Automating Campaigns Groundwork 

Identify an automated message campaign you’d like to run in the future: 

  • Start by articulating what you hope your campaign will accomplish:

  • Identify how you will create the contact group or opt contacts in to the campaign:

  • Are you already communicating with contacts about this subject matter? Via SMS, email, newsletter, blog post, or social media? Identify all the existing messages a user might receive about this topic:

  • Now, design your campaign! How many messages is it? Over how much time? Delivering what kind of content?


Video Transcript


Hello and welcome!


Campaigns allow you to schedule messages and workflows around a specific date, such as an opt-in or registration date. Campaigns are often used for drip marketing communications such as appointment reminders, adherence messages, or messages that correspond with the lifecycle of a product or service. They can be a wonderful way to ensure a user experience is both uniform and timely - and it can be a high-tech way to put recent research about human motivation and behavioral change nudges into practice. 



Today, we are going to walk you through the following: 


  • Why use campaigns? 
  • When a campaign is preferred over a standard SMS flow
  • How to automate campaigns 
  • How to design and set up your first campaign
  • How to archive, edit or delete campaigns
  • Sample opt-in flow and sample reminder campaign

Pros and cons of using a campaign for outreach:


Pros: Cons: 

“Set it and Forget it.” Automation reduces human error and ensures reliable outcomes!


You can schedule a campaign to send messages at a time/pace that you believe will most benefit your contacts. 


Provide best-in-class service across the board.  Every user who is opted into the campaign will have a shared experience, which a very effective onboarding or engagement tool. 


Multi-lingual outreach: Built-in capability to offer campaigns in more than one language based on contacts’ preferred language.


Reduce duplicate work! Setting up campaigns makes it easy to scale as the number of people you’re working with grows. 


If you’ve got campaigns up and running, you can be confident that service delivery won’t suffer - even as you onboard staff brand new to the platform.

Designing ahead can be tricky. You’ve really got to hone in on how you’re adding value to your contacts at a predetermined pace. 


You run the risk of less-than-ideal timing. For example: maybe your pre-scheduled message about disaster preparedness comes in the midst of an actual natural disaster. 


End-users may not be able to discern a more generic campaign SMS from SMS communications that are directed to them personally. Especially in cases where the campaign messages might come from the same phone number as other message types, we recommend that you assume your contacts won’t be able to tell the difference unless they’re told. 



The good news is that you can archive campaigns and readjust the timing of events as needed. Even after you schedule! 


When is a campaign a better approach than a standard SMS flow? 

 


  • It would be helpful if all contacts got the same information in a consistent cadence.
  • I am looking to provide users with motivational nudges.
  • The people I’m working with benefit from reminders.
  • I don’t need to message all my contacts at once; it’s better if they get messages based on whenever they complete actions or based on certain events.

We’ve covered what campaigns are, some of the pros and cons, and what makes them a unique tool compared to flows. If you’re interested in learning the technical how-to, this next part is for you. 


Identify the desired outcome of your campaign. 


Ask yourself: how can I make this person’s life easier or more manageable? What kind of connection would feel good to them?


Example 1: Application submission reminder campaign that reduces the number of missed deadlines.

Example 2: Engagement campaign that increases participation at a specific event. 

Example 3: An informational campaign that addresses frequently asked questions and saves staff time.


Identify who will be opted-in to the campaign and how that will happen. 


Remember, you can invite users to text in specific trigger words to opt-in to a campaign - we’ve seen this work via social media, intake forms, and in other marketing materials. To create a contact group, you can import a list, use flows, or manually edit a contact’s group membership. 


Identify what you’re already doing to meet your goal.


Are you sending automated emails? Are there newsletters going out on social media or website updates with announcements? Using multiple channels is a great strategy, so make sure you’re not unnecessarily duplicating efforts. Any campaign you’re running needs to work in tandem with other efforts, not in a vacuum. 


Design your campaign! 


Decide how many messages, over how much time, delivering what kind of content.  


Where to find further help:

Check out our robust help site (and use the search bar!)


Reach out to us directly via support@communityconnectlabs.com, for personalized troubleshooting.