mobile
You know how you can send an email message to a certain address, and it’ll be converted into a text message and sent to a certain cell phone? There’s a whole guide on how to do this; different cell phone providers have different domain names. For Verizon Wireless users, you send an email to (phone number)@vtext.com and it lands in the SMS inbox of the Verizon Wireless mobile user with that phone number.Find that annoying? Is it being abused to send you spam? If so, there’s a way to turn it off! According to CNBC, just text “off” to short code “4040” and that will disable this functionality. If you change your mind, text “on” to the same number. Either way, you will get a notification back from Verizon telling you if you’ve turned it on or off.I’ve tried it. Seems to work. After turning the feature off, any attempt
Are political messages exempt from the requirements of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act? As the FCC explains, while campaigns are exempt from the “do not call” list requirements, the TCPA does still bring specific rules that even political campaigns must follow.So then….I’m not entirely sure what to make of this. As reported by Bryan Metzger for Business Insider, Nancy Pelosi’s campaign recently settled with an Illinois man over allegations that they SMS spammed him even though he’s registered with the do-not-call list. TCPA does contain a private right of action clause, and it does require that political text messages either be opt-in or “manually dialed.” Maybe the campaign was worried that their messages could be construed as “robotexts” instead of “manually dialed?” I don’t know enough to say, but it’s curious to me that they settled.But now I understand why all of the annoying political text messages I received in
I think Verizon Wireless has supported reporting SMS spam to them via the 7726 (SPAM) SMS number for a while now. I’m not really sure when that started, but very recently, Verizon’s Alex Lawson posted a blog post talking about 7726. Check it out here. TL;DR? Forward unwanted SMS messages to 7726. What happens next? Maybe not enough, but reporting is a good first step. Verizon does say they block a lot of SMS spam, so perhaps end user reports feed into those mechanisms. AT&T and T-Mobile tell you to forward spam texts to 7726, too. Spam reports are valuable in the email world. Let’s hope that’s true of SMS land, as well.I had a chance to use it just now and what you do is first you forward the SMS message itself, and then 7726 replied with, “Please reply with the sender’s number. Messages shared with 7726 are shared with…
Asking if email marketing or SMS marketing is more effective is like asking if lifting weights or cardio is better for fitness. It’s a valid question, but arguably the wrong question. The question is not which is better but how you should use each and when to use them together. Similar to how weights and cardio serve different aspects of health and fitness, both email and SMS marketing can have a huge impact on marketing efforts but serve different purposes. The real power of email and SMS marketing is when you apply each to the use cases they serve better than the other. When you try to cover all your bases with just one or the other, you inevitably miss out on opportunities to reach your audience in the most impactful way. By using both SMS and email marketing, you’re able to increase the impact of your marketing campaigns and…
Mike Robuck of Mobile World Live reports on a new SMS and call spam protection option for Verizon Wireless users here in the US: an updated free Call Filter app.I just downloaded it myself and it seemed pretty easy to set up. I recommend checking it out. Of course, they immediately tried to upsell me to a paid version, but I’m going with just the free version for now (I already do pay them quite a bit of money every month). The ability to report phone numbers as spammy, and benefit from others reporting phone numbers as spammy, is a wonderful thing to see here — Google Voice has had something similar to this for a long time now and I’ve wished for the same thing at the mobile provider level.Read the article here and then head on over here to learn more from Verizon and/or to download the app.
Understandably, there has been plenty of confusion and angst in the marketing community relating to Apple’s announcement of new privacy features in iOS 15, following WWDC. This is probably the moment when our industry makes it into the zeitgeist, and perhaps not for reasons you might be hoping. Users suddenly realize what is really happening when they read an email… Actually, it’s good news! Consumers are becoming much more aware of the value of their attention and how much they give away when they interact with marketing on the internet, in whatever form. We believe that all users should have a choice on what they see, what data they expose, and who gets to see it. The initial responses to Apple’s announcement seemed to suggest that email was dead, again (how many times has it died already?). But now that the dust is settling, we see that it is a…