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

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

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

📳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!

1 Best Answer
Admin

Best Answer
 
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
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Square Community Moderator

Hey @jimann100 thanks for asking! The feature should still be available. Do you have any screenshots of what you are looking at/where you are stopped after following Howard's instructions?

 

I appreciate your time! Thanks!

AshleyK
Community Moderator, Square
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Is this still an option? I can't seem to find it?

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Square Community Moderator

@cfrandina you will need to be subscribed to both loyalty and marketing to be able to see this option. Thank you!

AshleyK
Community Moderator, Square
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Beta Member

Hi I was looking to do a text campaign as it would greatly help us in these trying times. It is not an available option.

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Admin

Hey @Sidhu-

 

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

 

Take a look at the best answer in this thread. It has some instructions on creating text campaigns. However, it's worth mentioning that custom text campaigns are not currently available. 

 

We do have an option where you can create a custom text campaign to update your customers via email:

 

 

 

We're working towards making more campaign types/styles/templates available for text message. We'll make sure to post an update in this thread when we have one regarding that feature request. 

️ Isabelle | she/her
Seller Community & Super Seller Program Manager | Square, Inc.
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Hello Howard, thank you and your team for your diligent work. Any update on making this feature available? What is the estimate time that this feature will be available?

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Alumni

Hey @Dfauci & @sungduk 

 

This feature is now available if you have Marketing and Loyalty subscribed to your account. Check out the Support Center link Howard included in his post above to learn how to set this up! 

Justin
Community Moderator, Square
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When will the text message marketing be fixed?

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Is there a current update on text message marketing? 

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Admin

@jamiemcclung77 Thank you for your interest! We are currently running a limited pilot for Text Message marketing. 

 

If accepted into the pilot you will be able to send blast text campaigns to your customers and offer them a coupon. 

 

Because of the limited nature of the pilot you must be subscribed to Square Marketing or Square Loyalty to use this feature. 

 

Sellers posting into this thread may be become eligible for this initial pilot. The Square Beta Team will reach out if you are currently eligible for the program. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Howard
Beta Team Lead, Square
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I saw a limited pilot was being run in January- any update or estimate when we can use mass texting for all customers?  Also, is it too late to be a part of the pilot?

 

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Is the text messaging campaign feature now working in Marketing module?  I'm getting the following error when I try to create a text campaign:

 

undefined is not an object (evaluating 'e.campaignName')

 

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Alumni

As long as you're subscribed to both Marketing and Loyalty, you should be able to follow these steps to create an automated text message campaign. Since you're seeing the text message campaign as an option, it sounds like you are currently subscribed to both.

 

When you visit this page, you should be seeing the Overview of your Loyalty metrics and settings - if instead you're seeing an introduction screen and a button that says Get Started, you'll need to set up your Loyalty program for the automated text campaign to function properly. Please let us know if questions come up, or if this isn't the issue you're experiencing, @louatjrs!

 

Side note: Thank you for detailing the error message you're receiving - I've let the team responsible know, as an error message should not appear in this format.

Valentina
Community Moderator, Square
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I wish you guys are more in depth into this response. 

 

If you guys are saying we can do text campaign we should have a wide range of what we can text about, just like the email campaign. Having a selective of predesigned text campaign is so not with the money. 

 

Update us again when you have that resolved. 

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Alumni

Great suggestion, @oldfaithful - definitely stay subscribed to this thread to get notifications about updates posted here. I know a few other sellers have asked the same question here in this thread.

 

Would you be able to provide any examples of the different kinds of text campaigns you'd like to see? It's always helpful to have detailed and specific input from the people who will be using features we add to our products!

Valentina
Community Moderator, Square
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Need me to day more @Valentina ? The text feature only available in the Loyalty Program not in the Marketing subscription. The text was never intended to let us do a marketing campaign, it is only good for reminding clients about the point system, how much they have earned in points. 

 

As in Marketing, we can write about anything. We communicate with our clients and able to receive a response back. In Loyalty Program is the opposite; the client can only see anything and everything regarding their points; it couldn't be used to let out the client knows about what's our monthly promotion, or there is a new newsletter posted. 

 

Clients should to have the option to have notification via text or email. They both (Marketing and Loyalty Program subscription) should work together seamlessly. Both should have email and texting ability.

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Square Community Moderator

Thanks so much for continuing your Feature Request feedback, @oldfaithfull - we will continue to pass your suggestions along! I will flag this over to Valentina, as well.

 

Thanks, again!

Joe
Community Moderator, Square
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is the text function gone now?

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Admin

@rodcarauto

 

This has been Beta has been paused for now. We'll see if we can get more information for you.

kellyj
Technical Program Manager: AI
Square Inc
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Beta Member

Square has been absolute clown shoes regarding their loyalty program. We pay $600 + a year for the privaledge of having effectively have ZERO way to communicate with customers, because everyone is enrolled via their cell phone number. No way to say "Hey Loyal Customer, we're having a sale next week. Come check it out." 

 

Not to mention their completely ineffective Low Stock report, which spits out random products in random order with no way whatsoever to sort them. 

 

And an increase in swipe pricing.

 

We've been with Square for over 8 years, but we're actively switching to Shopify.

 

We. Are. Done.  

 

 

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Square Community Moderator

I am so sorry for your negative experience and that we don't have this feature available yet. Your feedback is appreciated. I understand you have to do what is best for your business. 

Kassi
Community Moderator, Square
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