Think about the one item people have with them at all times, on the go and throughout the day.
More and more this item is a phone. Among the many activities people carry out on their phones, talking and texting tops the list at 70%.
This means that short code campaigns can be a powerful vehicle for marketing, advertising, promotions, and building brand awareness.
Short Code Advantages
Short codes are five- and six-digit numeric codes organizations use to communicate directly with their audiences.
Organizations use them because:
- They work with any phone that can send and receive text messages, not just smartphones.
- Their brevity, straightforwardness, and ease of use makes them well-suited to wide-ranging levels of education and English fluency.
- Engagement levels are high, with recipients trusting short code messages and opening them almost immediately.
- Short codes operate in a protected community where codes are registered and complaints are monitored.
- Their brevity makes them easy to remember for consumers.
Short Code Advertising
Short codes enable two-way communications, making them more interactive than a static ad. This means you can use them for donations, fundraising, surveys, games, and polls. They support text, imagery, and video—opening up expansive possibilities for creative content.
You can integrate short code advertising and promotions with other social media efforts. For example, when a national retail burrito quick serve restaurant chain moved its Halloween giveaway to TikTok in 2020, a short code campaign gave customers a fun new way to redeem prizes in a virtual world.
Short Code Marketing
With an email campaign, 20% of recipients might open the message and 6% might respond. When people receive a text message, however, these percentages are notably different: open and response rates as high as 98% and 45%, respectively.
Because short code messages arrive to a receptive audience, this makes them an ideal vehicle for several common marketing objectives.
Marketing new products and services. A national discount retailer uses a short code campaign to introduce customers to its health and wellness offerings.
Building loyalty. A national fitness company's members who opt in can use short codes to find a club location while traveling, manage payments, or redeem benefits for referrals.
Strengthening trust. When a retail bank notes suspicious activity on a customer account, the banking giant uses short codes to send alerts—an opt-in communications vehicle recipients know they can trust.
