SMS marketing examples
Text messaging has become increasingly more important when it comes to communicating with your customers but isn't setting up such a system complicated, expensive, and hard to do? No, no, and no. In this video, I'm going to show you how easy it is to set up your own text messaging service for your business. So let's dive in.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And we're taking a look at a service called, TextMagic an incredibly easy way so that you don't have to be bogged down with all the complications of setting up a text messaging or SMS service. So, first off, what are some examples
for when you might want to use a service like this? Well, really the list is endless. Maybe you want to send out a reminder of an upcoming meeting or to make sure that they arrive on time for your appointment. Maybe you want to send out an announcement when it comes to a sale, or a discount or a special piece of news
that is happening with your business or maybe you want to send up some automated reminders so that they can follow up with you at a certain period after a point in time or an autoresponder, so that when they text message you they get a professional text message back even if you can't respond immediately.
How to send a text message with TextMagic
So here we are within the TextMagic interface. And we're going to get into some of these other areas and some of the other features here of TextMagic but let's start with the basics and that's just sending a text message. TextMagic keeps it very, very simple.
So first of all, we can either enter in the specific number but in many cases, you'll want to import a contact list. Now whenever you're dealing with SMS and text messaging you want to make sure that you have the permission to send them text messages.
So perhaps this is something you're going to want to include in your intake form or maybe a box that they check on your website just to make sure that you can send them text messages. But in this case, I'm just going to click my contacts here and let's select this recipient here as our demonstration.
Next, we can choose the, from phone number for where this text will be sent from. Now the great thing is is that TextMagic will set you up with a default number. And it really doesn't matter where you live in the world it match that number to whom you are sending it to.
So for example, in this case I'm going to be sending it to a Canadian mobile number. Therefore it's going to be coming from a Canadian number. A number which is actually going to be localized to this area code, so that this person when it receives my text message can feel com confident that it's not from someone out of country or from the other side of the world. They can be a little more comforted
that it's coming from a local address. Of course, last but not least we need to include our message. So here, we can type or copy and paste anything that we want into this area but in many cases, you may want to include a template. So in this case, I'm going to select, insert template.
It's going to bring up all of the templates that I've already created or I can create a new one on the fly. One of the nice things that you'll notice here is that yes, you can insert tag. So for example, if I want to address my customers by both first and last name or maybe just their first name I can do so here as well.
In this case, I'm going to pick a fairly simple one. I'm going to pretend that I'm an auto repair shop and I'm just letting this customer know that your car is ready to be picked up. So I'm going to insert that there. Now at the bottom of the message
it is going to keep track of your character count. There is a maximum of 918 characters per message but you'll also be notified of the cost in advance. It's going to cost me 4 cents per text message.
So I want to keep that in mind in terms of how many people I'm messaging and what types of things I'm using this service for. But the great thing is, is that I know this in advance. So in this case, I can either schedule this message for some time in the future.
This is great when it comes to things such as promotions. I can set this up a week in advance and then send it out at a specific time or can preview the message.
If I select preview it's basically just going to give me the different details in terms of here is the number it's coming from which is a local area code based on where I'm sending it to.
Here is what the message content is and then some of the other things that we saw on the previous page. All I need to do at this step, is hit send and now that message has been sent to this recipient.
Of course, I've got a full log of what is happening here. I can also view a complete history of all the messages which I've sent. I can dive into any of them again perhaps if I want to repurpose them or send them again some time in the future. But let's take a look at some of the other features
View and reply to text messages online
right here within TextMagic. One of the most helpful ones is the actual live chat menu here. And yes, it actually looks very much like what you would experience on your mobile phone.
What's so helpful here is that I can manage conversations from the convenience of my desktop computer. I don't have to go back to my phone and manage all of these responses. I can do it right here.
And in fact, you never even have to have your actual phone or cell number involved at all. So you're not distracted by incoming messages. You can deal with them all right here within the TextMagic interface.
So for example, here is that John Doe test account in which we just sent this reminder about their car being ready. And they've responded right away, saying "Great. I should be there in about 20 minutes." At this point, if I want to continue the conversation or maybe just send a confirmation that I received their message I can say, "Thanks. We will see you soon." Something like that.
