Learn all about segments in this step-by-step help center article.

Video transcript

Hi there, and welcome to SimpleTexting Academy. 

In this video, we’re going to show you how to segment your audience. A segment is a group of contacts who have something in common with each other. Segments are useful if you want to send highly targeted messages.

Let’s get started creating your first segment.

Adding a new segment

Go to the Contacts panel, then choose Segments.

Click Add segment or New Segment. You can choose to create a segment within a specific list or among all of your contacts with this toggle.

Let’s create a segment among all of our contacts. This is where you select segment criteria.

In other words, what data does your group have in common? Let’s say we want to send a message to just our contacts who are in Beverly Hills.

Adding criteria

Click Add criteria. Now choose the zip code 90210. Here you’ll see all of our contacts who are in the zip code 90210, if you have any.

Click Save segment and give it a name. We’ll say Beverly Hills.

There you go. You’ve created a new segment!

If you ever need to see what segments you’ve created, go to Contacts, then Segments.

You can use these in your campaigns or in your autoresponders. If you create an autoresponder for a segment, every new contact who meets the segment criteria will automatically receive your message.

How to use segments

Segments are an extremely powerful tool for making your messages more relevant. Consider creating segments based on click behavior. birthday month, opt-in date, opt-in source such as keyword or webform, or, even better, create unique segments based on your custom fields.

If you ever need help segmenting your list, our support team is available seven days a week. 

The post How to segment your list appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Learn all about data collection in this step-by-step help center article.

Video transcript

Hi there, and welcome to SimpleTexting Academy! Today, we’re going to show you how to collect information from your subscribers using our data collection feature.

Create a keyword

Log in to your SimpleTexting dashboard, and click “apps”. Then click data collection.
If you haven’t created a keyword yet, go ahead and make one. For this example, we’ll pretend we’re a coffee shop, and use the keyword “FreshCoffee”.

Click “create”, then click “add data collection”.

Creating data collection fields

Here you’ll see all the fields you can collect. You can add additional fields too, but, let’s go over that in another video. Let’s collect our subscribers first names for now.

We’ll make ours ask a little friendlier. “What’s your first name?”

You know what? Let’s collect the emails while we’re at it. “Please reply with your email so that we may send you special deals.”

Click save.

Now, when someone texts in your keyword, they’ll receive a text asking for the info you’d like. You can use their response to personalize your texts in the future.

That’s it for now, thanks for watching!

The post How to collect info from subscribers using texts appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Learn all about custom fields in this step-by-step help center article.

Video transcript

Hi there, and welcome to SimpleTexting Academy.

Today we’re going to show you how to personalize your text using custom fields.

First, go to your Contacts panel, then choose Custom fields.

Here you’ll see several fields which we include by default, such as first name, last name, and email.

But what if you want to add a field that’s specific to your business?

Creating custom fields

Click on the type of field you want to add at the top. For example, let’s say we want to include a field for a specific department. 

We’ll click text, and type out “Department Name.”

In order to populate these fields with information, you’ll need to either use our data collection tool, import the info, or add it in manually.

Insert fields into messages

Let’s put our custom field to use in an actual message. Go to Campaigns and click New. 

Let’s imagine we’re sending out an announcement about an employee get-together. 

Give your campaign a name for reference. Let’s call this one “Employee get-together.”

We’ll type out our message: 

“Hi there.” Okay, here we’ll include the contact’s first name. Click on the custom field button and choose Contact first name. 

“Get together for the”–here, let’s include the department name field that we created. Click the custom field button again and then choose Department Name. 

“Department is Friday, January 4 at 7 p.m. Hope to see you there.”

Sending your customized message

Now when you send out a campaign with custom fields, the fields will be replaced with the actual information.

So, this text may read something like, “Hi there Joe, our get-together for the marketing department is Friday, January 4 at 7 p.m. Hope to see you there.”

Just choose the list you want to send your message to, then click Next.

You can either schedule your campaign for later or send it immediately, and you’re done.

Now you know how to send mass texts while giving each one a personalized touch.

The post Personalize messages using custom fields appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Learn all about web forms in this step-by-step help center article.

Video transcript

Welcome to Simple Texting Academy. Today we’re going to walk through the process of creating and adding a web signup form to your website. To start, click apps on the left-hand side of your screen. From there, select web signup forms.

Customize your form

Click “Create signup form” or “New form.” If you’ve already created a form, you’ll select “Add form” instead.

Now give the form a name. Since we’re just doing a test run, we’ll call this one “Test.” Choose whether to automatically push contacts that use the form into a list, then specify the list. Or, prompt your contacts to choose which list they want to join.

