[closed] AMA (Ask Me Anything) SMS for Marketers | December 4-8, 2023

[ajacks228]

 

Hi HubSpot Community,

My name is Anissa. I am a Product Marketing Manager here at HubSpot. At INBOUND, we released SMS for Marketers, that offers an instant and personalized way to communicate with your customers, allowing you to build stronger relationships and improve campaign effectiveness - all on one platform. 

With this highly effective channel filled with so many possibilities at your fingertips, I’m sure you have questions about best practices, how to capture the customers’ attention, drive demand, and increase engagement.

Our AMA will be open for questions from Monday, December 4th to Friday, December 8th. All questions will be answered by Friday, December 5th. Drop your questions regarding HubSpot SMS for Marketers in this thread and we'll answer them!

Not sure what to ask? Here are a few sample questions:

1. What are the benefits of using HubSpot SMS?
2. Can I integrate my existing SMS provider with HubSpot?
3. Are there any additional costs associated with using HubSpot SMS?
4. How can I track the performance of my SMS campaigns in HubSpot? 

Look forward to chatting with you in the thread and hearing all of your questions! 

[PPlant8]

How can we use sms to send meeting reminders with the same functionality as email (meeting link, cancel/reschedule) and with the same accurate cadence (1 day before, an hour before, 15 minutes before etc)? 

[kvlschaefer]

Hi @PPlant8,

Thanks for reaching out! 

Hey @dschwarz, @TSturm, @Shane_Janssens - Do you have any product insight you can share with @PPlant8? Thank you!

Best,

Kristen

[dschwarz]

Hi team! We are hoping to dleiver this functionality in 2024!

[Jnix284]

Thanks for the tag @kvlschaefer, would love to know the best use cases for SMS for Marketers and how others are using it?

Without the reply functionality rolled out, it feels a little limited or premature to roll out a major campaign.

[kvlschaefer]

Hey @Jnix284,

Happy New Year! 

Thanks for your patience while I reviewed your question with @TSturm 🙂  

The SMS tool is currently designed to support 1-way, promotional campaigns. It is not designed to be a conversational tool (yet). Some customers are using the tool for informational SMS, but the vast majority are using it purely as a promotional tool to offer discounts and special offers.

Hope this insight is helpful 🙂 

Best,
Kristen

[kvlschaefer]

Hi @Jnix284,

This a great question! 
Let's invite our AMA hosts to this conversation - @Deanna, @TSturm, @Shane_Janssens - Do you have any SMS best practices you could share with @Jnix284 when you have an opportunity? Thank you! 

Best,

Kristen

[Crystal_Hopper]

Can SMS be built into a Workflow? Say someone fills out a Form and you have a Workflow that sends an autoresponse. Can that autoresponse be sent via SMS if a phone number was provided. 

Does Hubspot capture if a phone number that receives an SMS actually received it? Such as if the phone number ended up being a landline instead of a mobile number. Is there any validation that happens?

Thanks!

[TSturm]

Hi @Crystal_Hopper,

To your first question:
Yes SMS can be build into contact-based workflows.  You can add the form submission as the workflow trigger and use the new 'Send SMS message' action to send their automated message. One callout is that you'll need to ensure that the form is using/capturing the same phone number property that will eventually be used in the SMS and make sure to have validation enabled to capture phone numbers in the right format (with a +1). 

To your second question: 
This information is available on the post send page of the SMS. Any messages sent, but not delivered will be surfaced in the 'Not delivered' tab of recipients. We do not pre-validate if a number is a landline, as some carriers convert SMS into voice messages when being sent to a landline. 

[kvlschaefer]

Hey @danmoyle, @Jnix284, @Ben_M, @Josh, @Crystal_Hopper, @Whathcock, @JustinPerkinsC, @CHawkins, @trevordjones, @johnelmer, @louischausse, @noahmckeon, @elizheleva, @Shadab_Khan, @MrJustinGivens - Do you have any questions about SMS for marketing for @ajacks228 and the HubSpot team? 

[digitalmktg]

I'm a digital marketer using HubSpot for 7 years. I've been spoiled with using Enterprise version, but have been helping small businesses use HubSpot because it is a phenomenal tool. A small business may be a one person service, local demographic, with 300 - 500 contacts. Think about hairstylists, med spas, dentist, eye care, etc. To force a small business to upgrade to professional version to send texts doesn't make sense. Allow the service to be a part of Starter packages, but limit the message cap. The technology is a great communication tool and complimentary to email communications. Why does HubSpot want to outprice the true small businesses for such a simple integration? Because of this, the only option for businesses is to use a thrid party integration, thus sharing database information. 

[TSturm]

Thanks for the feedback @digitalmktg.
We don't currently have plans for enabling SMS for Starter. However this is for sure something to consider in the future. Please feel free to log this in the Ideas Forum and we will monitor demand!  

[EAmoroso]

When will replies to sms and workflow triggers based on replies be available? 

[TSturm]

Hey @EAmoroso, thanks for your question. Replies for marketers is on top of our list and is already in development. We expect it to be released in H1 2024. Unfortunately, we cannot share more specific timelines as we're in the early stages of development. 

Replies as workflow trigger will likely be a separate feature release, and is currently in planning.  

[ajacks228]

Hi @EAmoroso, great question! Both sms and workflow triggers based on replies are planned for 2024, but we don't have a date finalized just yet!

[MRidenour4]

When will 1-1 messaging be available? 

[dschwarz]

Hi @MRidenour4 ! We're planning to have marketing replies in 2024 so that business' can hold personalzied conversations with their customers, but we do not have a date yet finalized for 1:1 outreach that doesn't stem from a marketing message.

[MRidenour4]

Will we have the ability to have SMS templates for easier sending? 

[dschwarz]

Hi @MRidenour4 ! We don't currently have plans for building templates for SMS- please log this in the  Ideas Forum and we will monitor demand!