SMS Marketing with Telnyx

SMS is becoming an ever more powerful means of communication with your customers and is a core part of an omnichannel communication strategy. Three of the most important features when choosing an SMS provider are pricing, global reach, and being able to stay true to your brand.

Telnyx’s APIs open up a number of marketing possibilities when combined with the power of marketing automation platforms such as Marketo, Hubspot, and Active Campaign. All three of these platforms have webhook features, which allow you to make GET or POST requests to APIs.

This means we can use webhooks to unlock the power of Telnyx for sending SMS notifications or enriching your lead database using number lookup.

Why use Telnyx for SMS Marketing?

Pricing

With one of the most competitive SMS prices in the industry, we allow customers to save an average of % compared to using Twilio. Yes, 70%! Check out this Savings Calculator or our pricing page for our transparent and flexible pay-as-you-go pricing.

Branded Messaging

There are a number of different messaging channels that can be accessed through Telnyx's Programmable SMS API that help your messaging stay true to your brand and build familiarity with your customers:

• __WhatsApp is now available through Telnyx's API, which enables customers to send branded messages from a business profile using one of the most popular messaging channels in the world.
• Google RCS and VSMS are also available through Telnyx's API, which enables customers to send branded messages from a verified business profile with richer features than traditional SMS.

In addition to branded messaging channels, Telnyx's API comes with out-of-the-box features to deliver memorable marketing messages.

• Alphanumeric sender ID allows you to set your company name as the sender ID.
  
• Sticky sender ensures that customers will receive SMS from the same number every time when you use the number pooling feature. (More on this below)
  

• Number Pooling allows you to distribute outbound SMS over all the numbers you have associated with a messaging profile, which increases your deliverability since a single number is not responsible for sending high volumes of traffic.

• Geomatch will ensure that your customers receive SMS from numbers with the same area code that they live in (provided that these numbers exist in your number pool)

• Sticky Sender will ensure that your customers receive SMS from the same number every time helping your build familiarity with your customers.

Other Features

• International SMS: Instantly provision your numbers to send SMS internationally or send SMS from local numbers in international destinations
  
  
• Opt-out management: Telnyx automatically handles standard opt-out replies so you don’t have to
  
• Verify API: An out-of-the-box 2-factor authentication solution with SMS (or voice)

Handling SMS Rate Limits: What number type is best for you?

The most important constraint on your SMS rate limit is determined by the type of number you use. With our extensive inventory of numbers, Telnyx offers long code, toll-free, short code, and alphanumeric numbers. Sign up for a Telnyx account and purchase your first few numbers in our Mission Control Portal!

10DLC Pros and Cons

10-Digit Long Code (10DLC), is the new standard for sending A2P messages over long code. Earlier this year, telecoms carriers launched this initiative in an effort to decrease spam and increase throughput for legitimate SMS use cases. In the 10DLC process, businesses must register their brand and SMS use cases, and are assigned a specific throughput based on this information.

10DLC is MMS enabled, offers throughputs higher than traditional long code, and has much lower registration costs compared to short codes and toll-free numbers. However, the migration process for registering your 10DLC brand and use case can be confusing. By the end of summer 2021, carriers will require all long code SMS to be sent via 10DLC traffic. Thankfully, you can register through our self-service Telnyx API and Mission Control Portal, and our 10DLC FAQs provides more details into what you need to know about 10DLC.

Toll-Free Pros and Cons

While Toll-Free numbers might allow you to avoid number pooling by having a higher rate of 1200 SMS per minute, they come at the expense of not being able to send SMS internationally and it is more expensive to send and receive SMS than long code.

Toll-free numbers also require an application to be submitted specifying things such as how you will opt people in, your use case, and your privacy policy. You can read more in the “Toll Free Messaging” section in this support article.

Dedicated Short Code Pros and Cons

Dedicated short code numbers offer the highest SMS throughput, but this comes at a price.

• Standard short code numbers cost $1000 per month while vanity short codes cost $2000 per month
• Short code numbers are the most expensive of any number type to send and receive SMS
• You have to fill out an application form in order to show how you will opt people into SMS notifications and how you will respond to certain keywords such as “HELP” and “STOP”
• US short codes cannot be used to send SMS internationally

Alphanumeric Sender ID Pros and Cons

The Alphanumeric sender ID feature allows you to send SMS from a messaging profile at a rate of 60,000 SMS per minute and this feature can be used to send SMS internationally. However, customers will not be able to reply to these SMS so you can only use this feature for one-way SMS campaigns.

SMS Marketing Setup & Examples

Now that you know why you should use Telnyx to power your SMS Marketing, let’s take a look at how you can start sending SMS with Telnyx, automate replies to inbound SMS, and then use these 2 features together for webinar SMS reminders. Make sure to check out the rest of the articles in this four part series:

• Text Messaging with the Telnyx SMS API
• 2 Way SMS using Telnyx and Zapier
• SMS Integration Example: Webinar Reminders

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