Everything You Need To Know About 10DLC SMS

The most common and cost-effective way for businesses to send SMS messages to customers is A2P. A2P messaging is “Application to Person” texting. It removes the manual labor of texting and enables businesses to send text messages in bulk. You might not know this, but any one of the several PressONE messaging apps, or integrations that allow for SMS and MMS, like Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex, are A2P Messages.

SMS and MMS have become the most vital channels for communication. In fact, SMS probably has the highest level of engagement with an 88% open rate! Even if you don’t know the number messaging you, chances are you are still going to open it! By comparison, email has a paltry 22% open rate.

When people start receiving more SPAM than legitimate messages, that SMS open rate will drop precipitously and that is where 10DLC comes in. 10DLC, or 10-Digit Long Code is the term that is being used for the “sanctioned” method of sending messages to end users on a mobile network via an A2P method.

How does this benefit me?

There are three main reasons how 10DLC help your business, your customers and the mobile community at large;

• Message Volume and Send Rates: Now that your campaigns (also know as a use case) have been registered and therefore regulated, you will have the ability to send larger volumes of messages without worrying about being throttled by the carrier. This might not be a problem for you now as you might only send a few messages a day. However, there may come a time where a majority of your communication will be over SMS/MMS and you want to be ready for that!
• Lower Costs: Traditionally, if you wanted to send SMS and MMS at scale you would need a Short code Number (4-6 digits) or a Toll Free Code. Short codes were generally too expensive for most companies to justify (up to 1500.00/month, just for the number), especially for those whose messaging volumes weren’t large enough. 10DLC Messaging is a low cost option that allows you to send messages without a large investment.
• Dedicated Line: One of the benefits of 10DLC over Short Codes is the fact that the same number you SMS with can be and normally is a Voice Enabled number, where a mobile user can just call it back. With shortcodes, this wasn’t possible. Its just one more way that people can communicate with your brand.

What do I need to do?

There are TWO Main components of the Registry that the majority of PressONE’s customers will need to concern themselves with.

1. Brand Registration: Registering a Brand is essentially providing your company information to TCR (The Campaign Registry) in order for them to ensure that your organization is a legitimate sender of SMS. This check is carried out for each Brand by TCR after its registration. TCR locates and confirms the existence of the Company you submitted by checking against several databases and utilizing best practice third party verification vendors. The Brand Identity Status is based on the accuracy* of the submitted information. The following information must be verified for the brand to obtain a “Verified” status: • EIN / Tax ID • Legal Company Name • Legal Company Address This check also returns the following
   1. Whether the Brands is a Tax-exempt organization if the “non-profit” entity type is selected.
   2. Whether a Brand is part of the Russell 3000 list.*Typos and outdated information can significantly affect this outcome
2. Campaign Registration: While Brands registration defines your business, the 10DLC campaign is how you plan on USING your 10DLC Numbers for messaging. The Mobile Industry (MNOs (ATT, VZ, Tmobile, etc) and CTIA) came up with several STANDARD and SPECIAL use cases which define the content of your messages and rate and volume at which you send messages. You may be using SMS to communicate with your stakeholders (customers, suppliers, etc), or for reminders and notifications. The word campaign when it comes to 10DLC does not mean it is a marketing or sales campaign, it is how you are using the numbers assigned to the campaign. We are defaulting the campaign type to “Low Volume Mixed” which encompasses many of the commonly prevalent use cases. Example: You have sales reps that need to send messages to their clients. This is not a sales or marketing campaign. When you set up your campaign, you will describe that the numbers that are assigned to the campaign are being used to reach out to customers of your business. For the majority of customers, 1 campaign will handle all of their numbers on the account.  NOTE:  The maximum numbers on any campaign has been limited by Tmobile to 49.

Use Cases

Standard use cases

Standard use cases are automatically approved.

Specialty use cases

Specialty use cases require additional approvals and/or steps. The approval is not instant and may take additional time.