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SMS in Nurture Campaigns
Text messages are now featured in your New Lead Nurture campaigns for Leads Direct, HouseValues, and Network Boost.
Why?
It’s been proven that texts are noticed and answered more frequently than any other communication method. In fact, around 98% of people open their text messages and about 90% read them within 3 minutes of receiving them!
What does this mean for you?
Your new leads will get the most effective nurturing and have even more opportunities to engage with you!
How To Enable SMS in Your New Lead Nurture Campaigns
To enable SMS and begin reaping the benefits of SMS nurture, you must complete your SMS Setup and receive approval from carriers. See setup instructions below:
After you've completed SMS setup and received approval from carriers, you’ll be notified in-system that your New Lead Nurture campaigns will now include SMS steps for all contacts who have provided their opt-in consent to receive text messages. Hooray!
Who Will Receive SMS Messages From the Updated New Lead Nurture Campaigns?
All contacts who give opt-in consent will receive text messages from our New Lead Nurture Campaigns. Check out this article to see how we collect opt-in consent from your contacts.
To receive SMS steps within nurture campaigns, a contact must meet the following criteria:
- The contact must have been delivered through a Market Leader lead product (Leads Direct, HouseValues, or Network Boost).
- The contact must be enrolled in automated Nurture Campaigns, including New Lead Nurture: Leads Direct, New Lead Nurture: HouseValues, or New Lead Nurture: Network Boost.
- The contact must have provided a valid mobile phone number and given opt-in consent to receive text messages.
Different combinations of nurturing will be applied to each contact within New Lead Nurture Campaigns based on their origin and provided contact data:
Full Nurturing (Email and SMS): Leads will receive both email and text messages from our system. This happens when we have a valid email address, phone number, and written consent to receive text messages.
Partial Nurturing (Email Only): Leads will only receive emails from our system. This happens when we have a valid email address but lack a valid phone number and/or opt-in consent.
Partial Nurturing (SMS Only) - Leads will only receive text messages from our system. This happens when we have a valid phone number and written consent for text messages, but no valid email address.
Email and SMS steps work together to guide leads from initial contact to a 'ready-for-conversation' state. It’s important to note, they do not depend on each other, ensuring that no matter whether a contact receives only emails or only texts, their nurturing journey remains seamless without any disruptions.
How This Will Work for All Contacts Already Enrolled in Nurture Campaigns?
For contacts already enrolled in New Lead Nurture Campaigns, all email steps will continue in the same way as before, with no changes. The next planned step will be sent to them as planned.
If a contact, while still enrolled in the campaign, provides us with their opt-in consent to receive SMS texts, SMS steps that were scheduled to go out after the last performed step will start to be sent to this contact, alongside email steps.
If, by the end of the campaign, this contact doesn't provide us with their opt-in consent to receive SMS texts, they will continue to receive email steps in the nurture campaign, while the SMS steps will be skipped.
How SMS Is Displayed in Your System
Below you’ll find a quick summary of how to identify SMS communications within your system.
Marketing Center: In the Marketing Center, nurture campaigns will now display all steps, including both Email and SMS, so you can easily see when each type of content is being used.
To review the design and content of Email or SMS steps in your updated New Lead Nurture Campaigns, click Marketing, then Manage Campaigns at the top of the page. From there, click on New Lead Nurture: Leads Direct and Website (Email), New Lead Nurture: Network Boost (Email), or New Lead Nurture: HouseValues.com (Email). In the 'Review and Configure Steps' section, you can inspect all email and SMS steps used within the selected campaign:
Notifications: You will receive notifications via email or text (depending on your Activity Alerts setup) each time a contact replies via text. You will have the ability to review the reply in your Activity Feed.
Contact Details Page Activity Feed: All SMS steps executed for each eligible contact will be visible in the contact’s Activity Feed, just as they are with nurture emails.
Hand Raises: If a contact replies to a text message, the reply will be displayed in the Activity Feed/Dashboard as Message Received. If a hand raise is generated, additional notifications will be sent to your email and/or phone, based on your notification preferences.
A Hand Raise will be generated unless the reply contains a request for support (using the keyword HELP) or a request to unsubscribe from further text messaging (using keywords STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, QUIT, or PLEASE OPT ME OUT).
- If a reply contains the keyword HELP (or similar), an automated support message will be sent to the contact without requiring any action from you.
- If a reply contains the keyword STOP (or similar), the last automated message will be sent to the contact, and the contact will be unenrolled from receiving further text messages from your Market Leader system. However, if applicable, email steps will continue to be sent within the Nurture Campaign schedule.
More details about our opt-in rules can be found here: Receiving Opt-In Consent for SMS Messages.
30 Day Activity Feed: The Activity Feed will display all outbound and inbound text communications from your contacts on Nurture Campaigns, the same as for email steps in nurture campaigns.
If a contact calls the number from which they receive texts via nurture campaigns, the call will be forwarded to your mobile phone number. The Activity Feed will display a record of the call made by the contact and a Hand Raise will be generated for this contact as well.
