SMS Marketing GlossarySMS Marketing Reference Guide for Business Owners

This SMS Marketing glossary is a handy reference guide for the business owner who is interested in text message marketing.

If you are sick of slick sales reps talking over your head, or being frustrated trying to decipher sales material, this glossary is for you. It will break down some of the common terms associated with text message marketing. This will allow you to more easily understand any promotional materials you are checking out.

Text Message: A text based electronic message sent from one mobile user to another mobile user. There is usually a limit of around 160 characters.

SMS: Stands for Short Message Service, it is another name for text messaging.

Bulk SMS: The process of sending a single message to many people at once.

SmartPhones: The new style of cell phone that offers mobile users advanced capabilities. This often means personal computer type functionality.

Opt-In: In text message marketing, this term means that someone has willingly added themselves to “Your List”. This is usually done by texting a keyword, to a short code number.

Your List: This is your list of people who have opted-in. In text message marketing this will be a list of mobile phone numbers from the people who have joined your list. This is who you now can directly market to.

Permission Based: Permission based marketing is based around the general concept that you first get people to give you permission to market to them through the opt-in process. This increases your return on investment, and customer satisfaction.

Keyword: In text message marketing this is the term that people will text to a certain number to join your list.

Short & Long Codes: Short codes (also known as short numbers) are special telephone numbers, significantly shorter than full telephone numbers, that are used for text message marketing campaigns. This will be the number that people text the keyword to. A Long Code is a 10 digit number dedicated to receiving SMS messages and are often used for equipment or devices that cannot send messages to a short code

Subscription Based Pricing: This is a pricing structure that text message marketing vendors use. This method is based on the number of subscribers and usually includes unlimited messages.

Message Based Pricing: This is a pricing model in which you will be charged per message you send. It usually works out to pennies a message.

Opt-In Offer: This is the offer that you use to entice people to opt-in to your list. For most business this will be some sort of freebie, coupon or discount.

Characters: When text messaging, this term means all of the numbers, letters, symbols and spaces of a text message. Anything you input is a character and most text messages are limited to around 160.

Analytics: Your text message marketing vendor should provide you with some kind of reporting system that will give you an idea of how your texts are being sent, opened, how many unsubscribes etc… These tools are sometimes known as Analytics Metrics as well.

SMTP: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard for electronic mail (e-mail) transmission. This is a much slower and less reliable way to send text messages.

SMPP: The Short Message Peer-to-Peer (SMPP) protocol is a telecommunications industry protocol for exchanging text messages between yourself and your list. This is a much much more effective choice when text message marketing.

Provider: This is the company or vendor who provides the back end and technology for you to run your text message marketing campaigns.

Carriers: Carriers are your cell phone providers. Some providers only work on certain carriers. An example of a carrier would be Sprint in the US, and Bell in Canada.

Blast: A blast is when you send a message to everyone on your list. This can be an update or an offer designed to get people in the door.

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