Chapter 12
Mobile Studio
IN THIS CHAPTER
Messaging subscribers on their mobile devices
Exchanging text, images, and video with your subscribers
Designing location-based messages
Mobile marketing is about extending your digital marketing to reach your subscribers even when they are on the go. The technology that powers your mobile campaigns offers a lot of power and flexibility.
You can create mobile campaigns that are as simple as sending a text message to make an announcement. On the other end of the spectrum, you can set up sophisticated monitoring to notice when one of your subscribers comes close to your store and send him or her a personalized message at that moment.
The mobile marketing apps in Salesforce Marketing Cloud reside in the category called Mobile Studio. Mobile Studio contains three apps to cover three kinds of use cases:
- MobilePush: Integrate notifications and alerts into your mobile apps and create location-based beacons to trigger messages in your own mobile app when a user enters a designated area.
- GroupConnect: Send messages, stickers, emojis, and other rich content to narrowly segmented users. This Marketing Cloud app requires the use of the Line messaging app, which is already widely available in Japan and gaining popularity worldwide.
- MobileConnect: Send ad-hoc or automated mobile messages.
Deciding Whether You're Ready for Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing gets you closer to achieving that ideal of delivering right time, right place messages to your customers. By integrating mobile marketing alongside your other messaging tools, you can broaden your reach and even enhance the effectiveness of other digital channels.
However, the effort of setting up and maintaining mobile marketing is not for the faint of heart. Consider the following challenges you will face when starting a mobile messaging program:
- The heavy lifting of setting up: The apps in Mobile Studio can require substantial effort to enable, and the process can be expensive. For example, just leasing a private short code — the six-digit code that your customers use to text you — alone can cost $500 to $1,000 per month. More sophisticated location-based messaging requires you to set up beacons in the places where you want to send in-app push messages to subscribers. That means purchasing and installing equipment in your physical stores, plus developing a mobile app if you don't already have one and integrating it with Marketing Cloud. The effort, time, and cost to get up and running can be substantial.
- Designing for the medium: Putting together a 160-character SMS message might seem easier than building an entire email message. However, composing an effective call-to-action that drives customer engagement within the constraints of an SMS/MMS message requires careful planning and efficient composition.
- Staying legal: Regulatory and industry requirements around SMS/MMS programs are more complicated than the requirements for email. Getting access to legal assistance in drafting terms and conditions for your program is a must.
A clear vision for a mobile messaging program and the ability to deliver on the promise presented to subscribers are important. You need to make sure that you have a plan in place and the means to carry it out before diving in.
Understanding Mobile Terminology
If you're new to mobile technology, you might find the lingo a bit confusing. The following sections describe some of the terms you'll need to know as you get started.
SMS and MMS
You may have heard text messages referred to as SMS messages. SMS stands for Short Message Service. SMS messages must be text only and are limited to 160 characters, though many mobile devices will automatically divide longer SMS messages that you draft into multiple messages and send them in rapid succession.
More recently, MMS messages hit the scene. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. MMS messages can include multimedia, such as images, sound, and video. The 160-character limit on SMS messages does not apply to MMS messages. If a subscriber's mobile device supports MSS, rich media can appear in text messages; a separate app to create and read MMS messages is not required. From the subscriber's point of view, SMS and MMS are the same thing — text messages.
By design, SMS/MMS messages interrupt your subscribers' lives. Unlike email, which sits quietly in the inbox until the subscriber decides to read it, a mobile message alerts the subscriber urgently, wherever the subscriber may be. To keep the trust of your subscribers and delight them with your mobile campaigns, you need to adhere strictly to the relevant regulations and industry-mandated best practices.
The CTIA (Cellular Telephone Industries Association) sets the guidelines for SMS/MMS messages. The CTIA is a wireless carrier industry organization that regularly performs audits of SMS/MMS marketing programs. Failure to comply with CTIA guidelines can result in cellular carriers suspending your SMS/MMS program. The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) also provides best-practice guidelines.
SMS/MMS marketing falls under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The TCPA requires things such as getting consent before sending mobile messages, providing easy options to opt-out of your mobile campaigns, and sending messages only during daytime hours. Your legal department should review the TCPA requirements. Failure to comply with TCPA can result in hefty fines.
Short codes
When you send text messages to your family and friends, you send them to their phone numbers. However, have you noticed that when businesses ask you to text them, they offer a shorter sequence (usually six digits or letters) to which to send your message?
Short code is the name for that short sequence of characters. SMS/MMS messages use short codes to communicate messages between businesses and individuals. When you decide to start mobile marketing, you'll need a short code.
You can save money by sharing a short code with other companies, but most companies that do mobile marketing eventually lease a private short code. You can lease a random series of numbers, or for an additional charge, you can choose the characters and create a vanity short code.
Mobile-originated campaigns
In a mobile-originated campaign, you put a keyword out into the wild — by printing it on billboards or in direct mail, for example — and see who signs up to interact with your brand. As the name implies, the campaign really begins when someone sends you a message from a mobile device.
Mobile-terminated campaigns
A mobile-terminated campaign is the other side of the mobile campaign coin. Whereas in a mobile-originated campaign the conversation starts when a subscriber sends you a message from a mobile device, in a mobile-terminated campaign you start the conversation by sending a message to the mobile device.
Any outbound message, including alerts and responses to inbound messages, is a mobile-terminated message.
Configuring Your Account for Mobile
You can purchase the mobile apps — MobilePush, MobileConnect, and GroupConnect — individually or together. Even if you purchase two or three of the apps together, you must configure each app individually. For MobileConnect you must also purchase additional support time from Salesforce to set up the app. Talk to your Salesforce account executive for details.
That said, some tasks, such as those described in the following sections, could help you prepare for mobile messaging in general.
Setting up your data for use with mobile
If you're accustomed to email marketing, you need to make some changes to your data mindset as you get ready for mobile.
Lists and data extensions
The same lists and data extensions that you use to send email messages also work for sending outbound SMS/MMS messages. The only difference is that for SMS/MMS messages, you need a mobile phone number instead of an email address to send your messages.
If you're using subscriber lists, you need to create a subscriber attribute to contain the mobile phone number. If you're using data extensions, you need to create a field for the phone number. See Chapter 6 for details on subscriber lists, data extensions, and how to create space for your subscribers' mobile phone numbers.
MobileConnect requires the use of lists rather than data extensions for sending. If you've stored your mobile records in data extensions, you must import them into a mobile list for sending.
You will also need to begin capturing your subscribers' mobile phone numbers. You can just publicize your short code and wait for subscribers to contact you, but you don't have to be limited to that approach. See Chapter 5 for ideas on drumming up good subscriber data.
Mobile campaigns
The campaign tool that you use for email marketing works also for your mobile campaigns. The main difference between email and mobile campaigns is their design more than the technology to manage them.
One big differentiating factor between email campaigns and mobile campaigns is immediacy. Because a large portion of the population has a mobile device within arm's reach at any time and tends to react quickly to incoming texts, the chances of your mobile message being seen right away are far greater than when your email lands in the subscriber's inbox.
MobileConnect
MobileConnect offers the traditional back-and-forth SMS/MMS communication with customers that probably comes to mind when you think of mobile marketing.
Typical kinds of mobile-originated campaigns that you might send with MobileConnect include the following:
- Email opt-in: Subscribers can join your email list by sending a keyword and their email address to your short code. This is usually a one-time text-message interaction: After you have the subscriber's email address, you send him or her email messages rather than SMS/MMS messages.
- Info capture: This kind of campaign is similar to an email opt-in campaign, but you can use it to capture any piece of data, not just email addresses. For example, you use this kind of campaign for “progressive profiling,” where, once you have the subscriber's email address, you ask for the person's name. Once you have the name, you ask for the ZIP code. Once you have that, you ask for the birthday, and so on.
- Text/media response: A subscriber triggers an automated response using a keyword — for example, replying with MORE to receive another message with more information. You can use media to get subscribers involved with something fun. We've seen a brand encourage subscribers in a stadium to reply with selfies holding its product. The brand gave a prize to the best image and meanwhile received a wealth of action shots with its product.
- Vote/survey: This kind of campaign uses a specific message template to send an invitation to the subscriber to answer true/false, yes/no, or multiple-choice questions.
The mobile-terminating messages that you create in MobileConnect can be highly personalized. Some Marketing Cloud users make extensive use of AMPscript, Marketing Cloud's proprietary scripting language (see Chapter 11), to send messages at relevant times for the individual subscriber and to include subscriber information stored in data extensions (see Chapter 6) in Marketing Cloud.
You send mobile messages to a data extension, just as you can do with email messages. The data extension must have a field for the mobile number of the subscriber to be a valid target list for a mobile message. Any data that you set up your AMPscript to include in the message also needs space in the data extension.
MobileConnect overview screen
You get to MobileConnect by selecting MobileConnect from the Mobile Studio category on the app switcher. When you open the app, you see the Overview screen, shown in Figure 12-1.
FIGURE 12-1: The Overview screen is a dashboard of your mobile marketing efforts.
From the Overview screen, you can take several actions in the MobileConnect app, such as creating a new mobile message.
Message Stats/Keywords
The Message Stats/Keywords box, in the upper left of the Overview screen, shows message or keyword statistics. Message statistics relate to your outbound messages, whereas keyword statistics relate to the inbound messages you receive with a particular keyword.
In either case, you can see the number of messages over a length of time. Use the drop-down menu at the top of the box to change the time period to any of the following values:
- Last 24 hours
- Last 7 days
- Last month
Click the Create Report button to generate a report of this information so that you can have access to the data outside of Marketing Cloud.
Playbooks
The Playbooks box, in the top middle of the Overview screen, is a link to playbooks. As we mention in Chapter 4, the use of Playbooks may be phased out soon in favor of Journey Builder (see Chapters 11, 16, and 17), so we will not discuss this box in any further detail.
Contacts
The Contacts box, in the upper-right corner of the Overview screen, contains your total number of mobile opt-in subscribers and the percentage growth of that list over the last 30 days. You can perform the following activities from this box:
- Click the Manage button to open Contact Builder.
- Click the Add Contacts button to import lists of mobile contacts.
Messages
The bottom three-quarters of the Overview screen displays the list of messages you've sent via MobileConnect. You can find a particular message by scrolling through the list (to move to the next page, you might need to use the pagination tools at the bottom of the box) or by using the Search field at the top of the box. You can limit the messages you see in the Messages box to those with a certain status by using the View By Status drop-down menu, in the upper-right corner of the box.
Setting up keywords
A keyword is the word that a subscriber texts to your short code to, for example, sign up for your program, get help, and opt-out. You have to set up keywords in Marketing Cloud so that the system knows how to respond when it receives a message from a subscriber that contains this word.
You set up your keywords in the Admin section of MobileConnect. To be compliant with industry regulations, you must set up a keyword that your subscribers can use to opt-out of the program and a keyword to get help.
Use the following steps to set up a keyword:
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From the MobileConnect app, click Administration in the gray toolbar at the top of the screen.
The Administration screen appears with an overview of the mobile-related settings in your account. The Short/Long Code section of the screen contains a list of all your short codes, and each is a hyperlink.
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Click the short code for which you want to create the keyword.
A screen appears with a list of all the keywords associated with that short code.
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Enter your keyword in the Create Keyword field that appears in the toolbar of the Keyword Management section on this screen.
Figure 12-2 shows where to find this field.
- Click the Create button.
FIGURE 12-2: The field where you define your keywords is tucked into the middle of this screen.
After you complete this procedure to define a keyword, you instruct the system on how to respond to the keyword as part of your message setup. See the “Creating a message” section, after the next section.
Setting your blackout window
The Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) limits the hours of the day during which you can send text messages to your subscribers, and you might want to limit the sending window even further. After you've decided when you will not send text messages, you can set up a blackout window in the MobileConnect to prevent any sends.
Use the following steps to set up your blackout window:
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From the MobileConnect app, click Administration in the top toolbar.
The Administration screen appears.
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In the Send Blackout box on the right side of the screen, click the Set Blackout Window link.
The Set Blackout Window screen appears.
- Click the Enabled status to instruct the system to prevent the sending of text messages during this blackout window.
- Select the start and end times of the blackout window, and then click Save.
Creating a message
The steps to create an outbound (mobile-terminated) mobile message depend on the type of message you send and the way you send it. The following steps are for an outbound message sent by an automation.
For inbound (mobile-originated) messages, choose a keyword that you defined previously (see the procedure on setting up keywords earlier in this chapter) and then indicate the text of the message to send in response to a keyword.
Use the following steps to create an outbound mobile message in MobileConnect:
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From the MobileConnect Overview screen, click the Create Message button (on the right side of the toolbar).
The Create New Message Wizard appears, open to the Select Template step.
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Choose the template you want to use for your mobile message.
You can choose from the following options:
- Outbound: A simple SMS message from your business to your mobile subscribers. For this example, we're choosing this template.
- Text Response: An SMS message that the system is ready to send in response when a subscriber sends a keyword.
- Vote/Survey: A message to invite your mobile subscribers to participate in a poll that you create as part of the message.
- Mobile Opt-In: A message to invite people to become subscribers to your mobile messages.
- Info Capture: A message to ask your subscriber for information, such as his or her name or email address. You can store the response you receive as a contact attribute.
- Outbound Media: Similar to the outbound message, except this message uses MMS technology so it can include more rich media.
- Media Response: Similar to the text response, except with MMS.
- Media Share: A message to invite mobile subscribers to send you media, for example, photos of themselves using your product. You set up this type of message also to store the media so you can find it later.
- Email Opt-In: Invite mobile subscribers to subscribe to your email messages.
- Send Email: A message to invite subscribers to receive an automated email from your business.
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Click Next.
The Define Content step of the wizard appears. The files in this step may vary, depending on the message type you chose in Step 2.
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In the Message Name field, enter a name for the message.
You use this name to identify the message in tracking or when you want to edit the message definition later.
- In the Short/Long Code drop-down menu, choose the short or long code from which you want to send the message.
- Choose the Send Method:
- Schedule: Choose a date and time when you want to send the message. This is the most common option.
- API Trigger: API code that you write triggers the send of the message.
- Automation: An automation in Automation Studio sends the message. See Chapter 10 for details about Automation Studio.
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Enter the text of the message in the Outbound Message field and then click OK.
When you start typing in this field, a preview appears to help you visualize what your message will look like on a mobile device. Tools also appear in this field to help you insert personalization strings, shorten URLs, and convert commonly abbreviated words to their abbreviations.
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(Optional) If you want to associate the message with a campaign in the Campaigns tools (see Chapter 4), click Add Campaign and choose the campaign.
If the campaign doesn't exist yet, click the Create Campaign button to create one.
- Click the Activate button to make the message available for the automation to send.
MobilePush
The MobilePush app lets you send messages through your existing mobile app. Many consumer-facing businesses already have mobile apps even if they don't have a larger-scale mobile marketing plan. A mobile app can be almost as simple as your corporate website, offering information as basic as your store's location and hours of operation.
Mobile app development is relatively simple and straightforward these days. After you design the functionality of your mobile app, you can probably find a firm to develop it for you in short order.
Figure 12-3 shows the MobilePush interface.
FIGURE 12-3: Create a message in the MobilePush interface to send to customers via your mobile app.
General messages
Once you integrate your mobile app with MobilePush, subscribers who get the app will accept conditions during the installation process, such as the following:
- “This app would like to send you notifications”
- “This app would like to send you badges”
By giving your app these permissions, subscribers agree to let you push them messages through the app. For example, a newspaper app on your phone might use MobilePush to alert you to a breaking news story by sending you a synopsis of the story.
You integrate your app with MobilePush by using a tool called a Software Development Kit (SDK). The SDK is a group of files that make it easier for developers to integrate the systems. You can have your development organization download the SDK from the Salesforce developer site at this location:
https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.mc-sdks.meta/mc-sdks/mobile-push-sdk.htm
Your company's app has to have slightly different flavors for iPhones versus Android phones, and the integrations between these apps and MobilePush are also slightly different. Separate SDKs are available from the preceding URL for iOS and Android.
Location-specific messages
MobilePush supports location-based messages as well. You define the borders of your location, and when a mobile device with your app enters a border, you send a message.
One technique for sending location-specific messages is geofencing. Geofencing uses the same kinds of satellites your navigation or mapping device might use. However, that kind of location technology is probably not specific enough for your in-store needs. Satellites are better at knowing which city block users are on than which kiosk they are near. In addition, users often disable this functionality on their phones because it drains the battery faster.
The technique you're more likely to want to use is a beacon. A beacon is a special piece of hardware that uses Bluetooth technology to detect when a mobile device is nearby.
When a subscriber comes close, you can send a greeting or an exclusive offer. With beacon technology, you might even be able to send department-specific messages. For example, when users approach sporting goods, you could alert them to a sale on treadmills.
Location-based messages can backfire if you don't craft them carefully and warn your customers in advance. When customers realize that you know exactly where they are in the store, they might find it more creepy than cool.
GroupConnect
The GroupConnect app lets you send rich content to narrowly segmented users who also use the Line messaging app. Line is a popular social-networking tool in Japan that is gaining popularity in other parts of the world.
Figure 12-4 shows an example of the GroupConnect interface.
FIGURE 12-4: GroupConnect makes it easy for you to compose messages to your users on the Line social network.
If your customers use Line, this is certainly an app you want to evaluate. However, a discussion of its use is outside the scope of this book.
Respectful Mobile Marketing Checklist
No matter what tool you use, you want your subscribers to look forward to receiving your mobile marketing messages. To create a mobile marketing campaign that delights subscribers, provide useful, valuable content in a respectful way. The following checklist helps you make sure you're respecting the needs and privacy of your subscribers:
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Always have opt-in permission. For a program where you send recurring messages, you generally obtain permission by asking a customer to text a specific keyword to your short code to subscribe. You can also set up a form on your website where people can sign up to become SMS/MMS subscribers.
To comply with CTIA standards, people signing up using your web form require an additional step, known as a double opt-in. You send an SMS/MMS message to the phone number on the form asking subscribers to confirm that they want to join your list. When the subscriber replies to the message to confirm, you add the subscriber to your list. This step makes sure that you have the correct number and that the person in possession of the phone intended to subscribe.
- Set rules and expectations. For recurring programs, your initial message should
- Describe the program (“Thx for joining Flash Sale alerts”).
- Set expectations about frequency of messages (“receive up to 4 msgs/month”).
- Explain that the charges that the subscribers pay for any SMS/MMS messages apply also to your messages (“msg & data rates may apply”).
- Offer a link to detailed terms and conditions (“see example.com/terms”).
- Say how to stop the messages and how to get help (“STOP to stop msgs; HELP for help”).
- Always include your business's name in your messages. If the message is part of a specific program, such as “flash sales” or “upcoming events,” include the name of the program in the message as well. This information builds trust with your subscribers and helps them remember that they requested the message.
- Control when you're sending messages. The TCPA limits automated communications to between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in your recipient's time zone.
- Let them say no. CTIA requires the use of a stop function (usually a reply keyword) for opting-out as well as help instructions. A way to opt-out should always be included in every message, not just the first one.