Solved: Re: Text message instead of e-mail for marketing? - Page 4

onceandagain216 · ‎04-26-2016

Can we use text messaging for marketing instead of e-mail? Most of my customers give phone # only.

Howard · ‎12-02-2020

We know you've been asking for it, and we're excited to announce Text Message Marketing (SMS) in the US, which is now available as an a la carte subscription that allows you to collect customer phone numbers and send them marketing-related text messages.

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.

Howard
Beta Team Lead, Square
Join the Beta Community
Evaluate | Influence | Engage

View Best Answer >

RAF · ‎06-28-2018

Is text message marketing available? I need it ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!

edwardwb · ‎07-06-2018

Hi @RAF, per the post above, it is not yet available. I'll update this thread when we're closer to providing the feature.

Thanks!

KelliRae324 · ‎07-19-2018

Hello! I am having an issue updating clients when they don't have an email address. If they are not here when I notice a spelling change etc and I make the correction, I can't save the profile. It says an email required and I tried changing notification in the specific client and still can not save??

Chad · ‎07-22-2018

Hello @KelliRae324, I'm sorry to hear about the trouble!

Just to be clear you're trying to update a customers profile on your Square Dashboard, but the profile won't save when you make an update?

cupzcoffeeaz · ‎07-04-2018

Any updates on sms campaigns? Is it on the roadmap?

i am about to sign up with a third party for loyalty and would rather work with square

puka · ‎07-05-2018

Hey @cupzcoffeeaz - Unfortunately, no update to share at this time. We'll make sure to update this thread with any news as we receive it as @edwardwb mentioned above!

Puka - She/They
Seller Community UX Designer

edwardwb · ‎07-06-2018

Hey @cupzcoffeeaz, thanks for checking in. While this is on our roadmap, we won't be able to release anything in the near future. While we'd of course love to have you sign up for Square Loyalty, we understand if this feature is a must-have for you.

As @puka mentioned, I'll be sure to update this thread when I have any additional information I can share about the timeline.

Thanks!

mream · ‎07-06-2018

Hey, thanks for the update. Any details you can share about why this 1) is so difficult or 2) not a priority?

cupzcoffeeaz · ‎07-15-2018

I just realize this request started in 2016. I love square POS, but I am really disapointed of Square Marketing. I'm a Product Manager myself as my primary job and my wife runs the operations of my business. I understand you guys need to prioritize tasks, but it is a shame that merchants have been ingored since 2016.

I was debating between a third party loyalty program and square loyalty+marketing, but guess what....85% of my VIP customers are not reachable via email. Does that tell you something?

Let me know what metrics or impacts you guys need to make this a priority. I am pretty sure all merchants in the Seller Community are willing to share the data. Or get a BA to look at your merchant data and you can get to the same conclusions.

Hope you all take this initiative as a high priority.

PS: it isn't that hard. You can current marketing available to SMS with a service such a Twilio. I've done it myself. Simple API integration, with minor changes to your formating. If you have a decent team of devs it should take max 5 sprints (2wk sprints)

sdavid14 · ‎08-19-2018

My brewery is a new merchant with square POS and I'd like to add my vote for the importance of this feature.. text messaging is used much more than email for an important customer demographic and not having it is a serious shortcoming.

MBrakey · ‎07-29-2018

This is an absolute must for my clientele! Email is pretty irrelevant now with how much we can do in my industry through text message. I have actually been thinking about using a different booking and card processessing system because of the lack of text marketing. I searched today on the square website hoping to find news that this is already available or will be soon. Is there any further updates. I am absolutely needing text marketing in my business right now and will be switching to a new system if there are no plans to add this as an option. Please keep me posted as I love all of the other services Square offers and would prefer to continue using your company.

katieand · ‎07-30-2018

Hi @MBrakey - Edward just gave an update on this feature request in this thread (https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Product-Updates/Square-Marketing-Updates-New-Email-Editor-Photo-B...). You should take a look!

NLF · ‎10-04-2018

Is it possible to add the API for text messaging through the Square Online Store? We have reached out to another provider who can do the text/SMS messaging, along with providing us the API to do it. However, I didn't know if we can put the API into our Square Online Store.

I appreciate your help. Thanks!

Tom · ‎10-06-2018

Hey @NLF, I went to check on this request as well—there aren't any updates that I can access at this time. The Online Store doesn't support APIs at right now, but we do have a few API options that may help you build out what you need to accomplish: Square Payments and eCommerce APIs.

We will circle back to this thread as soon as any other developments come through.

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center

Fredmayne · ‎11-10-2018

Any updates on the text message email campaigns through square?

edwardwb · ‎11-10-2018

Hi Fred,

Are you referring to text message marketing campaigns?

Prbyandrea · ‎12-06-2018

Any update?

Tom · ‎12-07-2018

Hey @Prbyandrea, I went to check for updates—but there isn't anything that I can access and share out right now. Our Customer Engagement Team is continuing to work on ways to expand Square Marketing channels. Please do keep in touch as we'll post any other developments that come through.

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
Find step-by-step help in our Support Center

Freddo · ‎12-12-2018

Hi! We collect a lot more phone numbers than emails through Square, so it is much easier to implement than the email. I personally don't have the experience on SMS campaigns but I heard of very good results. I am evaluating other providers like fivestars. Let me know if you are going to have this feature in a near future. Thank you

Finesse · ‎01-13-2019

SMS functionality is a must. Please!!

jthorvaldson · ‎01-23-2019

We have been using eztexting for awhile now and we have had great results. Though I cannot tell you redemption rates easily because it does not sync with our POS system. But our customers love receiving special deals via text. I would love to see this feature added to Square. We were using Mailchimp for our email marketing but after seeing the results, stats and the ability to see attributable purchases through Square Marketing we have made the switch. To have this same ability with SMS marketing would be amazing!

Can we use text messaging instead of email for Square Marketing?

Re: Can we use text messaging instead of email for Square Marketing?