Hi, I'm Derek Johnson with tatango.com.
I'm gonna be talking today about text message marketing in the United States.
So tatango.com is a software provider that provides messaging solutions for brands in
the United States to send text messages to their customers.
And those customers must also be in the United States.
So I get a lot of questions from people outside the United States that maybe want to target
their customers in the United States or maybe they're just interested in text message marketing
and the difference between text messaging in the United States and text messaging in
other places.
There's actually two big differences that marketers need to know when their text message...their
customers in the United States.
Those two things are first, we have a federal law in the United States that protects consumers
from text message spam, it's called the "Telephone Consumer Protection Act," pretty long one.
Some people call it the "TCPA."
And essentially, it says that you cannot text message customers or consumers or anybody
without their permission.
And that permission has to be very, very specific you know, you can't get it in a roundabout
way.
It has to be a consumer saying, "Yes, please text message me.
Here's my phone number."
Now there's a lot more legal stuff that goes into it but for the sake of this video, I'm
just keeping it simple.
So that's why in the United States when you ask people you know, "Hey, do you receive
a lot of text message spam?"
Most consumers will say "no" or, "I've never received text message spam," because we have
federal law in place.
And with that federal law, it allows consumers in the United States to sue companies if they
do send text message spam.
And you're gonna be shocked if you're from outside the United States, what you can sue
a brand for is between $1,500 and $500 per text message.
Now, that's not one mass text message, that's every single person on a list can sue for
every single text message they receive that is unwanted or spam anywhere from $500 to
$1,500.
That's a big deterrent in the United States for text message marketing spam.
So, that's the first kind of thing that separates the United States from a lot of other countries
and sometimes is a shock, they're not ready for you know, the TCPA or they're not aware
of that.
So you definitely want to be aware of it if you are going to be spending or receiving
text messages with people in the United States.
The second portion or the second interesting thing about text message marketing in the
United States is it has to be run on shortcodes.
Now, some countries also have shortcodes but the United States is very specific and the
wireless carriers are very specific.
They say if you're doing marketing text messages, they have to be run on shortcodes.
A shortcut is a five to six-digit phone number, so hypothetically 12345 or 123456, that is
assigned to a brand and that's their shortcode and they send and receive messages via that
shortcode.
So in many other parts of the countries, you can use what is called a long code or you
can use a regular phone number.
But in the United States, if you're doing text message marketing, you have to use a
shortcode.
So that sometimes is a shock as well to people that are thinking about coming to the United
States to do text message marketing to their customers.
So two big differences between text message marketing in the United States and other places
outside the United States.
One is we have a federal law, which prohibits text message spam and has serious consequences
as you can see.
And then the second is for text message marketing, you have to use a shortcode that's mandated
by the wireless carriers.
So two different things to know if you're coming to the United States or if you're just
interested in text message marketing in the United States.