iMessage for Business: How to Set It Up in 2024

The blue bubbles have arrived.

New in beta! You can now send messages via iMessage using Mobile Text Alerts.

Let’s walk through how iMessage works (and why you’d want to use it) via Mobile Text Alerts…

What is iMessage?

If you have an iPhone, you already use iMessage.

It’s the messaging option that allows users of Apple devices such as iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers to communicate with each other in a secure and feature-rich way.

Among other benefits, messages sent via iMessage allow for longer messages and larger image attachments, and the messages are encrypted.

(The messages also come through as infamous “blue bubbles,” as opposed to regular SMS that come through “green bubbles.”)

Why use iMessage for business?

There are a few reasons why you’d want to use iMessage for business via Mobile Text Alerts:

1. Your messages will come from a trusted Sender Identity that subscribers recognize, so your subscribers are more likely to open and read them
2. Your messages will be able to be delivered to Apple users around the world, so you can extend your reach
3. Your messages can include larger file sizes than MMS, so you have more flexibility in regards to the type of content you can send
4. Your messages will be sent over a secure network, so you and your subscribers can have confidence in the privacy of your interactions

Overall, sending through iMessage rather than SMS or MMS can lead to a better experience for your subscribers—and therefore, better engagement with your messages.

How iMessage for business works with Mobile Text Alerts

Sending iMessage via Mobile Text Alerts just takes a few steps.

Note that this feature is currently in beta, so there could be outstanding bugs, and it is not guaranteed to be available to all Mobile Text Alerts users. Any feedback from new users is highly appreciated.

Here’s how it works…

1. Contact us to get a registered “Sender Identity”—this is a unique identifier that will be the “sender” for your messages
   • The Sender Identity will display in the form of an email address
   • While the domain of the Sender Identity email address will be fixed by Mobile Text Alerts (for example, imsg.co), your brand name can be included at the beginning (i.e., BrandName@imsg.co).
   • You can have separate Sender Identities that correspond to the different phone numbers you have set up in your Mobile Text Alerts account
2. Receive opt-in consent from your subscribers to send them messages via iMessage
   • In order to do this, a subscriber must send a message from their iMessage-enabled device to your Sender Identity acknowledging that they are interested in receiving messages from you—this can be as simple as them saying, “Sign up”
   • To help you with the opt-in step, you can use our Deeplink option (with this initial beta release, the Deeplink feature is currently only available via API)
   • Deeplinking will allow you to create a “deeplink” that you can send out to your audience—when your audience clicks on the link, it will prefill an opt-in message to your Sender Identity, so the subscriber just has to hit “Send” to opt in
   • (With deeplinking, if the deeplink identifies that the phone does not support iMessage, it will fall back to a suitable redirect link that you can designate)
3. Once the subscriber is opted in, they will receive any future messages you send via iMessage rather than SMS/MMS
4. If an iMessage fails to send to your opted-in subscribers for whatever reason, the system will simply fallback to SMS/MMS, so it will not interrupt your subscribers' experience

Once a subscriber is opted in to receive iMessage from you, there is no difference for you in how you would normally process message sending in your Mobile Text Alerts dashboard or via API.

Whenever you send a message from your Mobile Text Alerts account, your "regular" recipients will receive the message via SMS/MMS, while those who have opted in to iMessage will receive the message through iMessage.

You can view a fuller explanation of the iMessage feature in our API documentation, along with the instructions for creating your deeplinks via API.

Example

Here’s an example of how this flow could look…

Jason wants to use iMessage for his business, Coach Jason Calls. So he contacts our support team and we get him set up with a Sender Identity, CoachJasonCalls@imsg.co.

Jason then needs to get his subscribers to opt in to receive iMessage notifications, so he creates a deeplink using the Mobile Text Alerts API. He sets it up so that if the subscriber’s devices are not iMessage-compatible, the link will instead send them to a page saying that their phone does not appear to support iMessage.

Next, Jason sends out a text message to his current subscriber base letting them know to click the link if they want to receive iMessages moving forward.

(Note: Our recommendation is for your deeplink to be sent from an existing Mobile Text Alerts number that you’ve previously used with your subscribers. That way, your subscribers will recognize the number, so you can have a better chance that your subscribers will click the link and opt in to your iMessages.)

Many of Jason’s subscribers opt to receive iMessages moving forward, so now any messages he sends to them go through iMessage rather than being sent as an SMS or MMS. And if any messages fail via iMessage, his subscribers are sent a “regular” SMS or MMS instead.

How to get started with iMessage for business

To get started, you just need to get an iMessage Sender Identity set up for your account.

Contact us and ask about getting an iMessage Sender Identity and we’ll get you squared away. (Include the name of your brand in your request so that we can get a Sender Identity set up that closely corresponds to your business.)

Note: we can’t guarantee access to everyone who requests a Sender Identity.