What are SMS Campaigns?
Enable SMS Campaigns
Create an SMS Campaign
Announce SMS Campaigns

On average, people check their phones 85 times per day, where open rates are over 82%. Text Messaging (technically known as short message service or SMS) Campaigns compliment Fuel Cycle's existing email and push notification campaigns. With text-based announcements, you help community members stay up-to-date on new activities, announcements, and reward opportunities, and drive engagement and participation with your community.

What are SMS Campaigns?

SMS Campaigns are short text messages sent to members who have provided a verified mobile number for their account. These campaigns can link to the community homepage or to a specific activity.

If you have enabled auto-login for your community, members will be taken directly to the activity without logging in for immediate participation. If the member has the mobile app installed, it will open in the app. If not, they will be taken to the page via their mobile web browser.

Most countries support SMS Campaigns. Click here to see a list of all supported territories.

Enable SMS Campaigns

If you want to enable SMS Campaigns for your community, ask your Fuel Cycle representative to enable it. The SMS Campaign format is as follows:

[Shortened Community Name]: [Custom campaign text.] [Link to community or activity]

Below is an example of how that might look with real text:

ACME: New customer experience survey available! 
Earn 5pt for completing. https://fcsms.ico/329118

When you send an SMS message containing more than 160 characters, the message splits into smaller messages for transmission. Large messages are split into 153-character 'segments' and sent individually, then re-assembled by the recipient's device.

Your Fuel Cycle representative will ask you to provide a shortened version of your community name for the message. Shortened community names allow for more text in the message before it breaks into multiple texts. If your community has a particularly long name, you’ll want to provide a shortened version so that you have more characters for the actual message. We recommend 10 or fewer characters if possible.

Member Mobile Numbers

SMS Campaigns will only be sent to members who provide a verified mobile number. To enable mobile numbers for members, go to Members » Profile Settings.

Next to Mobile Number, select the checkbox next to the “eye” icon, which will display the mobile number field to members, but make it optional. If you want to require all members to enter a mobile number, make sure to select the “asterisk” icon.

• Optional: When the mobile number is optional, the next time the member logs in or when a new member signs up, they will see the Mobile Number prompt but can click “Skip” to bypass it.
• Required: When the mobile number is required, the next time the member logs in or when a new member signs up, they will see the Mobile Number prompt and will be required to enter a valid number before continuing to the community or completing sign-up.

In both cases, members who enter a mobile number will be sent a text message with a 6-digit code to verify the number is valid before the number is saved.

Members also receive an opt-in text message when SMS Campaigns are enabled. This first message complies with SMS regulations and reads as follows:

[Community shortened name]: You are signed up to receive SMS announcements! 
MSG and Data rates may apply. You can stop at any time by clicking here – 
http:fcsms.io/432586

When members click the link, members are taken to their Communication Settings and may disable SMS Campaigns at that time or any time in the future.

Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), businesses cannot text marketing messages, make marketing robocalls, or send fax advertisements to a consumer without having obtained their "prior express written consent."

Create an SMS Campaign

1. Navigate to the Communication Center and then SMS Campaigns.
2. Click on the + button at the top of the page to create a new SMS campaign.
3. You will be prompted to add the following elements:
   • SMS Campaign Name—An internal title for moderator reference
   • Message—The actual content/text for the text message can be up to 130 characters and can include emojis.
   • Automatic Login Links—Similar to email campaigns, this will automatically be enabled if you have automatic login links enabled for the community. However, you can disable this on a per-message basis here. We recommend enabling automatic login links for the best user experience and to encourage participation.
   • Link Notification—This is the link that will be added to the text message and can take a user to the community homepage or to a specific activity. If linking to an activity, you can only choose from Published or Scheduled activities.

     Quick Polls are not searchable by this field. Direct your members to the home page instead.

4. Before scheduling the SMS Campaign, you have the option of sending a test to yourself or any other team member. This is useful for previewing how a text message will look on your own phone.
   1. Click on the Send Test button and a popup will appear. 
   2. Enter valid mobile numbers for any people who should receive the test
   3. Click the + button to add them to the list of test recipients.
   4. Click Send Test to finalize.
5. You may also save a draft of your push campaign at this stage by clicking on the Save Draft button.
6. Next, click on the Save and Continue button to proceed with Scheduling your SMS campaign.
7. On the Schedule page, select the recipients in the following categories:
   • User—Users defined by role or status
   • Groups—Specify a group. For example, this can be the same group you invited to an activity
   • User Distribution List—Upload a list of member user IDs
   • Activity—Specify an activity and associated member behavior like comment/uploading or completing a survey
8. Schedule a time for your SMS campaign to run. You may also save the campaign as a draft and return later to schedule it.

Metrics

On the SMS Campaigns page, you will see a list of the campaigns that have been created and their corresponding stats.

• Sent—Number of members who received SMS Campaign.
• Clicked—Number of members who clicked a link in the campaign.

Actions

From the Actions menu, you can:

• Copy—Copy an activity to duplicate a discussion when publishing to different groups.
• Archive—Archive an activity. Archiving an activity disables further participation, such as additional comments. The activity becomes read-only. However, all archived activities are visible to the entire community by default—even if the activity was only visible to (a) specific group(s).
• Delete—Delete an activity, in instances where you do not want any record whatsoever.
• Export—Export your data like Activity Exports.

Announce Your SMS Campaigns

Here is some templatized language that can be used to announce the use of SMS campaigns to members of your community.

Important

Please update the text and tailor to your community. Confirm the download links for your app; international communities likely leverage different download links for each country.

Don’t check your email often? Are you a frequent mobile user? Then we’ve got some news for you!

We’re excited to announce SMS campaigns! SMS stands for “short message service” – better understood as text messages. The next time you login into [community], you may be asked to enter your mobile phone number. If you want to stay even more on top of [community] news and activities then we’d love to see you sign up to be eligible.

SMS campaigns pair perfectly with the [community] mobile app. Any message announcing a new activity or post will include a link that will open directly in the mobile app! Don’t have the [community] mobile app? No worries! The links will still open in your preferred mobile browser as well.

Entering your mobile number and becoming eligible to receive SMS campaigns is not required to remain in the [community]. This is an optional service we are offering our members a way to highlight important activities in a method other than email.

You can expect to receive a message [enter frequency]. If you later decide you no longer want to receive the text messages, you can always update your preferences in the Communication tab of your Account Settings!

Standard data and messaging rates apply.