Create an SMS campaign

Learn how to create and send a text message campaign to all customers or a segment of customers.

🔓 SMS Campaigns are coming soon as an add-on feature to the Marsello Pro Plan. Learn more about SMS Campaigns feature add-on pricing.
⚠️ Important: In order for customers to receive SMS messages, their mobile number must be formatted with the country code and no additional characters. Example: +14165550000.

1. In the Marsello admin, go to Skills > Campaigns > SMS
2. Click Create Campaign

Group_1_-_2023-02-20T035831.884.png

⚠️ Important: If this is your first SMS campaign, you will be prompted to read and confirm that you understand the SMS Marketing Compliance and have made any necessary updates to your store's settings before proceeding.

3. Enter your SMS Campaign content.
When creating your SMS campaign, there are a few important things to remember:

Keep it short – SMS Campaigns providers has a strict 160-character limit, so make sure your content is clear and concise, written in plain language. It's also recommended to avoid abbreviations, emoticons, and all caps.
📝 Note: Your store name, any URLs, and opt-out method are counted towards your 160-character limit.
Include your store name – It's important to let your customers know it's you. Include your store's name in your SMS content to help promote customer trust. Common ways to do this include "StoreName:" at the beginning of your content.
Add a call-to-action URL – With just 160 characters, you may want to include a link that customers can click to learn more, or go through to your online store. To make things easy, Marsello automatically shortens your URL to be SMS optimized.
Opt-out method – Marsello automatically adds "Reply STOP to opt-out" to the end of every SMS sent via Marsello. This is required to comply with SMS laws and regulations, such as TCPA & TCIA.
📝 Note: This "Reply Stop to opt-out" will ONLY unsubscribe the customer from the SMS communications channel, they will still receive the email marketing if they don't unsubscribe from them via the Unsubscribe link in the email.

Group_1_-_2023-02-20T064545.317.png

4. Enter your SMS Campaign name

This campaign name is internal only and is to help you identify your campaign in the Campaigns dashboard.
5. Send a test SMS campaign (optional).

If you want to preview your SMS campaign before you send it, simply:

Click Send Preview
Enter your mobile number (including your country code)
Click Send Preview

This will send a test of your SMS campaign to your mobile number.
6. Click Save & Continue to Recipients

Group_1_-_2023-02-20T065108.640.png
This will automatically save your SMS campaign content ready to send to your customers.

Choose your audience

1. Select to send to your entire customer database, or specific customer segment(s)

⚠️ Important: SMS campaigns will only be sent to customers who are subscribed to your SMS marketing channel, have a valid mobile number (example: +14165550000), and accepts your marketing. Learn more.
2. Click Save & Continue to Review

Review & send (or schedule) your SMS campaign

1. Review your settings

2. Review the Estimated credits to send
This is the estimated number of credits that will be used to send this SMS campaign. Credits are determined based on the customer's location. Learn more.
⚠️ Important: If you don't have enough SMS credits you may need to upgrade your SMS Subscription before you can send your SMS Campaign.
3. Review your SMS Campaign content
Under SMS Preview, check your SMS campaign content and look carefully for typos before sending your SMS campaign.

4. Choose when to send your SMS campaign

Send now – This will queue your SMS campaign to send right away
Schedule for later – Choose the date and time in the future that you'd like to send your SMS campaign.

⚠️ Important: When scheduling an SMS campaign, you can only schedule it between 8:00a.m. to 6:00p.m in the subscriber's local time. Marsello has put in place safeguards to ensure SMS campaigns cannot be sent to your US customers outside of these times (i.e. during quiet hours) to help with TCPA and associated SMS laws and regulation compliance.
5. Click Send Now (or Schedule Campaign)
This will set-up your SMS campaign to send at your desired time and date.

Understanding your SMS campaigns dashboard

The SMS Campaigns dashboard displays everything you need to know about the success of your loyalty program. With these insights, they will be able to make effective changes and iterations to your email campaign and ultimately sales.
Learn more about the SMS campaigns dashboard

How it works – Your customers' experience

When the customer receives the SMS campaign, they'll be able to open it and engage with your content.
If you've included a call-to-action text link, they'll be able to click through and continue their interaction.

🤖 Data Insight: 90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes.
If the customer decides they no longer want to receive SMS campaigns from your store, they can reply STOP to the SMS campaign. This will automatically update their Marsello customer profile and remove SMS as an available channel to contact them.

Articles in this section

Create an SMS campaign

In this article: