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TCPA and Texting

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) exists to regulate American communications via radio, television, satellite, cable, and wire. As technology evolves, so does this agency in order to better provide communication services and ensure consumers are protected. It is for this reason that the FCC created the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA).

The purpose of the TCPA is to restrict telemarketing and unwanted telephone solicitation. It monitors and restricts the use of auto-dialers, artificial voice messages, fax machine messages, and SMS text messages.

Essentially, there are eight main requirements that everyone must follow when utilizing any of the aforementioned tools to communicate with others. Unless there is express consent from the person or entity to whom solicitations will be sent,these rules are locally enforced on a federal level, and there are no exceptions.

1. Solicitors must not call residences before 8 AM or after 9 PM during said residences’ local times.

2. Each company must maintain a “do-not-call” list of consumers who ask not to be called by the company. These DNC requests must be honored for a minimum of 5 years.

3. Solicitors must honor the do-not-call requests of consumers who belong on the National Do Not Call Registry.

4. Solicitors must provide their name, the name of the person or entity on whose behalf the call is being made, and a telephone number or address at which that person or entity may be contacted.

5. It is prohibited to solicit to residences using an artificial voice or voice recording.

6. It is prohibited to make any call using automated telephone equipment or an artificial or prerecorded voice to an emergency line (911), a hospital emergency number, a physician’s office, a hospital or healthcare facility or elderly room, a cellular telephone, or any service for which the recipient is charged for the call.

7. It is prohibited to engage two or more lines of a multi-line business via autodialed calls.

8. It is prohibited to send any unsolicited faxes containing advertising messages.

In the event of a violation of the TCPA, a subscriber may sue for up to $500 for each violation or recover actual monetary loss (whichever is greater), seek an injunction, or both.

In the event of a willful violation of the TCPA, a subscriber may sue for up to three times the damages; in other words, $1,500 for each violation.

It is therefore of paramount importance that any person or entity who wishes to call, text, or fax a recipient with advertising or marketing messages be aware of these specific restrictions and abide by them. EquiiText has developed several “best practices” methods that are available to every business SMS text messaging user to comply with these regulations.

Sleep timers in the settings tab prevent businesses from sending campaigns before or after the awake hours approved by the TCPA. The EquiiText landline scrubber also prevents any text message or voice broadcast to be sent to any residential phone number. There is a DNC scrub available to all users to ensure no texts could be sent to a person or entity who belongs on the National Do Not Call Registry, and every EquiiText user similarly has an opt-out auto-responder that must always remain activated. We also train new users how to introduce themselves in a first message to all contacts with plenty of artificially intelligent responders to answer identity questions, location questions, and contact queries.

We have numerous features and policies that prevent users from using EquiiText in such a way that users can use business texting within the rules and guidelines of the FCC and TCPA. For more information on these agencies or about EquiiText best practices, please call, text, or email us today!

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5 Reasons You Should Switch to EquiiText

Not all SMS companies are created equal, and not all businesses want to use them for the same reasons. Some people like having shortcodes and some people simply want to be able to separate their business texting from their personal messaging system. EquiiText specializes in some very particular SMS marketing features, and the business owners who use our platform love them! If you’re looking to revolutionize the way you text your customers, check out these five reasons why you should switch to EquiiText:

1. Unlimited Contacts and Contact Groups

Even the most boutique business maintains an ever-growing list of contacts. Unlike other SMS companies that charge extra for additional contacts, EquiiText offers you the ability to include as many opt-in leads as they need, and these leads can be separated out into a similarly unlimited number of groups. This not only allows for more visibility, it allows for easier funneling and campaigning.

2. Automatic Responders with Artificial Intelligence

One of the best features EquiiText offers is its automatic responders. Created with patented artificial intelligence, these auto-responses take the manual labor out of business SMS. Rather than spending hours each day manually responding to customer texts or being limited to only one or two responders, you can build engaging conversations with your customers without even lifting a finger. Every new account comes equipped with more that forty pre-generated automatic responders that are coded to respond automatically to keywords such as, “Who is this?” “Where are you located?” “What are your hours?” Plus, you can change the messages, create your own custom responders, and add an unlimited number of positive and negative keywords in each auto-reply. It’s never been easier to customize a system and let it run itself!

3. Bulk and Mass SMS Campaigning

Arguably, one of the most desired features of the EquiiText platform is the ability for users to send a single message to multiple contacts. In the spirit of customer engagement, we find that it works beautifully to send a personal campaign message that allows customers to respond with keywords that trigger auto-responders containing marketing messages. This leads to a better deliverability rate and a higher response rate. Your customers will enjoy communicating with your platform!

4. Drip Campaigns and Timed Follow Up Messages

It goes without saying that using drip campaigns is the best way to stay in the front of customers’ minds. Thanks to scheduled messages and timed follow ups, you will never be forgotten! Send messages to individual opt-in contacts based on the date they began texting your platform, or when they triggered a particular auto-responder to thank them for texting, asking if they’re interested in hearing about specials, and much more! You can also send daily messages, weekly messages, and schedule campaigns in advance to specific contacts or contact groups.

