To start, campaigns must be registered with the necessary federal, state, tribal, and/or local election officials. Political campaigns should be ready to provide proof of their registration as part of the process to set up their text messaging campaign.
Campaigns should evaluate what kind of text messages they want to send and seek to register their campaign with the relevant registry. Registering your campaign requires providing verifiable information about your organization and intentions around messaging consumers.
To start, campaigns can choose from a variety of options to set up their messaging in a competitive marketplace including:
Short Code Registry
Allows message senders to lease short codes, which are five-or-six digit codes that can be used by campaigns to engage with consumers.
The Campaign Registry
Registers 10-digit long codes (10DLC), or what look like traditional 10-digit phone numbers, to brands and campaigns.
Many brands and campaigns choose to work with a campaign service provider (CSP) to develop and send their text messages and/or a direct connect aggregator (DCA) to facilitate the connection with wireless providers so they can smoothly send text messages. There are many companies that specialize in supporting political messaging given its potential for enhanced voter engagement. Campaigns have a wide variety of resources to choose from when it comes to reaching consumers.