How To Make Sure Recipient Phone Numbers Are Reachable

In the world of SMS marketing, the ability to ensure that your messages are reaching the intended recipients is crucial for the success of your campaigns. Unreachable phone numbers can lead to wasted resources, reduced engagement, and lower return on investment. To mitigate these issues, it is essential to employ strategies and tools that help you detect and manage unreachable phone numbers effectively. This article will delve into the process of how to automatically detect phone numbers that are unreachable due to unreachable destinations, landlines, or users who have opted out of receiving text messages.

Understanding Unreachable Phone Numbers

Before diving into the detection process, it is important to understand the common reasons why phone numbers might be unreachable:

1. Unreachable Destinations: These occur when the phone number is no longer in service or is invalid. This can happen if the number has been disconnected, the user has changed their number, or if there was a typographical error during data entry.

2. Landlines: While landlines can receive calls, they cannot receive SMS messages. Sending SMS to landlines can result in failed delivery attempts.

3. Opted-Out Users: Some recipients may choose to opt out of receiving marketing messages. Respecting these opt-outs is not only a best practice but also a legal requirement in many regions.

Detecting Unreachable Phone Numbers

To ensure your SMS marketing platform maintains a high deliverability rate, implementing automated processes to detect and handle unreachable phone numbers is vital. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to achieve this:

1. Initial Data Scrubbing

Before sending out any messages, it is beneficial to perform an initial scrubbing of your contact list. This involves:

• Validating Number Formats: Ensure that all phone numbers conform to the standard format, including country and area codes.
• Removing Duplicates: Eliminate any duplicate entries to avoid sending multiple messages to the same number.

2. Carrier Lookup and Validation

Use a carrier lookup service to verify the status of each phone number. Carrier lookup tools provide valuable information, such as:

• Number Validity: Confirm whether the number is active and in service.
• Number Type: Identify if the number is a mobile number, landline, or VoIP. This helps in filtering out non-mobile numbers that cannot receive SMS.

3. Real-Time Delivery Status

When sending SMS messages, it is essential to track the delivery status in real-time. Most SMS gateways provide delivery reports that indicate whether the message was delivered, pending, or failed. Here’s how to leverage this information:

• Delivered Status: Indicates the message has successfully reached the recipient’s device.
• Failed Status: Indicates the message could not be delivered. Reasons for failure can include unreachable destinations or landlines.

For failed messages, it is important to categorize the failure reasons. Automated systems can use this data to update the status of phone numbers in your database.

4. Handling Opt-Outs

Compliance with regulations such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in the U.S. and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe requires honoring opt-out requests. Implement an automated system to:

• Process Opt-Out Requests: Provide an easy way for recipients to opt out, such as replying with “STOP” to your messages.
• Update Database: Immediately mark opted-out numbers as inactive in your database to prevent future messages from being sent to these numbers.

5. Regular Contact Database Maintenance

Maintaining a clean and updated contact database is essential for ongoing success. Regular maintenance activities should include:

• Periodic Re-Validation: Use carrier lookup services periodically to re-validate the status of phone numbers.
• Inactive Number Removal: Remove numbers that have been inactive for a specified period.

6. Feedback Loop Integration

Integrate feedback loops from your SMS gateway and carriers into your system. This enables continuous learning and improvement of your contact list quality. Key metrics to monitor include:

• Delivery Rates: Measure the percentage of messages successfully delivered.
• Bounce Rates: Track the rate of undelivered messages and investigate the reasons.

Benefits of Sheet Gurus SMS Self Cleaning Contact Lists

Automating the detection of unreachable phone numbers offers several benefits:

• Cost Efficiency: Reduces costs associated with sending messages to invalid or non-reachable numbers.
• Improved Engagement: Increases the likelihood of messages reaching active and interested recipients.
• Compliance: Ensures adherence to legal requirements by respecting opt-out requests.
• Data Accuracy: Maintains an accurate and up-to-date contact database.

Conclusion

Ensuring that recipient phone numbers are reachable is a critical aspect of any successful SMS marketing campaign. By implementing automated processes for detecting unreachable destinations, landlines, and opted-out users, you can significantly enhance your message deliverability and campaign effectiveness. Regular data maintenance, real-time delivery status tracking, and compliance with opt-out requests are key practices that will help you achieve higher engagement rates and a better return on investment. Investing in these processes not only improves your marketing outcomes but also builds trust and reliability with your audience. Sheet Gurus SMS simplifies all this tedious work by automating all of this via our Self Cleaning Contacts feature.