Introduction
Although opt-in is a best practice in other digital media, it is a requirement for text messaging interactions. This places a premium on having effective calls to action to convince customers to actively participate in mobile dialogues. As the foundation of any successful mobile marketing campaign, Subscription List has many powerful, flexible capabilities designed to ensure your first impression is a good one.
Step-by-Step
(1) To create a Subscription Campaign, select Create New Campaign from the left navigation panel on the product dashboard. You will then be taken to a screen (below) presenting a list of text message campaigns available. In this instance, you click on the Create button alongside Subscription.
(2) The New Subscription Campaign homepage is where you establish the parameters of your campaign.
The first step is providing Basic Information about the campaign:
- Select a shared shortcode to use. A shortcode is a short form mobile phone number which is used along with a keyword to enable customers to subscribe to your list.
- Select a Start Date and Time for your campaign.
(3) Next, provide a description of your campaign for reference only, and enter a Keyword that your Subscribers will send to your chosen shortcode to join your list. This Keyword must be unique from others associated with the shortcode you selected previously – the system is smart enough to tell you. There is a many to one relationship between keywords and shared shortcodes.
(4) Now you define the messages and flow associated with your Subscription Campaign.
- Choose how many messages you plan to send subscribers per week, day, month or year, following the opt-in process. We recommend no more than three messages per week.
- Those who text your keyword to the chosen shortcode will be greeted by a system generated “Welcome” message. You may optionally set an additional “Initial Promotional Message” and add tags which can include the time and date of message delivery along with the keyword in each message sent.
(5) You similarly define the message you wish subscribers to receive when texting your keyword following the opt-in step. You may add a tag for the Keyword to be included in each message sent to subscribers.
(6) Optionally select a default time zone for your campaign. This is useful if you wish to broadcast a message at the same time of day regardless of time zone. Select the Create button.
(7) That’s it! Your Subscription Campaign is now active.
You will arrive at a new screen summarizing details of your campaign, offering real time charts of subscriber opt in/out activity and a flow illustrating the messages that comprise the campaign.
(8) Here you have additional options including:
- Adding an Age Verification step to your message flow, useful when products associated with your business are age restricted, such as alcohol or tobacco.
- Broadcast Message allows you to send a message on demand to your subscribers.
- View Scheduled/Past Messages shows campaign message history.
- Create Web Subscription Form allows you to generate code to insert on your website which will feed your opt-in subscriber list.
- View and Add/Remove Subscribers allows you to view subscribers, their attributes and alter the list by removing and adding names as needed.
- Upload and Export Subscribers provides facilities for taking opted in customers from other sources and bringing them into the system, while enabling data export from the system in comma delimited form.
- You can also duplicate/rename the campaign if you wish to re-use its attributes or delete it from the system as well.
