The Complete Guide to SMS Marketing Abbreviations

Overview

Text messaging has come a long way from its initial widespread adoption in the early 2000s. Gone are the days of clunky phones, black and green screens, and typing on tiny keyboards. Just as our devices have evolved to be better suited for texting, as have our communication skills. The shortening of words or a phrase has become a common practice for all users looking to save time and energy. Abbreviations, as they are called, are easily recognizable in almost every conversation today. As minuscule as this improvement may seem, the underlying rationale plays a key part in communicating efficiently over text.

Benefits

As texting becomes a more widely adopted channel across all industries, it is necessary to understand the more intricate details of sending a message. Every text message has a character limit of 160 characters. Once this character limit is exceeded, messages will be split into another segment of 160 characters. The maximum limit for a text message is 10 segments or 1600 characters. While this may seem like insignificant information, it is important to remember that SMS messages are not like iMessage or Whatsapp. Users are charged for every message they send. In addition, every segment is charged as a separate message. So sending a mass message to your entire contact list containing 480 characters is the same as sending each contact three separate messages. To combat these extra charges, using abbreviations can potentially save you time and money by shortening your messages to stay under the character limit.

Contact Form

Unlike other text marketing platforms, SuperPhone’s opt-in is embedded in our users’ contact form. To view this language, you can go to your contact form and find it at the bottom of the page, above the Submit button. Once a person has filled out your contact form, you are then legally allowed to text them from that point forward. Aside from the first contact auto-response and reminder messages, no other contact can legally be made without the completion of your contact form by the recipient. We have ensured that the first two messages abide by the necessary laws as they will only go out if a person texts into your phone, making the first contact.