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Using mobile short codes is in vogue now as these are the key to establish a communication. This communication does not involve two or a group of social media users or netizens but it includes business owners who want to market their product or brand, local and federal government agencies and even for election campaigns of different parties. 

Of late you may have even noticed that Presidential candidates such as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton also used short codes text messaging to reach out to their supporters. This form of campaign enables a more informal communication on a one-to-one basis. Irrespective of who uses it, short codes can encourage the supporters and visitors to the sites to sign up to and receive more text messages. 

Short codes are not very difficult to understand. If you follow theCommon Short Code Registry you will see that Donald Trump uses 88022 as a short code which is far more memorable than that of Hillary's which is 27246 and ideally spells for HRCGO.

If you want to use such short codes for your business purpose or for any other purposes, you can get useful codes from different exclusive providers that work through a premeditatedand well calculated partnership with CTIA. 

Using the Common Short Codes Registry service for the US market you can either ask the users to text you or can ask for their phone numbers and email address just like Hillary Clinton did, so that you can start receiving messages.

You may find the initial interaction to be a bit different from the traditional SMS service but it is much more effective once you signup to receive more mobile messaging. The interaction levels using short codes are pretty consistent.

Facts and statistics

If you want to be more assured about the success rate of using a short code for your business then you should look at the impressive facts and statistics of it. 

According to a Pew Internet report on the presidential campaign in 2012, it was found that President Barack Obama first used short codes which Donald Trump emulated then. The report showed that about 5% of the recorded votes with a smartphone signed up for receiving messages from the candidates. This number significantly increased in 2016.

The biggest thing about shortcodes is that these are extremely safe and secure to use no matter whatever purpose is the campaign for or else it would not have been used for presidential communications where safety and security rules supreme. Any short code campaign that may be launched by anyone will essentially go through a strict vetting process conducted by the wireless carriers. This scrutiny weeds out a large number of potentially unsafe and unwanted materials.

There are specific guidelines to follow about messaging. It should be opt-in and restrictions on especially when you send texts. Apart from that and perhaps most importantly, those people without a smartphone can also receive the messages as ther4e is no need to download any app to send messages. 

Anyone can sign up for messages from any campaigns and continue to receivemessages however the number of messages received will vary depending on the sender as well as the importance of the campaign or any specific event.

The reason people send text messages is for high open rates which is about 99% and 87% open within three minutes. Short codes can be used for marketing, soliciting funding actively, engaging the audience but in no way it has anything to do with mobile-direct giving. 

You cannot text a specific amount and then immediately donate it. On the contrary, it will divertthe user to a mobile friendly site. This diversion will ensure that you get more opportunity to have a better engagement level, more visitors and a chance to collect more data from the users.  

Therefore, you can see it for yourself that there is perhaps no better way than using short codes to messages conveyed across a larger audience if you use text messaging well. However, there is always several other ways in which you can promote by making the best use of the short codes.

Helpful for all

SMS text messaging can help everyone including the local governments and even the publicsafety agencies. The system will help them to connect to the public easily. Once again, according to Pew research, nine out of ten people in America alone own a mobile phone of some kind or the other which is about 92% of the entire population. 

This is the most significant reason why more and more industries are focusing on developing their mobile marketing strategies as the reach is undisputed and can result in developing more consumer mobile engagement levels. The publicsafety agencies as well as the local government too are making the most use of it. 

WEA or Wireless Emergency Alerts are the currently available official government communication system that is used for distributing urgent messages regarding publicsafety through different mobile channel. 

What is more promising is the fact that there are a lot of useful and effective additional tools that will help all including these government and public safety agencies to explore further possibilities of short codes usage and take mobile communication to the next higher level.

The use of common short codes that usually come in fiveto sixdigitslets the mobile users opt-in for receiving textmessage notifications from the specific agency. These short codes are accessible on almost all networks and mobile phones making them more effective and universal.

These short codes result in more and better engagement and awareness amongst the users than the traditional method of using the official websites which usually limits accessibility. Once a person opts-in to announcements and alerts, further promotion can be done through brochures, advertisements, and other collateral.

Another significant advantage of using this service is that it is aimed at those opt-in phone numbers that may not be easy to locate physically in the geographic area in which the mobile subscriber is currently located.