To get started, navigate to Marketing > SMS and select Create SMS Campaign.
Configure Page
Campaign Name: An internal name for identifying your SMS campaign.
Mobile Test Number: Add in your own number here to send yourself previews of SMS Campaigns. When you select “Verify Number” you will receive a message asking you to confirm your number by texting back “Yes”.
Default Customer Name: Choose a placeholder for customer name, in case you use the [[customer name]] merge tag and we don’t have one of your subscriber’s names.
Keyword: SMS Campaigns send based on the Keyword Lists you have been collecting. Choose the Keyword List you want to send your campaign to here.
Design Page
SMS Message: We pre-populate your SMS message with the [[store url]] merge tag. This is to make sure you include a URL in your SMS Campaign so we can track clicks and revenue.
Dynamic Tags: These are the dynamic merge tags available for SMS Campaigns. For some dynamic tags, we cannot predict the number of characters that will be used since it could vary from message to message so we have decided on a standard count.
[[customer_full_name]] - 20 characters
[[customer_first_name]] - 8 characters
[[customer_last_name]] - 10 character
[[store_address]] - Actual character count
[[store_name]] - Actual character count
[[store_url]] - Actual character count once turned into a trackable shortened link
[[coupon]] - Character count varies. If you add the [[coupon]] tag to your campaign, you also have to select the corresponding Unique Coupon Campaign. (Learn more on how to upload create Unique Coupon Campaigns here.) If you'd like to include a Static Coupon i.e.., HELLO10 or WELCOME5, you can type that in instead of selecting it from a Coupon Campaign.
Character Count Examples: “Hey [[customer_first_name]]! Come shop our new arrivals! Go to: [[store_url]]” comes to 73 characters total.
[[store_url]] https://shopbungalowhome.com/ is 29 characters, however all links are automatically turned into shortened trackable links. So the shortened version http://ss1.us/a/w7Um3xM7 is 24 characters.
[[customer_first_name]] using 8 characters with our standard character count
Rendered Sent Message for John: “Hey John! Come shop our new arrivals! Go to: http://ss1.us/a/w7Um3xM7” 69 Characters
Rendered Sent Message for Christina: “Hey Christina! Come shop our new arrivals! Go to: http://ss1.us/a/w7Um3xM7” 74 Characters
Note: Spaces between words are counted as one character per space
Brand Name Prefix: Choose to include your Keyword’s Brand Name at the beginning of your SMS Campaign to ensure your Keyword subscribers know exactly who you are.
Include Opt-Out Language: An optional setting, you can append your SMS Campaign with “Reply STOP to cancel” if you want to ensure that your subscribers know exactly how to unsubscribe for your campaign.
Send Preview: Send yourself a preview of your SMS Campaign
Review Page
The final step is the Review Page! This is your final look before scheduling or sending your campaign.
Included Lists: You will see the SMS Keyword List you selected here
Final Recipient Count: The final count of the SMS subscribers set to receive your campaign will populate here.
Once you're ready to send your campaign, you can schedule it in advance by clicking the blue calendar icon, or you can send right away by clicking send!
SMS Campaign Best Practices
Send SMART Campaigns - Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Timely
Many email campaigns are scheduled to hit the inbox at 6AM so they are the first email someone sees when they look at their inbox every morning. Can you imagine getting a promotional text message at 6AM? Try to keep your campaigns within reasonable business hours to avoid unnecessarily angering your recipients.
Frequency: Best practice is to send 2-4 texts a month. Saving your best, most actionable content for your SMS Campaigns.
Unique Coupon Codes: When generating a list of unique coupon codes, you can often choose how many characters your codes contain. In order to reserve characters in your SMS message, we recommend you keep your coupon strings on the shorter side.
Monthly SMS Send Cap: Based on the Monthly plan users have added on to their Base Package, the number of SMS messages left will be reflected at the top of the SMS Index page. Remember, this reflects sent messages from Campaigns.
Note about deleted Keywords: If you have an SMS Campaign Scheduled with a Keyword that you delete, that campaign will automatically be Canceled. Any SMS Campaigns that are in Draft will need to have a new Keyword selected in order to be sent
Interested in learning more about SMS Marketing? Check out the articles below:
Interested in adding SMS Marketing to your Springbot package? We're here to help! Reach out to our support team at help@springbot.com to get started!