5. Innovative Integrations

The EquiiText system is super smart – not just because of its AI, but also thanks to its powerful integrations! Set up webhooks from your website, receive email and text notifications, and even integrate your EquiiText platform with Zapier. With thousands of other platforms and apps managed by the Zapier umbrella, merging your business SMS with your calendar events, CRM, management sites, and much more is a cinch. We’ve found the best ways to automate texting with your business, and now we’ve made it simple to automate every other function in your company in one place.

These are only the top five reasons people love EquiiText and why you should consider switching to our Cloud Platform. We offer dozens of amazing features that contribute to making us the most robust business SMS system on the market today, including URL shorteners, automatic SpinTax, and the most competitive pricing!

Call us, text us, or email us and see what we can do for you. We help businesses everywhere succeed and we want to help you too!

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How to Write a Great Campaign Message

Welcome to SMS marketing with EquiiText!

It is so exciting when new members first begin using their text messaging platforms. Business owners around the country already have big ideas about how best to utilize and integrate SMS marketing and advertising in the most effective ways; it’s all about increasing that ROI!

But where do we start, and how?

First things first, it is important to be aware of the different types of messages you can send out to large groups of contacts: personal, commercial, neutral, and spammy. It is an EquiiText best practice to focus on a campaign message that encourages two-way communication between your business and your customers. In other words, a message sent out to multiple people should be personal, commercial, or neutral, such as,

“Hello! This is John from John & Co. I was wondering if you had a moment to chat today about an amazing promotion we're running :) Reply YES or NOT NOW” which runs a score of 99.51% commercial.

A message such as this gives recipients the opportunity to reply back to your platform to learn more information about your company and to receive your specific marketing and advertising messages. The automatic responders are the best place to put content regarding deals, specials, promotions, and more, since the people who are genuinely interested in receiving that information will purposefully trigger those responders, whereas people who are uninterested will opt-out or choose not to respond at all.

Sending a marketing or advertising message in a large campaign is likely to be regarded as a spammy message. For example, a message that reads,

“Hello! This is John from John & Co. We are running a special promotion for our VIP customers! Up to 50% off select products today only - text YES or NOT NOW” runs a score of 99.92% spammy; on the EquiiText platform, any campaign message over an 80% spam score will not be permitted to send.

EquiiText places customer engagement and communication above all else, and for good reason! Almost all text messages are read within mere seconds of being received, but if the message strikes the wrong note with a customer, he or she is less likely to respond positively.

Consumers enjoy receiving text messages from businesses they like, more so than phone calls and emails. However, spamming a customer’s phone leads to lower deliverability, fewer opens, and fewer happy customers.

For more information on how to send an excellent campaign message, give our EquiiText professionals a call today! You can also email us or text us any time.

Want to learn more about using SpinTax in campaign messages for even better deliverability and open rates? Check out this blog now and improve your best practices score immediately!

Good luck, and happy texting!

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What Is the Difference Between MMS and SMS?

The difference between SMS texting and MMS texting is the message content.

SMS stands for Short Message Service and is a form of text messaging that allows you to send up to 160 characters to a recipient.

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and is a form of text messaging that allows you to send pictures, videos, or audio content to a recipient.

EquiiText specializes in smart SMS technology that allows you to send multiple 160-character messages in the form of automatic responders. With the sequential responder feature, you can ensure large messages will be sent simultaneously to a text-message recipient. This way, your customers will always receive all the information you need them to know about your business.

While we work on developing our MMS capabilities for the EquiiText platform, we provide a URL shortener in all our auto-responders as well! Send your customers to your landing page, review site, or a page with your desired image, video, or audio content via SMS messaging. This feature also allows you to track click-throughs from your recipients, so you can both send your multimedia messages and see who viewed them!

EquiiText makes business texting simple with SMS. Thanks to our online texting platform, customizing your company’s texting services is easier than ever.

Interested in learning more? Give us a call, text, or email today to receive a demo with a free account! We love helping businesses succeed – how can EquiiText help you generate more leads and increase your sales while increasing your ROI?

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Free AI Super Phone Giveaway

EquiiText has partnered up with a local Las Vegas telecommunications companyto bring you the latest and greatest in business VoIP services!

No matter what kind of business you’re in, whether you’re a remote worker or a large call center that specializes in inbound and outbound calls, the EQ-F3P is your perfect sales and communications solution.

EquiiText specializes in using our patented artificial intelligence system to make SMS marketing simpler and more functional than ever before. Recognizing this advantage, we have combined our ALINA (Artificial Language Intelligence Application) with Equiinet’s robust VoIP business phone. If you miss a call, the ALINA system will send you an SMS alert regarding the call, and it will also send a customized text to the caller, letting him or her that you will call them back!

