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Can we use text messaging for marketing instead of e-mail? Most of my customers give phone # only.
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Square Marketing
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Posted 02-05-2021
Re: Can we use text messaging instead of email for Square Marketing?
Posted 02-05-2021
📳Hello Everyone!📳
I'm reaching out to those who've posted to this thread as we're hosting a question & answer session with the product team for Text Message Marketing on Wednesday, February 17th.
Have questions about setting up or feedback on how it's going so far? Please head over to this thread and let us know: Live Q&A: Ask us anything about Text Message Marketing!
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You can get started by visiting Text Message Marketing on on the Square Dashboard.
Included are automated campaigns and ‘manual blast’ campaigns, where you can offer coupons, announce sales, promote events, and more.
While Text Message Marketing can be found and used within Square Marketing in Dashboard, you DO NOT need to be subscribed to Square Marketing to use Text Message Marketing.
Square Marketing users will likewise need to onboard to Text Message Marketing, and will be billed separately for text message use.
What does the Text Message Marketing do?
Opt-in Collection
- Build a list of customers to text BEFORE you pay a cent for the product
- Collect opt-ins via your point-of-sale (or via Loyalty enrollment)
- Text customers from a phone number unique to your business. This number will also allow customers to sign up via Text to Join, and can be promoted via in-store, online, or wherever else you’d like
Manual Campaigns
- Draft a message and send to customers, instantly*
- Offer a coupon, or include a link to an announcement, event, or online sale (which we automatically shorten to save characters)
- Send up to 600 characters per message, or 250 if emojis are used. This will separate out into up to 4 texts, BUT we’ll only be charging for one ‘message’ per customer per campaign.
*Note: Texts are sent in 15 minute increments, so if you draft and send a text at 2:05pm, the text would go out at 2:15. Texts can only be sent during business hours in the merchant's time zone (i.e. 9-5). After 5pm, merchants can schedule for texts that will be sent the next day.
Automated Campaigns
- Automatically text a customer with a qualifying event (similar to automated email marketing)
- General campaigns: birthday collection + birthday reward, lapsed customer.
- Loyalty-related campaigns like reminding about Loyalty rewards, and celebrating Loyalty anniversaries
What are the limitations?
Feature |
Current Limitation |
Texting: General |
No two-way texting (You cannot yet respond to Buyers by text, Sellers will not see Buyer responses) |
Texting: General |
No picture message (MMS) |
Opt-in: List Building |
No phone number list upload |
Opt-in: Loyalty Consent Specifics |
Due to the current Loyalty consent language (which permits ‘loyalty-related communication’), Loyalty sellers will be able to send automated messages to nearly all of their Loyalty enrollees. |
Seller Use Case |
Sellers who sell adult products, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, or CBD/cannabis are subject to a standard called SHAFT. This a self-regulation by mobile carriers that can block messages around these topics. |
What is the pricing?
Pricing is tiered pay-as-you-go: at the end of the month, a seller will be charged the tier corresponding with how many messages they sent. They will not be charged for months where they did not send any messages. We do not have established custom pricing eligibility or rates established for launch.
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@JohnPugh I can only imagine your frustration about this. I know you and other sellers have been waiting a long time, but I can tell you the team is currently building SMS so you can market to your Loyalty customers. Hopefully you're able to stick around and be part of the beta group!
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I jsut switched to Square Marketing from FiveStars because of the POS system. I am pretty bummed though that you don't have SMS marketing tools. We saw much better response and actual profit from SMS versus our email campaigns. DO you have even a guestimate on when the beta might come out and how I can be added to the list to test it?
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Hello,
So what is the update on the SMS marketing campaign capability?
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This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Text Message Marketing
Text Message Marketing would be a great feature to have. Not all of my clients look at the email marketing that send out. Many have asked me if I can send a text message marketing instead. Is this something that can be added to Square?
