SMS Text Messaging Overview

Click here to view the SMS Overview ebook.

VoterVoice provides SMS text messaging as an option for broadcasting advocacy alerts and other communications sent from the VoterVoice system. There are a few different ways users or advocates can get signed up to receive text alerts from your organization.

Adding Contacts to Receive Text Messages

The first and most popular option would be to have advocates text a “Keyword” to the shortcode (50457). The keyword is set up on our end and can be whatever you would like. Most groups will keep it short to make it easy for their advocates. When a user texts the keyword to the short code, they will receive a response text letting them know that have been successfully signed up to receive text alerts. You also have the ability to direct your users to a specific campaign or to any other actionable item in the system.

The second option is for users to enter their mobile number in the text box provided on the registration form. As soon as the user enters their mobile number into that box and continues, they will receive a text confirming their subscription to receive text alerts. The user will be added to the list of Recipients when you choose to send a text message through the system.

If you have a spreadsheet of users that includes mobile numbers that are confirmed to be opted-in, please contact support at [e-mail]. We can help you get those uploaded into the system.

Mobile Number Compliance

When the Mobile Number field is mapped in the upload process, you will now see a new step where you must agree to three checkboxes before you can proceed. You can see a screenshot of the page here as well. 

If Support is providing assistance with uploading any contacts that include mobile numbers to your VoterVoice system, they will email you the compliance requirements which will need to be agreed upon prior to the upload being completed. 

When updating your contact list into Votervoice, all contacts MUST be previously opted-in from your previous SMS carrier to be fully accepted into VoterVoice. You are not permitted to upload contacts that have not previously selected to opt-in to SMS messaging. VoterVoice is not responsible for any violations to the SMS policy for broadcasting if contact numbers are uploaded outside this criteria.

SMS Carrier Registration

Beginning in 2021, the mobile carriers (AT&T, Verizon, etc...) started requiring that any group who sends SMS broadcasts register with them as a security precaution. VoterVoice has created an interface to allow you to handle that task easily through the admin site. 

Under the Settings menu, choose the option for SMS Carrier Registration.

That will bring you to step 1 of a 3 step process. Each field on the page must be filled out before the step is submitted to the carriers for approval. It will take a while to get all steps approved, so please make a note to do this before you need to send an urgent SMS broadcast.  

Sending Text Message Broadcasts

Once you have contacts with mobile numbers in your Default List, you are ready to send a broadcast to those users. To start, just go to Messaging > Broadcasts and choose the option to create a new broadcast.

There are two options you can choose as the purpose of your message that will allow you to send text messages, “Drive my contacts to my action center” and “Just send information to my contacts”. When you choose to drive your contact to your action center, you are choosing to direct your users to a specific campaign or other actionable item. The option to just send information to your contacts will allow you to send to everyone in your list, there are no constituency requirements with an informational email.

Once you have either of the two options mentioned above selected, you will see a checkbox at the bottom of the page, within the “Method of Communication” section, that allows you to select “Text Message” as an option. Check that box and continue to the next page.

On the Recipients page, you will see a preview of the number of text recipients you have for the given broadcast. You have the option to use an advanced search to filter, but most groups will leave the default “Send to entire list” option selected because they want as many people as possible to take action.

Once you have the Recipients picked out, continue to the “Compose” page of the Broadcast tool. You will see a blank text box to enter the text of the message you want to send to your advocates. You will also need to manually include a link to the campaign within the text of the message. To do that, just click the “Insert Action Center Link” dropdown below the text box and select the appropriate campaign. When a campaign is selected, a pop-up will appear that shows the link destination and the link text. You will want to destination to go directly to the action you selected. You can set the link text to say whatever you would like, the link will drive your advocates directly to your action center.

That’s all you need to do to send out an SMS Broadcast through the VoterVoice system.

Here is a short video on how to send out a SMS Broadcast.