π’ HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT π’ Today we are proud to announce the release of a Text Message & SMS Marketing feature in Platformly π This was a highly requested feature… We made it happen! It's available for all members, at no extra cost (other than the costs of the 3rd party SMS service provider you connect, of course). In short, this new feature allows you to: Send SMS broadcasts to your contacts Send automated text messages Track SMS stats and replies …and much more! Here is a quick overview… Toggle 1. Connect to Twilio or Nexmo2. Draft & Save Text Messages3. Send SMS Campaigns to Your Contacts4. Send Automated Text Messages5. Send Text Messages at the Right Time6. Personalize Your Text Messages7. Easily Track Your SMS Stats8. Check Your SMS Replies9. Learn More About Your Contacts10. Other Cool FeaturesTutorial Videos 1. Connect to Twilio or Nexmo We integrated Twilio and Nexmo, which are both communications platforms that make phone calls and send text messages for you. You can connect to Twilio or Nexmo in the “Integrations” section, under the “SMS” tab. Once this is done, you can use the Text Message & SMS Marketing feature. 2. Draft & Save Text Messages You can draft and save text messages, from the brand-new “Save New SMS” section, so you can carefully prepare your SMS marketing campaigns before hitting send. This works in a similar way to our Email Marketing feature. If you are familiar with our email editor, then you will get quickly acquainted with our SMS editor. 3. Send SMS Campaigns to Your Contacts You can send text messages to an individual contact or a group of contacts. Simply select the contact(s) you want to send the text message to, click on the 3-dot icon and then on “Send SMS”. That's not it of course. You can also send text messages to a specific segment, or contacts with a specific tag, just like for emails. For example, you could decide to send a text message to your segment of customers that have purchased Product A and Product C, but not Product B… Are in Segments: Customers Have Tags: Product A, Product C Don't have Tags: Product B 4. Send Automated Text Messages SMS Marketing Automation is a must in a lot of industries these days… Well, you can now send a text message when a trigger occurs or a condition is met: You can also start an automation on “SMS Reply”: when someone replies to a specific text message “SMS Optin”: when someone opts in via a text message When you create a segment, you can tick the “SMS Optin” box and specify a keyword, so people can subscribe by texting the keyword to your number. For example, you could set the keyword to “OPTIN” and send a text message that says “Reply OPTIN to take advantage of this offer”. If they reply OPTIN, they are added to the segment, and receive further communications from you. Easy, right? 5. Send Text Messages at the Right Time You can now send text messages, as well as emails of course, at the time of your choice, in the timezone of your contacts. For example, if you decide to send a text message or email at 10am, all recipients will receive it at 10am, whether they are on the West Coast, Eastern Europe, Europe, Asia or Australia… That way, you are sure your contacts receive your communications during hours of the day, and not in the middle of the night. 6. Personalize Your Text Messages You can personalize your text messages, with the help of custom fields, as well as add hyperlinks, add emojis (only available with Twilio)… In short, everything you need to make your text messages look good and improve your open rate, click-through rate and ultimately conversion rate π₯³ You can use your own links, or tracking links created from your Platformly account, and then get access to detailed click reports. You can also choose whether you want to include the unsubscribe text in the same text message, or a separate text message, as shown below: 7. Easily Track Your SMS Stats Once you have sent an SMS broadcast, you will be able to see some interesting stats, including: Number of text messages sent Number of text messages received (%) Number of text messages failed (%) Number of clicks and click-through rate (%) Unsubscribe rate (%) Detailed reports by integration and channel 8. Check Your SMS Replies You can also check replies of course, by SMS or SMS broadcast, so you can see who replied to your text messages and continue communicating with them. This is a great way to further engage with your audience, to reply to their questions, offer them your help, provide them with support… 9. Learn More About Your Contacts From the CRM, you can see SMS stats, as well as check SMS activity, for each contact. You can also check SMS replies from there. 10. Other Cool Features Last but not least, you can: Re-send failed text messages Make your contacts opt in over a text message Include “phone” and “sms_number” fields in your forms Tutorial Videos How to Connect to Twilio & Nexmo How to Draft & Send a Text Message How to Check SMS Stats & Replies How to Create an SMS Automation Text messages reach people on the go. An SMS marketing campaign makes it easy to communicate with your contacts (to send them updates, reminders…) when they are out and about, so click here to log in and check out this new feature! Not a member yet? Sign up now… If you have questions, suggestions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you π Remember you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.