Choosing a political SMS marketing platform is one of the most critical decisions your political campaign can make. Your research has likely led you to two companies: Tatango and Opn Sesame. Both of these top SMS marketing platforms send political text messages. This article will help highlight their similarities and differences to help you choose when to use each one.
What Is Tatango?
Tatango is a political text messaging marketing platform that allows political organizations to send mass text messages to millions of subscribers instantly. Tatango is an application-to-person (A2P) SMS marketing company and has been an industry leader for more than 13 years. Top political campaigns choose to work with Tatango because it’s a preferred partner of the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA), offers messaging speeds multiple times faster than other A2P messaging platforms, and is a leader in security, reliability, and TCPA compliance.
A2P text message marketing is an effective way to increase donations, raise awareness and inform voters of key issues in real time. Text message marketing is a go-to option for political candidates because of its remarkable 99 percent open rates, which makes it one of the top strategies for political candidates to increase voter turnout and win elections.
What Is Opn Sesame?
Opn Sesame is another popular political text message marketing platform. Unlike Tatango, which specializes in A2P messaging, Opn Sesame specializes in peer-to-peer (P2P) text messaging and allows political organizations to communicate with individual supporters through individual texts rather than through mass text messaging like Tatango.
Many political organizations use Opn Sesame to send individual text messages to their constituents and volunteers. Although Opn Sesame integrates easily into an overall SMS marketing strategy, an individual must manually send text messages to subscribers one by one instead of automatically sending mass text messages all at once to multiple recipients.
P2P and A2P strategies are both useful in political campaigns. Usually, political campaigns rely on A2P platforms like Tatango to send text messages to the masses in one step, whereas P2P platforms like Opn Sesame are ideal for adding a personal touch or generating more support from the ground up.
How Are Tatango and Opn Sesame Different?
We’ve compiled a list of differences and similarities between Tatango and Opn Sesame.
P2P Texting vs. A2P Texting
Tatango is an A2P platform, which means messages go out to millions of subscribers from an automated service. Opn Sesame is a P2P platform, which means messages go out from one individual to another.
Fundraising Integration
With Tatango it’s possible to integrate fundraising links within text messages. Political campaigns can use fundraising tools like ActBlue, WinRed, EveryAction, and NGP VAN, making it easy for subscribers to donate to your campaigns directly from your text messages.
Text Messaging Reach and Messaging Speed
One of the main differences between Tatango and Opn Sesame is the difference in the number of people each platform can reach and how quickly it can reach them.
Candidates often need to share important information about their campaigns like policy positions, registration deadlines, and upcoming event locations. Breaking news can alter the course of political campaigns. When that happens, messaging speed is the most important factor in maintaining control of the narrative. Tatango sends 6 million texts per hour, which helps candidates reach constituents as quickly as possible when the timing is critical.
Many of Tatango’s political clients have millions of subscribers. A2P platforms like Tatango make it easy for political campaigns to reach millions of supporters with a single text message. Texting that many people one by one can be very time consuming.
Another advantage with Tatango is the ability to group subscribers by time zone and schedule messages at peak engagement times. The Tatango platform expertly handles bulk text messages for targeted locations. This feature ensures political clients can remain conscientious and courteous when communicating with voters. For example, voters in California are in an entirely different time zone than those in New York. A2P platforms like Tatango make it easy to schedule mass messages and remain mindful of different schedules across the country.
Opn Sesame’s platform is beneficial for sending more personable, less urgent messages to volunteers and key donors.
SMS Short Codes and SMS Keywords
Opn Sesame uses long codes. Long codes are 10-digit phone numbers, much like the phone numbers we use to communicate with our family and friends. These long codes create a more personal impression when individuals receive messages from campaign volunteers.
Tatango uses dedicated short codes, which are five- or six-digit phone numbers. Political groups and organizations use dedicated short codes because, with fewer numbers, they’re easier to remember. An advantage of using short codes for political campaigns how easy they are for voters to recall when they see them on banners with a brief call to action like, “Text OHIO to 56789.” Short code numbers increase the likelihood that current and potential constituents will spread your messages and increase your subscriber list.
Another great advantage of using short codes is the ability to use captivating keywords. Many political SMS marketing professionals use keywords that relate to specific campaigns. For example, a campaign could encourage voters in Ohio to “Text OHIO to 12345” to keep constituents informed of upcoming events in their state. It also helps clients keep track of where new subscribers from each campaign are coming from (the keyword OHIO).
SMS Campaign Scale
If you’re in the beginning stages of growing your subscriber list for your political campaign, Opn Sesame’s P2P platform is a great choice. Grassroots campaigns can easily manage their growing subscriber lists and send more personalized messages to their constitutes.
As your following grows, working with an A2P text messaging platform like Tatango will simplify the process of reaching thousands and even millions of followers. Tatango makes it easy for political campaigns to send mass text messages to subscribers instead of sending individual messages one at a time to each subscriber.
Tatango can handle your political campaign’s text messaging needs at any stage and size. You won’t have to transition to a larger platform as your subscriber list grows. We’ve worked with several high-profile political clients and campaigns. You can begin your campaign on Tatango’s platform without worrying about moving millions of subscribers to another platform in the future because our SMS experts can work with you to increase the number of constituents, donors, and voters on your subscriber list quickly.
Security of Text Messaging Campaigns
Tatango knows that security for political campaigns is a top priority. We’ve made text messaging security one of our core principles. Our security measures include automated logout, two-factor authentication, and secure sending with passwords to make certain millions of followers receive the messages intended for them.
Tatango stays up to date on the text message marketing industry laws, rules, and regulations. We strive to help clients maintain TCPA compliance to ensure political campaigns steer clear of potential lawsuits for sending unwanted political text messages. Our security standards make us the top option against other A2P text messaging platform providers.
Partner with Tatango for Political SMS Marketing
Tatango wants to support your mass political text messaging needs on the A2P messaging side. Our team of political text messaging experts is ready to guide you. And with Tatango, rest assured our platform is the fastest, most reliable, and secure in the industry.
