Create an SMS campaign
- Create a contact list for your SMS campaigns
- Create your first SMS marketing campaign
- Creating the message
- Choice of recipients
- Campaign Programming
1. Create a contact list for your SMS campaigns
Before sending a campaign, you need to create contact lists. Here is the general tutorial to create a list. We will detail in this guide the specifics of contact lists for your SMS campaigns. For a contact list for an SMS campaign to be valid, the phone numbers of your contacts must be in the SMS field. Your file must be in .csv or .txt format. You do not need to include the country code (ex: +33 for France) in the file. On the other hand, it is essential that the digits of the number are not separated by any special characters.
Good to know : You cannot add phone numbers from several different countries in the same contact file. Instead, create a list of SMS contacts by country.
You will need to use one phone number file per country. For example: separate phone numbers starting with +33 (France) from those starting with +49 (Germany) into 2 files. When importing, you will be asked to select the country code of one country only.
Arenametrix emailing identifies each of your contacts by their email address. If your file does not have an EMAIL field, we will create a fictitious email at the time of import. This email will be fictitious, therefore not usable, but will be unique for each contact. It will be of the type Téléphone@mailin-sms.com number. For example, the fictitious email assigned to the phone number 0033601020304, will be 33601020304@mailin-sms.com. If you later retrieve the email of your SMS contact, you will still be able to update the fictitious email we created.
2. Create your first SMS marketing campaign
We will see here how to create an SMS campaign in three steps
The numbers of the recipients of your SMS campaign must appear in the "SMS field" of your contact lists. Phone numbers must include the country code (ex: 0033612345678 corresponds to the French mobile number 06 12 34 56 78). Go to the "Campaign" page in Arenametrix Emailing, then select "SMS Campaign" and click on "Create SMS Campaign".
Step 1: Creating the message
1/Indicate the name of your campaign. This name will only be visible to you, not to your recipient.
2/Customize the sender's name, it cannot exceed 11 characters.
3/Create the content of your SMS within the limit of 160 characters. Beyond 160 characters, it will be counted to you an additional used SMS by slice of 160 characters. Thus, if you write an SMS of 240 characters, it will be counted to you the use of 2 SMS.
WARNING: It is mandatory that the recipient has a way to unsubscribe from your SMS mailing lists directly from the SMS. To do this, please include in the body of the SMS "STOP at 36184". If one of your recipients sends STOP to 36180, he will be automatically unsubscribed from your SMS mailing lists (Le Stop au 36184 only works for France).
Step 2: Selection of recipients
This step allows you to choose the list(s) of contacts that will receive your SMS campaign.
The numbers of the recipients of your SMS campaign must appear in the SMS field of your contact lists. Phone numbers must include the country code and do not include spaces between digits (ex: 0033612345678 corresponds to the French mobile number 06 12 34 56 78).
Step 3: Campaign Programming
Here you can choose to send your campaign immediately or schedule it at a later date and/or time. We draw your attention to the fact that operators do not allow sending SMS marketing between 10:00 pm and 8:00 am on Sundays and public holidays. It is therefore preferable to avoid sending large volumes of SMS marketing too late in the evening.
That's it, your campaign is launched!