Every week someone asks us the same question. I have a list of customers, or candidates, or parents, or members. Can I text all of them at once?
You can. And done wrong, it is the fastest way to break the texting your business already depends on. This page explains what actually happens, because most people who get burned by this had no idea they were doing anything risky.
Texting is not email
Email spam lands in a junk folder. Text spam gets reported to the phone carriers. Every iPhone and Android has a report button, and the carrier apps have one too. Those reports feed automated filters shared across the phone networks.
A handful of complaints about your messages, and the filters start silently deleting what you send. You get no notice. Your messages just stop arriving.
It gets worse. Business texting in America runs on a registration system. Your number is registered for the kind of texting you do. When complaints pile up, the carriers do not just block one message. They can suspend that registration.
That means all of your texting stops. The appointment reminders. The confirmations. The back-and-forth with your customers. Everything, on the number your business runs on.
Getting it back can take weeks, and sometimes it does not come back. The carriers also charge real fines for the worst violations, and those fines land on the sender.
It can reach your calls too
The systems that label calls as potential spam are separate from the ones that filter texts, for now. But they share the same phone number, and they share the same annoyed people. When someone blocks your number over a text, that block covers your calls too.
Complaints filed with the government land in data feeds the call-labeling companies read. And the carriers tighten these systems every year. Nobody can promise that a number with a bad texting reputation keeps a clean calling reputation.
If your number starts showing potential spam when you call your own customers, that is a much bigger problem than one campaign.
Then there are the lawyers
Federal law puts a price of $500 to $1,500 per text on marketing messages sent without written permission. There are law firms that do nothing but find businesses who blasted a list, and their letters are priced so that settling costs less than fighting.
Hundreds of small businesses have been through this in the last two years. Some states are stricter than the federal rules. One wrong number on your list is enough.
The one rule that matters
Only text people who asked to hear from you. Not people whose numbers you have. People who agreed, in writing, to get this kind of message from your business. A customer list is not a marketing list. A purchased list is never allowed, and we will not send to one.
If your list is real, the rest is mechanics, and good mechanics keep you safe. Say who you are in every message. Give people a way out, and honor it instantly.
Send during the day, in the recipient's time zone. Do not blast a promotion at people twice a day. Watch your opt-outs, because rising opt-outs are the warning light before the filters come for you.
How we handle it
We offer mass texting as a paid add-on, built on our own texting platform, and we set it up so the risky parts are handled for you. It is not on by default. We enable it for your account after you have read this page, because we want you to understand what you are holding before you use it.
Your lists are built from your own contacts, the people your business actually knows. Every first-time recipient gets a proper introduction message that says who you are and how to opt out. Opt-outs are handled automatically and cannot be overridden. Sends are paced so the carriers see a legitimate sender, not a spammer.
There are things we will not send. Messages to purchased lists. Messages to people who never agreed. Content the carriers ban. Not because we cannot, but because it would put your business at risk, and that is not what you pay us for.
If you want to reach your list by text, talk to us first. Let us know what you want to send and where your list came from, and we will set it up the right way.