Mass and group texts might sound like the same thing—and for the average user, the difference between them will be negligible. Both have specific roles that they serve, and there’s no lack of edge cases where one could spell disaster when applied to the wrong situation.
For a business owner, using the wrong format could spell disaster for your marketing campaign. But knowing the difference can help give you a boost above the competition. Here’s everything you need to know about mass and group texts and how you can leverage these two types of messages to your benefit.
What Are Group Messages?
Chances are that even if you’ve never started a group text thread that you’ve been involved in your fair share of them. Group texts are what happen when you create a text exchange with two or more people. There’s no need for specialized software or skills to create a group message. Simply list all of the people you want in your group and send your message. Group messages are an effective way of communicating with friends, family, and colleagues, but they don’t scale well to the needs of mass marketing.
That’s because the number of members that can be included in a group message is limited, and the rules behind them can vary from one provider to another. In most instances, a group message can have anywhere between 10 to 30 members. But group texts take the form of MMS messages, and not all providers have MMS messages integrated perfectly. It’s not at all uncommon to see providers splinter a single group message into a collection of separate conversations.
The limitations of MMS can become an issue when scaling up as well. You’re charged for every message you spend to each recipient. While the costs tend to be small, they can quickly add up when working with a larger list of customer phone numbers.
Read More: Unique Benefits Of Bulk SMS Services That Everyone Should Know
What Are Mass Messages?
Mass messages are far better scaled for the demands of marketing campaigns, but they come with a higher and more complicated cost for entry.
A message sent out using mass texts can hypothetically reach a limitless number of people with a single message, and you don’t have to worry about the complications that arise from a group message splitting off into different threads. Mass messages give you a lot more control over the conversation, and it prevents your marketing message from getting diluted by crosstalk from the people involved in the messaging group.
But unlike traditional group messages, mass texts require specialized software to function. In other words, they aren’t built into the infrastructure of most phones.
Fortunately, there’s a significant variety of providers out there who can host your mass messaging campaigns. That said, the scale and efficacy of a particular mass messaging system can vary from provider to provider. Since all of these systems are proprietary, the maximum number of participants and the features available are different from one provider to another.
Finding the Right Mass Messaging Service
If you want to make use of mass messaging, you’re going to need a third party service. But if you’re going to make use of mass messaging, the other features offered by these types of services are just as critical. Take the time to consider both the scale and the budget of your marketing campaign before you sign up with any one provider.
A good platform will offer full coverage for your marketing campaign and supplement the basics of a mass messaging platform with other notable advantages like data analysis and the ability to write and schedule your mass messages ahead of time. The battle of mass text vs group text really comes down to what you need.
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