Introducing Zoho Campaigns' own gateway for SMS campaigns

Introducing Zoho Campaigns' own gateway for SMS campaigns

We are excited to announce the launch of our SMS Gateway to send SMS through Zoho Campaigns. We have also made a few other changes in our current SMS Campaign model to improve your over all user experience.

These updates are planned with an aim to expand our product's potential by catering to the needs of businesses interested in both email and SMS marketing. 

Zoho Campaigns' Own SMS Gateway


Right now we are integrated with thirteen third party applications, to support the SMS sending process for the users. However, these third party integrations create an extra signup step for you to send SMS campaigns and manage multiple bills.
 
To overcome this hindrance and to improve the user experience, we are partnering with a vendor & offering our own SMS gateway.
 
With this, you can send SMS campaigns to mobile numbers in the US and Canada without any hassle.
In future updates we are also planning to include India and multiple countries from the EU region.



Improving the user experience of SMS Campaign feature 




1) Efficient way to manage Mobile number within Zoho Campaigns 

a) SMS field standardization 

The "Mobile number" will be the default field to store the contact number. We will also eliminate the phone number and country selection steps from the SMS creation process.
 
Moreover, the standardization of the contact number field will:

a) Simplify the SMS creation process
b) Make the identification of phone number duplication process easier
c) Effectively maintain SMS channel unsubscribe & DND registry for phone numbers 
d) Reduce the data processing time
e) Ensure organized storage and easy tracing of contact numbers
 
b) Contact number will be mapped to "Mobile Number"

In our current model, during the contact addition process the " email address" has always been the default field to add contact's email address. Henceforth, " Mobile number" will also be shown as a default field to add their contact number. 

c) Recommended to import mobile number with area code

You can add contacts without an area code, but you won't be able to send SMS campaigns to those contacts. We advise that you update your contacts' phone number along with the area code in the Mobile Number field to send SMS campaigns without any hiccups.
 
Accepted format for Mobile Number field : +1 967899090
 
Numbers like 9289098909 will be added, but won't be included for campaign sending, as the area code is missing.


2) Unsubscribe from all SMS marketing communication

Zoho Campaigns ensures that email recipients have the entire control over acceptance and denial of email campaigns through unsubscription option.

This similar best practices will be implemented in the SMS Campaign, with the introduction of the " Unsubscribe" option. With this, contacts can easily opt out from receiving SMS communications.



3) Option to add sender address during SMS creation process


Sender address is the first thing a receiver looks out for, in order to ensure that the communication is received from an authentic source.

So, we will support Long code & Alphanumeric sender address format in this update. And soon we will also support short codes.

So, SMS Campaign users can now select the Sender address format supported in their respective country.
 
We will help our users with the registration process to obtain the respective sender address format from within the product.
 

4) Prepaid, add-on-credit-based pricing

We will be following a pre-paid credit based pricing model for SMS. The user has to separately purchase the required add-on credits to send SMS Campaign.The credits will be automatically added on a recurring basis after every billing cycle.The purchase of credits from 1K to 1M can be made online.
 
Credits per SMS
 
US/ Canada-  4 credits

 

a) Can the un-used credits be carried forward to the next billing cycle?

​In case, if the user has any un-used credits in a particular billing cycle, then the un-used credit will be carried forwarded to the next billing cycle.


b) How to procure long codes?

Long codes will be a separate recurring add-on. To begin with, US/Canada long codes will be 1$/month.

Know more about SMS Campaign pricing

Note: The SMS updates will be made live only to the new users. Existing users can migrate to the new update only after 45 days from the launch date.

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip of the week 03 - Sending emails in batches

      Today's marketers not only want their email marketing to be efficient, but also smart. For an email campaign, you may think you have all the essential elements for lead conversion—a big mailing list, an attractive template design, and the most-engaging message content, but after hitting the ‘send’ button, you may not get the expected conversions. Wondering why? Here’s one of the major reasons. Many marketers miss out on sending the email campaign the right way. Did you know that you should not be

    • Tip of the week 04 - Know about your recipients' 'prime open time.'

      In today's market, the importance of customer behavior is astounding, with a vast amount of research and resources going into finding how customers make decisions. The process of persuading your customers to open your email and click on your call-to-action becomes easy when you understand the psychology behind their behavioral traits. Time to turn into a psychologist! Let's get to the basics—you want your emails to resonate well with your recipients. So, what's the primary thing involved here? It's

    • Zoho Campaigns Expert Diaries on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

      Hi email champs,  As email marketers, we find great lessons in each other's works—be it the subject lines that worked good, the design that was received well, or the CTA that had the maximum clicks. Email marketing encompasses a wide variety of topics spanning everything from creation and design to development and deliverability.  Here's when we from the Zoho Campaigns team found the need to build an email marketing community comprising of seasoned marketers and email geeks who can help each other

    • Email Deliverability Tip #3: Seal the deal with the preheader

      In the last post, we learned about the subject line. Today we'll be learning about the preheader. A preheader is the short text that follows the subject line in an email. The preheader is designed to hint at what your email message is all about. A good preheader should act as a second subject line and convince your contacts to open the email. Now, let's learn the best way to craft a preheader. Your subject line and preheader should work together and accurately convey the gist of your email. Keep

    • Tip of the week 15 - Add subscription-preferences option. Drive more engagement.

      If crafting content for emails, getting creatives done, and running email campaigns is your love, then unsubscribes are the heartbreakers.  You can save your emails from being unsubscribed/trashed by adding a proper subscription-preferences option in your emails (works best at the time of signup). Giving subscribers the option to choose what they want to receive from you and decide how often (frequency of the emails) your emails should hit their inboxes will increase the reach of your campaigns manifolds.