Why “STOP”? The New Normal of Text Messaging Deliverability.

Why “STOP”? The New Normal of Text Messaging Deliverability.

Fresh off the heels of an election season, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, you’ve likely received at least a few marketing text messages lately.

SMS ads such as these are the new direction for companies to get themselves out in front of potential customers, with more and more brands jumping on the bandwagon every day.

Mobile carriers are therefore fighting a massive influx of spam consumers are receiving in their text inboxes.

As part of their efforts to address this major concern, carriers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon have begun outlining policies for how text distributors interact with their customers. For those interested, examples of these policies are available to reference through these links:

Responding to these regulations, our SMS provider, Twilio, has asked us to make a few updates to our text messaging in order to comply with the carriers’ policies. In short, the changes we’ve made are meant to address two key sets of requirements (per Twilio’s Message Policy and guidance for preventing message filtering):

  • Sender identification
  • Every message you send must clearly identify you (the party that obtained the opt-in from the recipient) as the sender, except in follow-up messages of an ongoing conversation.
  • Opt-out language
  • The initial message that you send to an individual needs to include the following language: "Reply STOP to unsubscribe," or the equivalent using another standard opt-out keyword, such as STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, and QUIT.
  • If you are contacting the same recipients multiple times per month, you do not need to provide opt-out instructions in every message, but you must do it at least once per month.

At about this point, you may be saying, “Yikes! I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Do I have to accept these updates? What happens if I don’t use this type of messaging? Other services I’m using don’t require us to do this, why does Real Geeks?”

These Policies aren’t necessarily new, but messaging providers have recently been drawing hard lines and enforcing policies in an unprecedented way. Unfortunately, toward the start of November, ~200 Real Geeks customers had their texting stopped by our SMS provider overnight.

Not only did this affect our automated services like GeekAI (Robin) and Reactive Responses, Drip/workflows and direct agent-to-client messages were also being filtered. If other services you have that use SMS don’t have any of these rules in place today, you should expect changes like this in the near future. Our prediction is that this will be the new normal. 

We know how critical it is for you to be able to text with their leads. As such, we have put together a team of people focused on ensuring that messages of all types continue to be delivered. This team will also be responsible for any future updates to our messaging systems, monitoring performance of changes, and gathering feedback from our community. The goal is to strike the right balance between complying with policies and maintaining natural conversations with leads.

Here are the changes you can expect to start seeing:

For Geek AI (Robin) and Reactive Responses

  • The very first message sent to a lead will include “Reply STOP to unsubscribe.”
  • For any lead that has yet to respond, we will:
    • Append a signature to every message: “- [First Name] from [site name/url]”; and
    • Append “Reply STOP to unsubscribe” every 30 days

For now, we only updated Geek AI (Robin) and Reactive Responses. That said, if we continue to see aggressive filtering on other types of messages, like Drip, then we’ll make changes as needed. 

While these updates might seem like a hassle at first glance, they’re actually pretty positive. First, when sending a text message from an unknown number, telling the person who you are isn’t just a policy requirement, it is perfectly aligns with our coach’s recommended best practices. Second, we actually already implemented “STOP” language in our GeekAI messages last quarter, monitoring thousands of conversations. The numbers showed that the “STOP” language did not materially impact lead response rates. Alleviating one of our largest concerns. In particular, this change only increased opt-out rates by about 2% and that even then, those were leads who would have otherwise simply been non-responsive anyway. 

While we can’t guarantee that only unengaged leads will reply “STOP”, we are confident that giving people a convenient way to say “No Thanks” won’t “kill your conversion rates”. After all, converting leads is about building relationships and helping people, and if you are doing that, no “good lead” will ever reply “STOP”. As digital communications and the policies surrounding them continue to evolve, rest assured that Real Geeks is committed to your success and we’ll always make the updates needed to support that.




Published on Dec 20, 2022 under ,

Real Geeks is a highly efficient and effective lead generation and conversion solution for cultivating, capturing, and managing leads at any stage of the home buying or selling process.

 

Drive traffic, capture leads, nurture opportunities, and close more transactions with a robust CRM, fully integrated custom IDX website, and marketing solutions for agents and teams of any size.

 

Real Geeks is one of the best lead generation and management platforms available, but don't just take our word for it – hear from customers loving their experience with Real Geeks →

Logo-1

Featured Articles

Tune in to our Keeping It Real podcast for industry leaders' latest strategies, best practices, industry news, and hacks! Become a client and member of our Real Geeks Mastermind community for more up-to-date news and weekly real estate coaching.
The Fundamentals of Real Estate Workflows

The Fundamentals of Real Estate Workflows

Today we break down Greg Harrelson's best advice on real estate workflows and automations, and how you can use these tools to grow your business.

Read More
Why Real Estate CRM Automation & Workflows Are Non-Negotiable in 2024

Why Real Estate CRM Automation & Workflows Are Non-Negotiable in 2024

What does the data show when it comes to real estate workflows and automation tools? And how can you use them to your advantage as a modern-day realtor?

Read More
A Step-by-Step Guide to Real Estate CRM Automations & Workflows

A Step-by-Step Guide to Real Estate CRM Automations & Workflows

In this practical guide, we share step-by-step instructions on how to best use real estate workflows and automations to enhance your outreach efforts.

Read More

Powerful, simple & easy-to-use, sign up for Real Geeks today.

Get Started