You’ve heard us talking a lot about SMS marketing lately. We’ve been toting how great and wonderful it is. The truth? It IS great and wonderful -and then some. But we’ve overlook some of the fundamentals of SMS marketing. So we’re going to take a step back and briefly explain exactly how your SMS messages are sent.
From the outside it seems the text messaging is all smoke an mirrors. Some might even assume it’s strictly communication between two phones. Lets dive into the details by following the chart below.
This is an example of a mobile terminated message being sent by our systems. An example would be you’re sending a discount to 5,000 mobile subscribers. This is what happens.
To start you must compile the message. You have two key factors here: 1) What you want to say, and 2) who you want to say it to. OIR builds the message for you and segments the list of recipients to make sure the right message is sent to the right person.
We can take it a step further by including custom variables, or “message parameters”. This could be things like coupon codes, different phone numbers for call tracking purposes, or a subscribers first name to make the text message they receive more personal.
Once the message is written and who you want it sent to is defined we send it as a nice little package through our custom built API connection to our SMS aggregator.
The aggregator is the control point between the wireless carriers and our servers sending the message. Without the aggregator it would be our responsibility to follow through with the red tape and complexities of the wireless carriers. A quality aggregator has a good standing relationship with the carriers to help ensure keywords, short codes and message are properly passed through between the server and their systems.
The aggregator then sends the data onto the proper carrier who handles sending the message to the specific phone you were intending. This is all done in a matter of seconds allowing your message to be delivered almost instantly.
At the same time, the wireless carriers send back data to the aggregator, which forwards the data back to the OIR servers so we can provide the custom reports to let you know the results of the send. If you’re familiar with email marketing, the data we get back will make a lot of sense to you.
- Delivered: If a message successfully made it to it’s intended recipient, we will get data back confirming this.
- Queued: The message is waiting to be delivered. Likely the person has their phone off, or is in an area without any reception. The message will be delivered as soon as they’re back in range or their phone is back on.
- Bounced: The message that was sent did not make it to a phone for a specific reason. Usually due to an incorrectly entered phone number.
- Unsubscribed: An SMS member that has chosen to opt out of all future alerts and messages. These members are automatically removed from your list.
