We attempted a short code text campaign using Tatango recently however it did not have much success. Perhaps we did not put enough advertising into it, but I personally think it's because customers are not interested in this sort of text messaging and potentially being subjected to sms spam which is far more undesirable than email spam.
We have however had tremendous success with the standard 2 way conversational text messaging! It has sort of naturally progressed from salespeople using their cell phones to using google voice and then to using our CRM's texting feature. But then of course the government had to go and change everything and as many know on October 16th the TCPA released the new text messaging guidelines.
Our legal department then determined that our CRM's texting feature was not fully compliant with the new guidelines. I'm sure our legal department was erring on the side of caution but we took the decision with stride and decided to develop an in-house cloud based web app system using Twilio's API. What's neat is it automatically sends out an opt-in text anytime a lead is filled out on our website and the customer checked a box agreeing to our mobile sms policy. Our sales reps and bdc reps can then text back and forth with the customer inside this program. The conversation appears much as it would on a cell phone with a threaded bubble view. All text messages are synchronized into our CRM's note section which makes the system almost seamless. It is also of course fully compliant with opt-outs and opt-ins and has all the fancy features of text message templates, scheduled text messages, workplan views of each salesperson's prospects, etc. Non website-lead customers can also opt-in at our dealership via a text messaging opt-in web form on their own device or on one of our store's ipads.
Although the government decided to switch things up a little bit, it has turned into a positive for us as we now have a system that is far easier to use and the results can clearly be seen through our increased appointment set and show rates. Customers seem to enjoy the experience and our employees have embraced it which is always key to any system's success.
If a refresher out there is not currently utilizing 2 way text messaging I highly encourage you to look into implementing it! Customers who don't answer the phone often reply instantly to a text message. People have phones in their pocket all day and it is far easier to reach someone via text than it is via email. You'll get great measurable results and sales from this type of text messaging but as Jeff mentioned above don't expect near the same from short code campaigns.
