Use Groups to Customize a Text Marketing Campaign

Create a Group in 4 Easy Steps

Click on Groups
Assign a keyword extension (clients will text keyword.extension to opt-in)
Type out your default message (or leave blank if they don’t need to get a response)
Click create group

More Details About Creating Groups
In this article we will give a step-by-step explanation of how to setup and use groups with your text marketing campaign. The first step in creating a group is to click on the Group tab in the left hand navigation. In the center of the screen you will see a table showing all current groups. Click the red Add Group tab in the upper right to create a new group. First, type in a name for the group – this is not seen by the customer but used for you to identify the group on your dashboard. Second, click the Advanced Options link to set a keyword extension, his is crucial to the opt-in process for voting, polls, or other instances in which you want clients to be added directly to a group by sending in a text. The format for the opt-in will be keyword-extension. For example, if your keyword was testing and you assign the group an extension of 1 people would text testing-1 to be added to that group. Keeping the extension simple is best because it leaves less room for error. (Make sure you do not put the keyword with the hyphen in with the extension – only the part that will come after the dash).

If you are using groups to run a text to vote campaign you’ll want to create a group for each option. For a talent show, assigning extensions of the numbers 1-10 will make the voting easy, each contestant is assigned a number. Putting the name of each contestant as the group name will make it very easy to see the name of the person who won. The Description field is optional but will let you add more information about what the specific group is for. Maybe you are using different groups for a specific time period and you want to put in a date range. Or you have multiple business locations and want a staff group for each location, the description field can define which location the group is for. There are many options and scenarios.

Next, you will see a box that says Group Auto Responder. You can leave this box blank if you don’t want to return them anything or you can put a simple message like “Thank you, you have been added to the Staff text list” or “Thank you, your vote has been counted for contestant number 3”.

Handling duplicate contacts:

Ignore, is the default. This means they will not get a message back every time they text in to the group – only the first time. Ideal for voting or coupon offers.
Allow, if you set this to allow then people will get the auto responder every time they text in. Great for real estate or a link to your app or website.
Send keyword alternate message. When setting up the Autoresponder message there is an option to set an alternate message, this message will be sent when someone that is already in your databases texts the keyword a second time. This message can be something simple like “Your number is already on our list, watch for future specials”. Selecting this option will return that same alternate message if someone opts into the group more than once.

Hide on Widget

TXT180 website widgets have the options to enable a group select feature, if you check this box it will hide this group from that list – great for a staff group.

Forward options

To get an instant notification of new opt-ins to the group you can check the box for Forward Opt-ins to Cell or Forward Opt-ins to Email. If you forward those to a cell phone it will use 1 message from the balance, forwarding to email is free. You can copy multiple emails or cell phones by separating those with a comma.

Edit or Delete Groups

Now that you understand how to create a group we’ll discuss a couple of other options relating to groups. From the Manage Group page you can Edit or Delete any group. Click the Edit icon to change any information related to the group or click the Delete Icon to delete the group completely. Deleting a group will NOT delete any contact numbers from your account because all numbers are copied into your main contact list.

Add Numbers to a Group

As mentioned previously, people can opt into a group directly but you also have the option to manually add people to a group. Going to the Add Contact page, located under the Contact (Search) menu, after inputting the name and phone number, check mark the box(es) for the group you want the number to be added to.

To copy numbers that are already in your contact list into a group go to the Contact (Search) page and select the number(s) to be moved and then use the drop down arrow next to the Action box on the right side above the table, select which group you are moving them into and click Go. Another option is to click the Edit icon next to any individual number and use the check boxes next to the groups listed to add or remove any number from a group.

Originally Posted on: September 8, 2021

Posted in: Text Marketing Tips
Tags: grouping text marketing contacts, how to use groups, text marketing