Imagine you’re one of the millions of mobile subscribers who have signed up for SMS offers and alerts from a brand. You love getting special offers and last-minute deals right on your phone and remain in the program for almost a year. Eventually, for whatever reason, you decide you don’t want to receive those messages on your phone any more. You reply STOP to the short code they’re coming from and receive a text back letting you know you’re unsubscribed and won’t receive any more messages. Is that final message – the one letting you know you’re unsubscribed – in violation of your request to be unsubscribed?
It’s perhaps a silly question that resulted in a not-so-silly class action lawsuit last year. Banking and financial services company Barclays dished out $8 million last year in response to a class action law suit that used a 1990s-era telecommunications law to claim the confirmation text was illegal. Barclays wasn’t alone; Bank of America, Gamestop, American Express, Twitter, and Facebook were among other companies threatened with class action lawsuits.
The lawsuits posed something of a Catch-22 for mobile marketers: the Mobile Marketing Association and CTIA require that final confirmation message, but the threat of legal backlash frightened many marketers to not include and hope they weren’t audited by the CTIA. However, an important new ruling from the FFC last week has struck down these class action lawsuits and empowered mobile marketers to send that final confirmation message. AdAge reports, “The FCC’s declaratory ruling released Thursday confirmed that companies and organizations may legally follow industry best practices and send a final, onetime text to confirm receipt of a consumer’s opt-out request of a text messaging program.”
The result is removing an unnecessary legal strain on the industry and empowers marketers to spend their time crafting new and exciting mobile initiatives for their subscribers.
For more coverage, check out the full AdAge article here.
Wide-scale natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Haiti earthquake demonstrate the power of Mother Nature to devastate areas of the world in a matter of moments. They also demonstrate the power of the mobile channel to empower concerned citizens to fund relief and reconstruction efforts immediately. This post is an overview of how these donations work, what limitations they have, and what other mobile solutions exist for charitable organizations.
Many activities traditionally done in person, by mail or online are now being accomplished on mobile devices, including philanthropy. According the Pew Research Center, about 1 in 10 US Adults (9%) have made a charitable contribution using text messaging. These small donations, usually capped at $5 or $10, appear on a mobile user’s phone bill and are facilitated by two “trusted third party” organizations. Through special negotiations with wireless carriers, the mGive Foundation and Mobile Giving Foundation are able to conduct 100% pass-through mobile donation campaigns. Normally, wireless carriers take a hefty percentage to process payments, especially with premium rate programs which deliver ringtones and other content, and, until recently, with political contributions.
These small donations without any processing fees can add up when a cause is widely publicized. “Mobile giving played an especially prominent role during the aftermath of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake,” Aaron Smith of the Pew Internet Project writes, “as individual donors contributed an estimated $43 million to the assistance and reconstruction efforts using the text messaging feature on their cell phones.” But for smaller charities with less shocking and time-sensitive causes, the outcome might not be as great. Smith found that the 2010 Haiti donations tended to be impulsive – done immediately in response to a televised call-to-action – and that the donor mobile donors tended not to follow the reconstruction efforts closely after their donation. In short, these gifts were small, one-off, impulsive contributions that didn’t allow for further cultivation or growth.
An alternative solution is a mobile pledge program. Text DONATE to 30364 for a demo of SMS pledge flow. Once a donor replies with their pledge amount, an alert can be sent to an email address or mobile number with the contact information to follow-up. This personalization allows for a deeper relationship to be built between the donor and organization, whereas carriers do not share any donor information when processing mobile donations. To summarize, mobile pledge programs
Do not have a limit on donation size
Provide the opportunity to capture demographic information about your donors
Open the door to cultivate an ongoing relationship with the donor.
Mobile donation SMS programs are a strong demonstration of the power of mobile on a large scale, but they are best suited to widely publicized tragedies that are in need of immediate funds. Other charitable organizations are better suited to take advantage of mobile to cultivate a deeper relationship with their donors and ensure they remain on their giving list for the future.
“You have WON the $1000 BestBuy Card drawing!” “A $500 Wal-mart gift card is waiting for you!” “Congratulations on your new FREE iPad!”
Everyone hates spam, especially on your mobile phone. Of all the channels spammers use to illegally and unethically contact you, though your mobile phone is actually one of the most protected. This post is going to cover how spammers do what they do, whose combating them, and how shortcode programs differentiate themselves from spam in the mobile space.
1) How can I become a spammer?
If you decide to hang in the towel at your reputable day job, you’ll need three things to become a scumbag spammer: (1) a list of mobile numbers, (2) a message to send, and (3) a way to send that message.