And all I have to do is hit send and that message is sent directly to them. So I can manage all of those conversations here. And on the left hand side very much like your texting experience on your mobile phone you can have all of those messages listed here.
So you can manage them and respond to them as they come in.
Managing and importing contacts
Under the contacts menu we can create as many different groups as we like. So whether that's for a specific promotion whether that's a specific customer type
we can create a number of groups so that we are only contacting those whom we want to. And TextMagic makes it super easy for us to import that information
whether that's coming from a CRM tool or whether that's just a spreadsheet where you would like to include those numbers so you can start communicating with those customers. But perhaps one of the most powerful features
Create an auto-responder for incoming texts
of using a text messaging service is to set up an autoresponder to make sure that your customers feel heard or that you send them information relevant to their request. Here on the left hand side I'm going to click on services and come down to automation rules.
And we're going to set up a new rule so that if someone sends me a message with a particular keyword I can send them specific information back.
And we're going to continue with this auto repair shop example. So in this case, I'm going to call this an oil change request. Meaning that if someone text messages me
with the word oil in it I want to send them something back that maybe helps them along the way. So I'm going to call this an oil change request. Here, I can edit the numbers. Here again, is that default number which is going to be localized for my specific area.
And down here, all I need to do is add one or more keywords. So in this case, I'm going to say, oil. I'm going to say that if they mention oil in that message I want to respond with some information about an oil change. And then I can choose
if I want to identify that keyword either at the beginning of the text or anywhere in the text. In my case, I'm going to say anywhere in the text and then select continue. So now I can decide what type of auto response do I want it to be.
And yes, TextMagic gives us a variety of different choices. I'm going to stay with a text message. As for the body of the message I'm going to paste in some text, in which I created earlier.
It says, "Thank you for contacting our shop. If you are needing an oil change, come right on in there is no need to make an appointment. For all other car needs please reply to this message." It's important when you're sending an autoresponder with text messaging that you may not know the full extent of their message. Remember, we're just looking for that keyword, oil.
And we're assuming because of our business experience that they are asking about an oil change but of course we're inviting them to keep that conversation going if need be. Now we still have other options available to us here including inserting a template or attaching a file. This can be very helpful if there's a specific maybe document or picture, or something else
that you would like to include. And don't forget, you can include links within your text messages as well. And then below the message we want to pay special attention to this checkbox.
Trigger rule only once to new and unique numbers. Now in my example, I'm going to keep this checked. Why, because if this person receives this auto response message and then they reply with the word, oil again I don't want them to receive this message again.
I'm going to assume that they are talking about something else. So in many cases, you may want to keep this checked and only use this type of auto response for new or unique numbers. Under additional settings, we can take some further actions. So for example, I'm going to add a new action here
and I'm going to add them to my customer list because I want to collect that information. But we've got some other valuable pieces of information in which we can create as well including removing contacts from a particular list or removing a contact from all of your list.
Now by default, TextMagic already has built in in the ability to look for things such as, stop as the first word within a message which will automatically remove them from your list. But of course, you can edit that. If you want to add other words or if you want to add some other types of auto responses
maybe where you're asking them yes or no questions and they can be added or they can be sent further messages based on their responses. Then down below, we can also choose if we want to always run this rule or if we only want to run it on selected hours.
Now, in my case, I'm going to keep it as an always run. But maybe you want to tell them that listen, we're sorry that we can't respond to your message right now
we're currently dealing with other customers but you wouldn't want to send a message like that at three in the morning, or at least unlikely. Next, let it's hit continue and get to our finish point here which is basically a review screen just telling us what is going to be happening what that keyword is, and what that message is.
And now I'm going to select, finish and that rule is now in play so that the next time that someone sends me a message with the term, oil in it they're going to receive that professional response from me.
And if you want to see the value and the success rate of your messages TextMagic has an excellent reporting and dashboard system.
So you can see your delivery rate for example and to see how many of your customers are actually replying to your messages. If you'd like to start using TextMagic for free or to learn more be sure to click the link in the description below.
And if you enjoyed this app review and tutorial you'll love the other videos right here on the Simpletivity channel. Remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.