Now, build out the fields you want on your form.

Phone numbers are required, but you can also add fields like:

• Contact first name
• Contact last name
• Contact email
• Note
• Birthday

You can also choose, which fields to mark required.

Once you’ve done that, write your web signup form confirmation message. Your contacts will see this message once they complete and submit your signup form.

Add form to your website

Choose “Create form,” and just like that, your form is ready. To add the form to your website, click “Get code. Copy and paste the code to add it to your website.

You can insert this code to your website as a link, iframe, or html that can be styled to match your website. And that’s it.

The post How to add a sign-up form to your website appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Learn all about sending MMS messages in this step-by-step help center article.

Video Transcript

Hi there, and welcome to SimpleTexting Academy! Today we’re going to go over how to attach photos to your messages using MMS.

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. Here’s how it works.

Writing an MMS Message

Click on “new campaign” on the left-hand panel. For this example, let’s pretend we’re an animal shelter that needs to find a temporary foster parent for a new kitten.

Give your campaign a name. This is just for your reference. Your contacts won’t see this.

Click MMS, and give your message a subject. Your contacts will see this.

Now let’s write out our message.

“We have a new kitten that needs a temporary home. Are you available to foster Whiskers for a week?”

Attach Media

Beautiful, time to attach our photo. Click media. If you already have a link to the photo, paste it here. Or you can select an image from your computer by clicking the folder icon. As you can see, I already have an adorable photo of Whiskers ready to go.

Wait for the image to load, then insert it. In this preview section, you’ll see how the photo may appear on your contact’s device.

Some devices may not support MMS. Those contacts will receive an SMS fallback message with a link to the photo instead. Let’s go ahead and edit our fallback message.

Now select the list you want to send your MMS message to. We’ll select our “Volunteers” list. You can either schedule your message for later, or click “send now”. Done!

File Size

MMS isn’t limited to photos alone. You can use it to send audio, video, GIFs, or even PDFs.

A few notes about file size. You can upload a .jpeg or .png that’s up to 10 megabytes, and we’ll resize it for delivery. However, if you’re attaching an audio file, video, PDF, or any other type of file type that can’t be resized, it needs to be limited to 1 megabyte.

When you send an MMS message, it’s worth three credits. An SMS message is worth one credit.

Note: MMS max file upload sizes for Sinch numbers will be:

• PDF – 1 MB
• PNG, JPG, JPEG, MP3, MP4, VCF, and GIF (static) – 740 KB
• GIF animated – 600 KB.

If you’re uploading multiple files in the MMS attachment, the size limit is the sum of the file sizes. You can upload up to five files.

Want to upload an image that exceeds the max file size? SimpleTexting has a handy built-in feature that shrinks images so that they meet provider gateway limitations. So, if the image size exceeds 740KB, you can still try to upload it.

And that’s all you need to know to get started with MMS. Thanks for watching! We’re excited to see how you make your campaigns more engaging by attaching multimedia content.

The post How to Attach Photos to Messages Using MMS appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Learn all about triggers in this step-by-step help center article.

Video transcript

Hi there, and welcome to SimpleTexting Academy! Today let’s go over how to use triggers. Triggers are subkeywords that let you respond to common requests and inquiries. These are super easy to set up. Let’s do one together!

Create a keyword

First, create a keyword or edit an existing one. For this example, we’ll imagine we’re a restaurant with the keyword LetsEat. We already have a customer list so we’ll go ahead and assign the keyword to it.

Make sure to tell your customers about your triggers in your auto-confirmation message:

“Thanks for joining our list. For restaurant hours reply HOURS. If you’d like to see our menu reply MENU.”

Okay, now comes the fun part. Add the triggers.

Add triggers

Click add trigger. Our first trigger is hours. Below the trigger, we’ll type information about our hours. Easy enough.

Click add trigger again. Now we’ll create a trigger that sends a link to our menu. Type out the menu. Add the trigger message with a link to the menu. This is a great opportunity to use our URL shortener. This way we’ll be able to track who clicks on the menu and send targeted messages later on. But let’s talk more about that in another video.

Add triggers within triggers

Here’s an advanced tip for you. You can even include triggers inside of other triggers. For example, here we’ll say reply catering for our catering menu.

Now we’ll add a trigger for catering and include a link in the message that goes to the catering menu. Let’s use the URL shortener again. Okay, click save.

Review your triggers

Here you can see all the triggers associated with a keyword. Now, after someone texts in your keyword, they can text in a trigger and automatically receive your pre-written message.

Go ahead and try it out for yourself. Use triggers to get back to your customers quickly with the information they request the most. Thanks for watching!

The post How to reply to common questions with triggers appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

The topics covered include Keywords, Adding Contacts, Sending Campaigns, the Inbox, and a preview of our apps section. If you need more information on any of the steps covered, please visit our Help Center.

What you’ll learn in this demo

Want to see what SimpleTexting is like under the hood? Test drive our SMS platform by watching the demo video above, and then try it out yourself with our free 14-day trial.

In this demo, you’ll learn how to:

Create keywords

If you’re looking for a way to gain new subscribers, communicate more effectively, or grow your business, you’re in the right place. SimpleTexting provides a number of tools that you can use to build your subscriber lists, and the most popular is keywords.

When someone texts the customized keyword to your number, they’ll automatically be added to the contact list that you choose. This means you can send them targeted, personalized texts later. And by the way, you can create an unlimited number of keywords with all of our paid plans.

Auto-confirmation message

When someone agrees to join your contact list, they’ll receive an auto-confirmation message. This is where you can welcome new contacts, provide more information about your brand, or even an incentive for signing up. You could also include a link to your website here. Use our fancy built-in link shortener to save some characters too.

Compliance message

Below the auto-confirmation message, you’ll see the free compliance message. We’ve built compliance into keywords, so you have fewer steps to keeping your SMS program compliant with industry regulations.

Import Contacts

You can add new contacts in a number of different ways. Contacts are sorted in your account by lists, allowing you to send targeted messages to only the people who need to receive your messages.

For example, if you’re running an e-commerce site, you may want to have a list of previous customers and those who haven’t made a purchase. You can have as many contacts and lists as you need with a paid SimpleTexting subscription.

Create a new text message campaign

Now it’s time for the real magic of text messaging: sending a message to all or some of your contacts at once.

In the message body, you can write whatever message you like to your customers, insert custom fields, set the sending time/date/frequency, and more.

You can also upload images into your text message. It will show as a link, or on some devices as a preview image directly in the message.

Custom fields

When using a custom field, you need to make sure that you either collected the information using our Data Collection feature or uploaded it with your contacts in a spreadsheet. Using the custom fields, each user will get a personalized message. If you have the custom field set to a first name, this message here, for example, might read; “SWEET TREATS: Thanks for being a loyal customer, Sean. Show this text for 10% off your next order.”

Link shortener

You can use our built-in link shortener to save characters (since SMS is limited to 160 characters and MMS is 1,600). It also lets you track link clicks, which is a great way to track how well your message performs.

MMS messaging

You can also send an MMS message, which displays images, videos, or audio files directly in the message. This is a great way to get your message across visually and can have a big impact on the performance in some industries. It’s worth noting that MSS messages are 3 credits, versus a single credit for an SMS. MMS also allows you to have 1,600 characters versus 160 characters with SMS.

When you’re ready to send your message, simply click the list or lists you’d like to send it to and click next. You can send it immediately or schedule the message for later.

Navigate the inbox

SimpleTexting also allows you to have a two-way conversation with your customers via the inbox and view responses to your campaigns. You can respond to any message or start up a new conversation. When you want to send your message, simply click send SMS.

Additional help

Our Help Center has more detailed breakdowns of all of our features, plus some great how-to videos and other SMS resources.

For more personalized assistance, we’re available by phone, email, and live chat, so please reach out to one of our amazing support and on-boarding reps.

The post Take a tour of the SimpleTexting dashboard appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

We offer an unlimited number of keywords with all of our paid plans, so you can create unique and branded keywords and advertise them to gather more subscribers to your lists.

Learn all about keywords in this step-by-step help center article.

Video Transcript

Video Transcript
Hi there, and welcome to SimpleTexting Academy! Let’s talk about how to set up keywords.

A keyword is a word or phrase that people can text to your number in order to sign up for your messages.

Create Your Keyword

To create a keyword in SimpleTexting, go to “keywords” on the left-hand side, and click “Add keyword”.

Let’s make our keyword, “SecretClub”.

Now, we can either assign this keyword to an existing list of subscribers, or create a new list, just for people who signed up using this keyword. Let’s create a new list, just for our secret club. We’ll call the list, “Important Customers”.

Set Up Auto-Confirmation

Now type out your auto-confirmation message. This is a text that your subscribers will automatically receive when they text in your keyword.

“Thanks for joining our secret list. You’ll be the first to find out about exclusive offers.”

Here you’ll see a few additional options.

Subscribers will only receive your auto-confirmation message once by default. If you want them to receive it every time they text in your keyword, check this box (first box under additional parameters).