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Hey @ivluna! This is something that our product team is actively tracking in this thread. Keep in touch for updates, we'll share any developments with you here!
Seller Community Manager
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This quickly becoming a dealbreaker for us. VEND pos has this baked in from what I understand. We’re actively looking to switch at this time.
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Do you know if there is a third party that integrates with Square to allow SMS marketing?
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Hi Helen,
Please share any updates you have regarding SMS. We have heard that this is being worked on for quite some time. So there must be updates. Thank you.
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This reply created from merging an existing thread: "text marketing?" The author has been notified via email.
Are there any plans for square to offer a text marketing option in addition to the email marketing?
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Hi @tgwb and @Fredmayne, sorry for the delay. The team is currently working on SMS for Loyalty/Marketing subscribers. We hope to follow this later with an initial version of SMS through Marketing independent from Loyalty. In the mean time, we appreciate your patience and understand this is an important tool that will help you better communicate with your customers.
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You guys have been saying that for years. We're switching 6/1 unless this is rectified. It's rediculous to string users along like this, and there are more potent POS systems out there for the same cost that have SMS capabilities.
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I saw something today on my new loyalty status page about sending text message marketing out. I hadn't signed up for Square Marketing, we use Active Campaign since they offer text messaging, so it led me to that page. I signed up for the trial, then that went away... so it must be pretty close to happening... Maybe?
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i totally agree. I dont get why SQUARE does this. I am leaving too if this is not implemented. Half the features they add are junk and useless. Not sure why even this many people use this garbage. I am sorry to say but thats how I feel. The processing part and normal day to day functions its quite easy but there is no integration with important features which in my opinion doesnt take too hard to implement ESPECIALLY when its been years of clients asking. If its that important it should be on the TOP PRIORITY. Shame on SQUARE. I hope they reaad this message.
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Hi everyone,
We appreciate your continuous feedback about the need for text message marketing. In the upcoming weeks we are announcing the first iteration of text message marketing for sellers that use Square Loyalty, our digital Loyalty program. We will be looking for sellers to join our beta to test Automated Text Message Marketing Triggers to their Loyalty enrollees. While we understand this functionality will only be for sellers who are signed up for Loyalty and Marketing, this is an important first step towards offering SMS marketing as it’s own channel through Square Marketing. We appreciate your patience and keep a look out for a post here for additional information on signing up for the beta!
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We'd love to be beta testers. As I mentioned, we've been with Square since 2011 and process 100,000's of dollars a year through Square, but are actively looking to move to the Shopify POS simply because they (through outside apps) offer SMS messaging for loyality and marketing programs. Email is dead. We have to make this switch in the next 4 weeks. Please contact us asap regarding this matter.
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Please count me in for beta testing. We are missing out on a huge marketing channel without sms support...
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Count us in too!
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I would like to do beta testing as well
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Hello all!
As @edwardwb pointed out, we are currently looking for sellers to test Automated Text Message Campaigns to Loyalty enrollees. We plan on launching this feature within the coming weeks!
We’ve heard your feedback and understand that text message marketing has been a top feature request. With this upcoming beta, we are launching the ability to create five different campaigns targeted at your Loyalty enrollees within your Square Loyalty program:
- Remind customers they’re nearing a Loyalty reward
- Reminder customers about available Loyalty rewards
- Celebrate customers’ Loyalty anniversary
- Wish Loyalty customers a happy birthday
- Bring back your lapsed Loyalty customers
To get access to these campaigns, you must be signed up to Square Loyalty and Square Marketing.
Thank you to those who have already expressed interest. To join the beta, click Reply immediately below this post and leave a comment to let me know if you're interested. We plan to release this feature in the coming weeks. When it’s ready, I will post on this thread and I’ll enable it for your account by confirming with a like on your post.
Thank you for your interest—I’ll update you once the feature is ready.
Cheers,
Howard, The Square Beta Team
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We'd love to be a part of the beta. We do about 1200 to 1500 loyalty visits a month.