If you stay up-to-date on marketing regulations, then you’ve probably seen some news about something called “10DLC” floating around the internet.
In fact, our founder, Ryan Dossey, just posted about it the other day on Facebook…
(You can view his full post over here)
But what is 10DLC, how does it impact your business, and what should you do about it?
That’s what we’re going to talk about.
What is 10DLC?
10DLC stands for “10 digit long code” and according to SlickText, it’s “a standard 10-digit phone number that supports the high volume messaging throughput required for business use cases.”
Essentially, it’s a new standard by which phone carriers — so far, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint — plan to regulate and streamline text message marketing (also known as A2P, which stands for application-to-person messaging).
The alleged benefit of this change is that “10DLCs should be capable of sending around 100,000 text messages per month with a send rate of between 5 and 15 text messages per second. Additionally, their costs per month are expected to be on par with standard long codes which are normally between $1 and $2.”
In reality, 10DLC is a way for carriers to dip their toes into the revenue generated through text message marketing — they’ll now have a business model for charging for A2P messaging.
One of the biggest downsides to 10DLC is that businesses must now register and be approved by carriers for sending A2P text messages… and the carrier will decide which businesses get to use 10DLC and how many people they’ll be allowed to reach.
Because of this, I and Ryan have recently seen text message deliverability drop significantly for many investors.
And it’s unlikely that that trend will improve, especially since text message marketing for real estate investors is almost entirely cold. To some degree, 10DLC was intended to support businesses that send mass texts to their customers… but also to reduce the amount of cold text messaging that consumers receive.
Much like cold calling restrictions, 10DLC is a step toward regulating A2P messaging.
Perhaps that’s not a bad thing in and of itself… but for real estate investors who depend on text message marketing, it’ll require dependence on other marketing tactics.
(Here’s Twilio’s guide to registering for 10DLC in case you’re interested)
Regardless — now that you have a basic understanding of how 10DLC works — let’s talk about what you should do about it.
What Should Real Estate Investors Do About It?
Let us be clear.
We’re not telling you to stop text messaging or cold calling your prospects. We think you should do whatever works for your business.
But we also want real estate investors to be realistic about what the future is going to require of them and their businesses. It’s very possible that you’ll see your text message deliverability plummet in the next month or so (if you haven’t already). And it’s equally possible that you’ll have to look beyond text message marketing to generate leads.
As always, you’ll need to stay flexible.
The good news is, there are still a lot of tried-and-true marketing strategies at your fingertips.
You can run advertisements, send direct mail, optimize your website’s SEO, and even door-knock.
But in our experience, the most consistent avenue for finding motivated sellers is (by far) direct mail. Nothing gets the phone ringing quite like sending out a few thousand mailers to the following lists…
- Absentee owners.
- Out-of-state landlords.
- People who own homes free-and-clear.
- Foreclosures (Both pre- and current)
- Properties with liens.
- Homeowners in probate.
If your business is taking a hit from the advent of 10DLC, it’s a great time to improve your direct mailing game — drive for dollars to find hidden opportunities, create good data management processes, follow-up with your leads a lot, and send hand-written mailers that stand out from your competition.
It’s on that last point that our sister company, Ballpoint Marketing, can help. We mass-produce eye-catching, hand-written (i.e. robot-written with real pen & ink) letters that achieve record-high response rates.
Here’s just one testimonial we’ve received from a happy customer…
We’re not saying that hand-written mailers will solve all of your business woes, but it’ll certainly help you generate more leads with the same amount of marketing dollars (we’ve seen it work in every type of market), so it’s worth a shot.
You can view Ballpoint Marketing’s catalog over here.
Final Thoughts
As a business owner and entrepreneur, it’s your job to adapt to the way things are rather than fighting an uphill battle.
Regardless of your opinion of Jeff Bezos, he made a good point when he said the following:
“What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.”
We’ve explained the repercussions of 10DLC to you and given you some ideas… but now it’s time for action.
What are YOU going to do about the advent of 10DLC?
Let us know in the comments!