You can also add an email, which will receive an alert every time someone texts in your keyword.

Finally, you have the option to forward opt-ins to a specific phone number. All of these are optional.

Let’s go ahead and save our keyword.

There you go, that’s how you create keywords.

Monitor Your Keyword

Up here, you can see how many people have subscribed to your list, using your keyword.

If you ever need to edit a keyword, just click the three dots next to the keyword’s row, and click edit.

Now, when someone texts in your keyword, they’ll be signed up for future texts and automatically receive your auto-confirmation message. Of course, people need to know about your keyword in order for your subscriber list to grow.

Promote your keyword in your store, on your website, on your products, or anywhere else your target audience might see it.

See you next time on SimpleTexting Academy. Thanks for watching!

The post How to Set Up a Keyword appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Don’t use Google Calendar? Our Zapier integration allows you to send reminder messages from many different CRM softwares including Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, and Pipedrive to name a few!

Connect Google Calendar and SimpleTexting

Step by step, we’ll show you how to use Zapier and SimpleTexting to send Google Calendar text reminders. First, go to the Apps section of your SimpleTexting dashboard.

Scroll down and click Zapier. You’ll be presented with two pieces of information: your API key and server URL. We’ll come back to this later.

Head to Zapier, then click Connected Accounts. Search for SimpleTexting. You’ll be presented with a prompt asking for your API key. Copy and paste the info from your SimpleTexting account.

Create a Google Calendar Text Reminder Zap

With SimpleTexting and Google Calendar both connected to Zapier, you’re ready to create an appointment reminder Zap. Click Make a Zap in the top right-hand corner of your screen.

Choose Google Calendar as your trigger app.

We want to send a text before an appointment starts, so click Event Start. Save and continue.

On the following page, you’ll see all of the calendars associated with your Google account. Choose the calendar you want to set reminder messages for.

Select how far in advance before the Google Calendar event you want to send your text reminder. In the example above, we set the reminder to send out 10 minutes before the appointment.

You can also add a search term, so that your SMS appointment reminder only sends for events with the specific term. Feel free to leave this section blank, as we did. Click continue.

Pick a sample event to set up your Zap. We created a test event in Google Calendar specifically for this example. As you can see, Zapier has pulled in all of the event details. Let’s continue.

Add Details and Write Your SMS Message

We’re almost there. Now it’s time to add an action step. Pick SimpleTexting.

Click Send SMS Message, then save and continue.

You can pull in the invitee’s number from the Google Calendar details. We added the number in the location field, but you can add it to the description too. Type out your text message and hit continue.

The last step is to test your Zap. If it works, name it and turn it on! That’s it. Now you’re ready to send Google Calendar text reminders to your customers, patients, coworkers and more.

The post How to Send SMS Reminders with Google Calendar appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.

Learn all about link tracking in this step-by-step help center article.

Video transcript

Hi there, and welcome to SimpleTexting Academy! Today we’re going to show you how to shorten and track links. Links are a great way to direct your audience to your website, downloadable content, photos, videos, or apps.

By including links in your messages, you can track how well your messages perform. Here’s how.

Send your message

First, let’s send a message with a link. Go to campaigns, type out your message, and make sure to include a link. For this example, we’ll imagine we’re a restaurant promoting weekly specials.

“Mike’s BBQ here. Check out our weekly specials: mikesbbq.com/weeklyspecials.”

Okay, click “shorten URL”. Your URL should now be wrapped in brackets. It will appear as a shortened link on your subscriber’s phone. Like this.

Now, send the campaign.

View your results

Okay, your link is out in the world. Some people are clicking it, and others aren’t. We’ll be able to track both these click behaviors.

So, let’s say we want to automatically follow up with those who did click on the link, and entice them to come in with a special offer.

Respond to clicks

Go to “Subscribers” and click “Add segment”. Add the criteria: link, clicked on campaign, weekly specials, and select the link you want to track. Save your segment.

Now we’ll create an autoresponder that goes to this segment. Give your autoresponder a name, and choose the segment you just created. Now, type out your message:

“Thanks for viewing our weekly specials, they won’t be around long! Show this text to your server for 20% off.”

Choose a delay. We’ll send the autoresponder two minutes after the link is clicked. Done. Go ahead and save your autoresponder.

Continue to track

Our platform will continue tracking who clicked your link, and send them the autoresponder. If you’d like to, you can also create a segment for those who didn’t click, and send them a separate message.

That’s it, thanks for watching!

The post How to use link tracking appeared first on SMS Marketing & Text Marketing Services – Try It For Free.