to 88588 and you own the word ABC, they will become your subscribers under the group called “ABC”. Simple as that! You just have to make sure your customers get the information they need in order to subscribe, which is basically the instruction: Text ABC to 88588!
 
You are not sharing any data with us. The data belongs to you and is protected. Mobile phones are regulated by the government and we are FCC compliant, which means your subscribers cannot receive marketing messages from other companies (unless they’ve subscribed to other companies themselves). All this to say that your customers are yours only and the phone numbers are not shared or sold to third parties.
 
Yes, the numbers are secure. Mobile phones are regulated by the government (unlike emails) and we are FCC compliant, which means your subscribers cannot receive marketing messages from other companies (unless they’ve also subscribed to other companies). We do not sell or share phone numbers with third parties. Spamming cellphones is illegal and we do not engage in any such activities.
 
  • Sending commercial messages to cellphones is illegal unless that customer/member has “opted in” or subscribed to hear from you. Moreover, every commercial message needs to include opt-out instructions. Since our platform takes care of the opting-in and opting-out process automatically, your work becomes much easier and simpler.
  • Regular text messaging applications on cellphones have limits on how many people can be texted at once (in order to control SPAM). On our platform, there’s no such limit.
  • For you to do it yourself, you will need your customers’ phone numbers, which you may not always have.
  • For a small business owner whose plate is always full, this manual work will become cumbersome and time-consuming very quickly.

Granted, you may not like to text yourself, but research tells us that 275 million users in the US love it! You are missing out on a huge marketing opportunity by not engaging with your audience in a manner they want to be engaged in. Texting is more popular than social networking or email on cellphones.

90% of emails are never opened. Compare that to a 98% read rate for text messages! In fact, 90% of text messages are read in the first five minutes and texting has 8x the response rate compared to email. If you want your message opened by your subscribers instantly, texting is the way to go. Not everyone has a smart phone, not everyone has a data plan, but all cell phones have texting built in. There’s no internet required on a cell phone to use texting. Emails, social media, and apps require an internet connection and do not guarantee instant delivery. Plus, your message might not even make it to your audience with those avenues.
There are certain plans from Sprint and T-Mobile where short-code texting needs to be enabled before people can start communicating with a 5-digit short-code. Simply have your subscribers call their customer service to turn “short-code texting” on. There’s no cost to have that feature turned on.
 

Our plans are extremely affordable and you can get started for only $49/month! Plus, when you compare our service to other marketing/communication avenues, you will see that TextByChoice pays for itself many times over! Try reaching 100 people with a radio ad and you’ll see how affordable TextByChoice is (a couple $1000s vs. $5!) Furthermore, there’s no contract or commitment of any sort so if things do not work out the way you imagined (which we doubt will be the case), you can easily cancel your plan. No questions asked.

A short code is a 5-digit number.

Pros:

  • Easier to remember and to market.
  • Faster delivery: 30 messages per second.

Cons:

  • Minimal but incremental cost for each additional keyword
  • One-way messaging only

A long code is a regular 10-digit phone number used in the same way as a short code, but with additional features.

Pros:

  • Personalized – it only belongs to you.
  • Additional features including 2-way texting, incoming calls and faxing.
  • $0 for additional keywords.

Cons:

  • Slower delivery than a short code: 1 message per second.
  • A longer number and thus slightly more difficult to remember.

In SMS services, a keyword is a special word that is used in the sign-up process by your audience. We recommend that this word be related to some aspect of your business and easy to remember. Your audience subscribes by texting out your keyword to a 5-digit number that we provide you. For example, if you own a Convenience Store, then ‘gas’ or ‘pump’ would be good choices. When used the right way, keywords can enhance your brand image because they will appear wherever you market your texting service, so make them memorable and choose them wisely. Please note that keywords are subject to availability.

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