To get a list of mobile numbers, you can buy it from a company that does that sort of thing or automatically generate one through good ol’ fashioned guessing. Write a quick script that automatically guesses mobile phone numbers; most of the time it’ll be wrong, but occasionally you’ll be able to illegally and unethically send your message to someone.
Secondly, your spam campaign is going to need some content. If you’re a part of a radical political or social group, look no further than your founder’s manifesto; but if you’re resorting to spamming for commercial purposes, you can promote your product or mount a phishing scam to steal little old ladies’ credit card numbers.
Lastly, you’ll need a way to send these messages. You’ve got a few channels: longcodes, shortcodes, and email. Longcodes are regular 10-digit cell phone numbers you can pick up from any cell phone store. Shortcodes are a 4-5 digit code that requires provisioning and carrier approval, which can take a while and might not work if you’re a spammer. Email takes advantage of the fact that everyone’s mobile number is also an email address based on their carrier (i.e. 5551234567@txt.att.com), so when you program that code to guess, you can have it guess carrier to and try to reach people this way. The favorite medium of choice for spammers is longcodes since they’re inexpensive and difficult to track.
So what – besides a basic ethical conscience – is stopping everyone from turning to a sinister life of stealing information from unsuspecting mobile users?
2) Who is combating spam?
There are several entities that are dedicated to making sure the mobile space stays a valuable space for consumers, marketers, and brands.
Mobile Marketing Association is a worldwide non-profit trade association established to foster growth of mobile marketing. They publish a best practices document which is the mobile marketing bible. If you’ve ever heard the term “compliance,” it refers to being compliant with MMA’s Best Practices.
CTIA, which originally stood for Cellular Telephone Industry Association, is an industry trade group that advocates for legislation and regulation in the mobile space. They also conduct audits, so if there’s an opt-in shortcode program out there that isn’t playing by the rules, they’ll hear from the CTIA.
U.S. Government has passed legislation that makes SMS spam illegal. While enforcement is always difficult, there have been a few class action lawsuits that have fined some spammers substantial amounts (~$500 per spam message)
Carriers are committed to curbing spam, too. If their subscribers are getting continually spammed, they’re might start to lose customers. We can actually help them police the space, as well. If you receive a spam message, you can copy and forward to text to the shortcode 7726 (that’s “SPAM” on most keypads) on most major carriers. Your carrier will then prompt you to reply with the phone number that sent the spam message to you. This data is then aggregated to identify the most prolific culprits, but again, nothing is to keep the spammer from just buying a new track phone.
3) How can I tell what is and isn’t spam?
Opt-in messages and alerts are often confused with spam since they might appear similarly on a user’s phone. However, opt-in shortcode programs are designed to deliver relevant content to subscribers who want them and give permission to brands to send them. Whether it’s a mobile coupon, an information alert, or an interactive instant win promotion or sweepstakes, we allow brands to engage with their subscribers to build a database of users who want to connect with them. Furthermore, opt-in programs are required to inform subscribers up-front about what they’ve signed up for and how they can get it out of it. An initial compliance message includes:
Description of the messages you’ll be receiving
Knowledge that message and data rates apply
Expected messaged frequency
Ability to text HELP for additional information
Ability to unsubscribe by texting STOP or STOPALL
These regulations are required for shortcode programs, so you can be confident when you receive a message from a 4-5 digit number, rather than spam from a longcode or SMS email.
There are terrible scumbags out there who are abusing SMS to spam people – you might be one of them – but know that there are very big entities combating it. And Cellit: ePrize Mobile Solutions is committed to running compliant shortcode programs to connect brands and businesses with the subscribers that want to interact with them.
Cellit strives to put the power of mobile technology into all parts of your daily life. Today, Cellit is proud to announce that we’re going someplace new: The open road!
Our new Driveit technology allows you to control your vehicle (or any Driveit-enabled vehicle) through text messages sent from your cell phone! Imagine the possibilities!
Don’t want to go to the store? Don’t! Send your car there on its own!
No need to hold a clumsy steering wheel or push pedals with your feet. Let your thumbs do the driving!
Send your car to pick up the kids from school from the comfort of your living room!
Save money on gas without a driver weighing the car down!
Works with any text-messaging enabled phone!
How does it work? Simple! Send commands from your phone, such as FORWARD, BACKWARD, LEFT, RIGHT, EXCHANGE INSURANCE INFORMATION, or HONK, to a Cellit shortcode. Those messages will be sent to your car and your car will do what it is told! It’s that simple!
Watch the official pre-recorded demo video to see it in action:
