Sending a Text Marketing Campaign in BigCommerce

Compared to other marketing channels, SMS marketing offers the widest exposure with an open rate of 98%. Yotpo SMS helps your business grow brand awareness and boost sales by sending text messages that lead straight to checkout. Some high converting campaigns you can launch are flash sales, holiday deals, new arrivals, targeted promotions and care campaigns.

Advice: Try not to overwhelm your subscribers by sending texts too often. Send 1-2 campaigns per month. Make sure the content is valuable and includes deals you would only send to your most loyal customers.

This post will teach you how to set up and launch a text marketing campaign in BigCommerce. 

Getting started 

To create an SMS campaign in BigCommerce:

1. Navigate to the side menu and click on SMS Campaigns.

2. Select the target audience that will receive your message. Choose all text subscribers if you’d like to target all of your subscribers with a store-wide sale, or specific customers with a secret deal. You can also target a specific list or segment offering a deal based on a shared product interest.

3. Choose who your subscribers will see as the sender. For free account users, that can either be Yotpo SMS or your own phone number. If you’re on a paid plan, tick use a custom sender and write your store’s name (up to 11 characters max).

4. You can send your text campaign now or later. When later is selected, you can specify an exact day and time from the calendar and digit dials. Your message will send based on your timezone which you can edit from the Settings.

5. By ticking the box Send based on customers’ timezone your message will be sent based on each one of your recipients’ timezones. For this setting to work, please schedule your campaign at least a day prior. The setting is only available for Growth users and higher.
   
6. Write your campaign name. A UTM campaign name tag will automatically be assigned so you’ll be able to track your campaign’s success both in Google Analytics and Yotpo SMS’s Analytics section. If you leave this field empty, we will auto-assign a campaign name.
   
7. Smart sending is automatically enabled to avoid spamming your subscribers. It stops a message from being sent to subscribers you’ve sent messages to in the last 16 hours. The recommended timespan ranges from 16 - 20 hours and can be changed from the Settings. When disabled, your message will be sent to all subscribers regardless of when they last received a text.
   
8. To make your message more visually exciting, tick the box attach image of GIF. Then click on Browse to upload an image or GIF from your device. Currently, this feature works for U.S. recipients only.
   
9. Start off your message by clicking on the {SiteName} short-code, then greet your customer with {FirstName}. Keep your message short with a strong CTA. Always remember to tick Add STOP to opt out to give your subscribers the chance to unsubscribe. Keep an eye on the mobile preview to the right to see how the message will appear to recipients when sent.
   
10. Tick add discount to add a fixed amount, percentage, or free shipping. Click Add discount code to apply the code in the message.
    
11. You can send yourself a test campaign message to your phone, and when everything looks alright click on review & send campaign.
    
12. Read over the campaign overview and campaign data which includes the cost of sending your message. Click back to edit anything, and when all looks alright, click send now to launch your campaign.
    
13.  If you set your campaign without a delay, it will start sending immediately. If you set a delay, your message will be sent at the date and time you scheduled. You can view all campaign details in the Scheduled Campaigns section, by navigating to Scheduled Campaigns under SMS Campaigns from the side menu.