A main question we get from prospective customers is how other text marketing companies can offer “unlimited” text message services for such low monthly fees and no cost per text message sent. To understand this difference, a little background on the two types of text marketing available today,  SMS and SMTP is needed.

SMS marketing uses short codes and is regulated by cell phone carriers and the FTC.  Companies must submit an application and it takes months for approval from each company and the FTC. Companies that use SMS marketing comply with all Mobile Marketing Association regulations and bylaws. Moto Message is a SMS text message marketing company.

Companies who are able to offer unlimited text marketing for such low prices are using SMTP. This employs a loop hole left open by cell phone carriers when they first started business. SMTP uses the email gateway attached to each cell phone number with the wireless carrier as the domain name to send messages. To carry this out, these systems generate e-mails to mobile phone numbers with the wireless carrier as domain name. The carriers then convert the email into a text message.

For example: 6075551234@wirelesscompanyx.com <mailto:6075551234@wirelesscompanyx.com>. Using SMPT gateways is forbidden by wireless carriers to send text messages. Wireless carriers continually work to shut down these gateways but must open new ones which these companies can find. Regulation is lacking somewhat but as a business owner you can still be held liable and fined $10,000 or more from the FTC’s CAN-SPAM act.

Text message marketing companies that claim to use shortcodes but offer unlimited text messaging for low prices most likely are still using SMTP. They will use a shortcode to process the subscribers initial opt-in request and then switch by sending the free text messages with SMPT. Subscribers are sent messages through the email server and have no way to reply or opt-out.

This is not allowed by cell phone carriers and messages sent this way are often blocked and the success rate of messages sent is only around 50% and it can take hours for your message to reach your subscriber. Obviously marketing this way is not effective and while there is not much regulation in place yet, cell phone carriers actively work every day to close this loop hole down.

The Mobile Marketing Association and we at Moto Message believe that these types of unlimited services will be obsolete in the near future. Businesses that have spent months or years building up their subscriber list would see it disappear overnight and would have to start over from scratch again.

To send a text message by SMS in regulation with all United States, wireless carriers, the FTC and wireless regulatory agencies, a company must use a shortcode for all messages sent to the subscriber, the opt-in and opt-out process.

Moto Message is among a handful of companies who bring this reliable SMS marketing capability directly to the independent business owner. To get real marketing results you should only consider using SMS text messaging for your business or organization.