Not only is it SMS enabled, it also comes equipped with a feature known as Voicemail Auto-Drop: now you have the ability toleave pre-recorded voicemails quickly and efficiently, allowing you to call more leads per day than ever before!

Gone are the days of waiting for the customer’s voicemail to play through before you must “leave a message after the tone.” Thanks to the smart EQ-F3P, you can “drop” your voicemail the second the phone stops ringing and move on to your next call! The built-in ALINA system is designed to begin the message only after the tone is heard, ensuring your voicemails will never be cut off due to the customer’s voice recording.

The average length of time it takes to ring through to a customer’s voicemail box is twenty seconds, or four rings. A voicemail recording can last for up to three minutes, which potentially means a single phone call can take nearly seven minutes. With the EQ-F3P Voicemail Auto-Drop, you can call twenty-one people in that same length of time. In a six-hour day, that equates to an additional one thousand calls!

If you’re still reading instead of calling us for your EquiiText phone right now, let me also add that the EQ-F3P also allows you to record your own IVR so inbound callers are greeted by your voice and directed to the appropriate extension. It is even designed for simultaneous ring capabilities, ensuring that calls will rarely be missed as they will also be delivered to your cell phone.

These are only a few of the incredible features offered on the EQ-F3P, so give us an email, call or text today to find out how this AI Super Phone can be yours! This offer is only available for a limited time, so don’t wait – contact us now!

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How to Create the Perfect Sales Funnel

Sales funnels are the perfect way to ensure your customers are getting from the point of awareness to the point of sale as quickly and efficiently as possible. It can feel daunting, but there are dozens of different ways to establish a pipeline for your company.

No matter what type of industry you’re in or what end result you’re hoping to achieve with your customers, EquiiText offers an affordable method for funneling leads

Create your campaign message. This message can be as simple as thanking your contacts for opting in to receive texts from your business, or it can be a promotion for an upcoming special, information about your brand, or whatever you can think of!

If your goal is to generate traffic to your website, make sure you use the URL shortener so customers can reach your landing page and perform an action on your site.

If your goal is to funnel a customer through a series of messages to receive a discount, coupon, or otherwise, it is necessary to create a series of auto-responders that will be triggered by keywords.

Set timed follow-up messages to remind customers to take action on your website or at your business location.

Create timed follow-up messages that similarly let new opt-ins see your campaign message, so they can also interact with the sales funnel.

Here is an example of an effective EquiiText sales funnel:

Campaign Message

1. “Thank you for opting in to receive texts from Fauna's Floral! To show my appreciation, please accept a complimentary bouquet! Pick your favorite here :) laqi.co/HK948LO”

Or,

2. “Thank you for opting in to receive texts from Fauna’s Floral! To show my appreciation,

please accept a complimentary bouquet! Text ROSE, LILAC, or LILY :)”

Automatic Responders

1. ROSE:

“To receive your complimentary rose bouquet, simply text the promo code ROSES4ME, and you'll receive your coupon!”

ROSES4ME:

“This text is your coupon for a free rose bouquet from Fauna’s Flora! Simply show this message when you visit us and walk out smelling like a basket of roses!

2. LILAC:

"To receive your complimentary lilac bouquet, simply text the promo code LILAC4ME, and you'll receive your coupon!"

LILAC4ME: "Here is your coupon for a free lilac bouquet from Fauna's Flora! Simply show this message when you visit, and I'll show you how much 'lilac' you!"

First Sequential Responder

"Limit one bouquet per customer. SMS coupons may be redeemed no more than 14 days after they are received. May only choose ROSE or LILAC, not both. Thank you!"

Timed Follow Up

"Good morning! This is Fauna from Fauna's Floral. Just wanted to remind you to redeem your coupon for a free bouquet! I can't wait to see you soon!"

In the first example, you can see how Fauna gives her customers the opportunity to purchase a free bouquet directly from her website, which will allow her to track clicks on the Cloud Platform and incite further actions from her customers online.

In the second example, it's clear that an effective use of the EquiiText Platform is to establish two-way engagement between Fauna's Floral and its clientele. This style of funneling goes beyond paid advertising and remarketing ads – by using text messaging, Fauna is letting her customers funnel themselves through a device they use every single day, and it's costing her next to nothing to do so. She sets up an identical opt-in message for new customers, but now they text Fauna and tell her what they want. She can even customize her responses so they're cute, funny, and personable like herself! A sequential responder follows whichever automatic responder the customer triggers to let the customer know about each coupon's terms and conditions. A timed follow-up message further alerts the customer to use his or her coupon before the time runs out. Fauna can set up as many timed follow ups as she needs to get customers to redeem their coupons: once per day, once every three days, once per week – whatever works best for her!

These are only two variants of a single example showing how the EquiiText Cloud Platform allows businesses to funnel customers through a sales pipeline. SMS sales funnels are simple to set up and much more affordable than any other sales tool currently available to businesses.

Interested in learning more? Sign up for a free account today and let us show you how to create your custom funnel on the EquiiText Cloud Platform today! What's stopping you from texting your customers?