Changes to SMS Outreach in 2022

If you're an active SMS outreach customer, your organization has been registered as a verified SMS texting sender with the mobile carriers, and each messaging use case was verified. If you are part of a larger organization, then each account under your organization has its own use case. (If you are a new SMS outreach customer, or if you are an existing customer with a new additional account or use case, you can learn more about this process in Becoming a Trusted Sender of SMS messages.) 

In addition to the new verification process, providers are more strictly enforcing established rules and guidelines for sending SMS messages. You can learn more about staying in compliance in Ensuring your SMS messages remain compliant.

The most recent change was a change to the sending behavior in the application. Previously, every campaign would use a new set of phone numbers with your chosen area code to text constituents, and then those numbers expire after 30 days. Moving forward, a set of sending numbers with your chosen area code will be tied to your office's use case and will not expire. This same set of numbers will be used for all campaigns.

So what does this mean for you?

1. Using the same set of numbers for all campaigns means that the recipients will always receive your campaign messages from the same phone number, creating a much better experience.
2. Since the same set of sending phone numbers is always in use, only one campaign can be in progress at a time.
3. You will now have the ability to end a campaign whenever you need to.

Next up, the initial message for a campaign will now be limited to 250 characters to improve deliverability. This is something that had previously been recommended in our Best Practice article, but will now be built into the app.  SMS text messages are delivered in uniform segments of either 70 or 140 characters, so depending upon the recipient's texting app, they may receive a new message on their phone for every segment, pinging their phone up to 8 times in a row with our previous character limit. This often results in recipients unsubscribing or even reporting the message as spam, which then impacts the deliverability of the entire campaign. Using a short initial message in combination with the "YES" response will ensure that the people who are interested in your message receive the information they need (such as links to resources, directions, etc.), and also provide a way for you to quickly identify them in the future.