IMPORTANT POINTERS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS ON TCPA FOR TEXT MESSAGING

One of the well-utilized means of technology in terms of communication is text messaging. Text messaging has become part of our daily lives despite the advances in the technology. According to the studies, 77% of the Americans own a smartphone and 97% of them use text messaging. There are over 6 billions of text messages sent everyday in the United States alone with a 98% open rate. This means that if you are going to send someone a message, they will likely read it sooner compared to email messaging which has only 20% open rate.

In line with this data, telemarketers and other enterprises thought about using text messages to reach out to their consumers and communicate their marketing campaigns. There were consumers who made complaints about this and brought this up to the American Congress and therefore the TCPA Regulations has been passed to ensure that all text messages sent to consumers are restricted and that consumers are protected from from harassing, intrusive, illegal, and unwanted robo texts to cell phones and other mobile devices.

So if you are a business who would want to start sending marketing campaigns to your consumers through text messaging, these are the important pointers you have to consider.

1. Prior Consent

There should be prior consent prior to making contact to the consumer. It is emphasized by the TCPA that the written consent should be obtained prior to sending consumers text messages such as marketing campaigns. The written consent should be sent by your organization and should be clear in its purpose. The consumer should have an option to assign a phone number he or she may want to be reached out to and not pre-assigned through an online form.

2. Consumers should only be contacted between 08:00 AM to 09:00 PM following the recipient’s time zone.

In respect of your recipient’s privacy and time, they should only be contacted anytime between eight in the morning and nine in the evening based on the timezone where your recipient is in. So if you are planning to use text messaging as a means to reach out to your consumers, it would be safe to blast them out anytime between 11:00 AM to 04:00PM EST. Some of the businesses use a CRM that allows blast text messaging such as Brivity, RooR, Cinc, Vonage, Bitrix24 and other similar CRMs.

It has been established that the best way to reach out to consumers is through text messaging. However, the TCPA regulation on text messaging sets limitations in utilizing it especially for marketing purposes. May those above mentioned pointers help you start up in laying out your marketing strategies should you choose to use text messaging as a marketing platform.

3. Free to Opt Out

The consumers are free to opt out from receiving text messages. Even though they signed up and gave their consent to receive sms from you or your organization. If you are using a text messaging tool, it should be capable of filtering those consumers who replied “STOP” or any that express their refusal to your messages.

If you have a text messaging manager, you should ensure that he or she is aware of the TCPA regulations on text messaging.