Textmunication’s marketing team here again to bring you Text Talk, Textmunication’s monthly newsletter that brings you the latest pulsation on software enhancements, company updates, trends and industry insight for September. Text Talk is about sharing information that will support your go to marketing strategies around the SMS and RCS medium.
To begin, we would like to zoom out a bit. In California we have been in a mandatory stay-at-home order since March 19, 2020, so it has been around six and half months. Time sure does fly and we hope that your company is finding your growth strategy and using the right communication channels to do so (psst SMS work). From coast to coast Textmunication would like wish you good will and resilience in these times.
In brief we will cover:
Software enhancements
1. Wheel of fortune
2. Reporting an issue
3. Constituents codes added to queries
4. Custom queries to Auto SMS
5. ASF RESTful Integration complete
Reopening update in the Fitness Industry
1. Wheel of fortune
We made it even easier to get started with Textmunication and go direct with your engagement. Now you can sign up on your own! Just navigate to our registration link, fill out your contact information and you will have access to your very own SAM account.
Want to meet SAM and learn about all the features it comes with? Click here.
By default your initial activation will be set to a trial subscription, where you will receive 25 messages credits and a temporary long code. Although if you plan to hit the ground running and want to increase your messaging capabilities you just have to select a plan, then set up billing on a pay per use or monthly recurring basis. Once payment information is verified, your account will be fully active! Then you will have the choice to select whether you want to use a short or long code. We also made changing your plan a user-side control so you can upgrade, downgrade or even cancel whenever you want. The power is all yours!
2. Reporting an issue
We have updated the ability for our users to report an issue and send it directly to our technical support team. It is visible on the user-interface wherever you are located in the application. We understand that the software lifecycle is changing and modern consumers expect to have a direct line of communication between them and us, the product creators. That is why we have taken further steps to make this transaction smoother so we can gather more accurate feedback on usage and experience. Hope this helps.
3. Constituents codes added to queries
Now constituents codes in Blackbaud will be available and added as a filter option in the queries generator. As our software partners over at Blackbaud put it “Constituent codes define the high-level affiliations constituents have with your organization— such as Board member, Vendor, or Volunteer — and help you to understand why they’re in your database.” You can read more about constituent codes here.
4. Custom Queries to Auto SMS
For integrated accounts if you have a specific data segment to target you can now create those queries and set up Automated SMS alerts to go out on daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly frequencies.
5. ASF RESTful Integration complete
Great news! We have just completed our RESTful API with ASF Payment Solutions and have pushed the updates into production. Now ASF Payment Solutions software users can leverage Textmunication’s Automated SMS solutions for prospect and member engagement.
ASF have been committed as a technology pioneer in the health and fitness industry since 1972 and make it so owners have more time to focus on building a stronger community for their members, helping them face the future of fitness.
The pandemic has reshaped the public perception on which businesses are essential and which ones are not. Gyms, health clubs and fitness centers were a commercial segment that was considered unsafe because of the population density. Although for the past few months, health and fitness industry advocates have voiced their concern about this, not only because of the economic impact, but because of the impact the absence of gyms will have on the community. Health, fitness and wellness for a lot of consumers starts at their gyms and the argument is that there is no supplement for that and that science is presenting a silver lining. Based on data drawn from over 2,00 gyms in the nation, the virus-to-visit ration is at 0.002% (npr). Supportive figures like this are motivating other business owners to tackle to pandemic driven perception and reopening under coronavirus control measures which include:
- Capacity limitations
- Social distance protocols
- Face masks
- Frequent equipment sanitation
We have also provided a few resources to help you with your public relations. Of course if your team is making a great effort into sustaining your coronavirus control measures, it’s time to tell your members all about it! They are below for reference.
An SMS Messaging Strategy To Help You Reopen Safely
Text Message Marketing Through COVID-19
Using SMS Marketing As An Emergency Alert System
We hope these resources help jumpstart or add the fuel to some of your campaign strategies to reshape your relationship with your members.