We’ve all been getting inundated with spam calls and texts lately, so the major phone service carriers are taking a major step to make it harder to send unwanted messages to our cell phones. The official change is called A2P 10DLC, App-to-Person and 10 Digit Long Code.
This will hopefully be an improvement for consumers.
At the same time, if you send marketing text messages or want to, there will be additional steps.
Starting July 5, businesses that send text messages using tools like Twilio must now register with The Campaign Registry or face higher fees and lower deliverability.
On August 31, messages from unregistered entities will stop being delivered altogether. So this is essentially mandatory if you send texts for your business.
That means if you want to start or keep sending text messages to your leads, customers, or clients, you’ll need to register (likely through your SMS messaging app) and provide information, including:
- EIN #
- Exact Official Company Name on the EIN document from the IRS
- How people opt-in to your list
- What kinds of messages you send and how often
- Example text messages
- How people can opt out of your list
Without a doubt, this is going to be a major pain for small businesses that are not tech-savvy but that benefit from communicating via text.
On the plus side:
- text message sender reputations will now be tied to actual tax numbers, so offenders can be more easily cut off
- businesses that comply and use SMS responsibly will likely also see higher open and response rates
We’ll be working directly with our SMS clients to apply for The Campaign Registry using HighLevel. You can also do this directly through Twilio or likely whatever tool you use for text messages.
You can read more about “A2P 10DLC” here and application Best Practices here.