SMS Keyword and Campaign Standards
Getting Permission
- You are required by law to have someone’s permission before you send them a text campaign. He or she must sign up for each individual campaign. Anything else is spam and can lead to fines. For example, you cannot send a message about 21 days of prayer to people who signed up for texts about kids camp.
- The attender must sign up from their mobile device. To be in compliance with anti-spamming laws, we cannot allow individuals to sign up for a texting campaign using a signup sheet, communication card, or online form. The individual must use their mobile device to sign-up for a campaign
- SMS will not be used for product sales.
Text Message Lengths
Text messages should be sent in 160 characters or less. SMS messages are sent and billed in groupings of 160. Examples:
- If you send a message to 10 people at 160 or less characters we are billed for 10 messages.
- If you send a message to 10 people at 161 – 320 characters we are billed for 20 messages… etc
Text Campaigns
There are two different types of text campaigns:
- One-time campaigns only send a message or two in a single interaction. An example is a weekend keyword. The user typically receives one or two messages replying with the response they were in search of.
- Recurring campaigns are used for subscribing to alerts or multiple notifications, such as 21 days of prayer or an event registration.
Communication Lists
All campaigns will have a list of individuals associated with it. Those lists cannot be used for any other communication.
Setting Expectations and Required Text
As part of the text campaign, you must set expectations on how the organization will be interacting with the recipient on a specific campaign.
Required Disclaimer: On the first auto-reply, you must include the phrase “Msg&data rates may apply.” This reminds the attender that further text messages may incur a cost on their wireless billing plan, depending on what their SMS texting plan is.
Frequency: Also on the first auto-reply, you must set an expectation for how many texts they could receive as part of this campaign. For instance, if you are only sending a link, you would say 1msg/1txt. If you were to send two texts per week, you would include 2 txts/wk.
Help and Opt-Out Wording: Lastly, on the first auto-reply, you must let the user know how to receive help and/or unsubscribe using the phrase “Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel.”
Planning for Timing of Text Campaigns
As you send initial or follow-up text messages, be sure to be mindful of the time of day. As a general best practice, between 10:00am and 9:00pm daily is a good window to send texts to avoid early morning and late night interruptions, unless the attender initiates an interaction outside that window.
Opt-In Example
- Call to Action: Text baptism to 419-419-0707
- Text from user to 419-419-0707: baptism
- Auto-Reply: We would love to help you connect and take a next step! https://rock.cedarcreek.tv/page/915 Msg&data rates may apply. 1 msg. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel.
- Action: Attender visits link that directs to your sign-up form.
Opting Out
A user can opt-out, or unsubscribe, from texting campaigns by texting STOP
When someone opts-out, communications must stop through SMS immediately.
STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT
Reply: You have successfully been unsubscribed. You will not receive any more messages from this number. Reply START to resubscribe.
Any of these STOP keyword replies will prevent a guest from receiving new messages from the phone number they’re responding to. Guests can disable this message stop, and resume receiving messages with the START, YES, or UNSTOP commands as outlined below.
Only single-word messages will trigger the block. So, for example, replying STOP will stop the customer from receiving messages from that particular number, but replying “STOP PLEASE” or “PLEASE CANCEL” will not.
Please note that these STOP keyword replies only apply to the most recent number that messaged the recipient. If you are using more than one number for sending messages, you must take additional action separate from Twilio to prevent these customers from receiving messages from your other numbers. We recommend turning off SMS messaging from within Rock any time this happens.
START, YES and UNSTOP
Reply: You have successfully been re-subscribed to messages from this number. Reply HELP for help. Reply STOP to unsubscribe. Msg&Data Rates May Apply.
Any of these replies will opt customers back in to the messages coming from a the phone number they are responding to.