SMS Quick Start: Add Your First SMS Number
Quick Start - Add Your First SMS Number
Applies to: All ONTRAPORT accounts.
Here's how to set up your SMS numbers:
- Click the profile icon in the top right of your account, then Administration > Data Tab > SMS
- Click the + Buy Number button (remember, the first number is free)
- Enter a name at the top left. This is just for reference and is not shown to Contacts.
- Select your country from the drop down.
- Enter your area code. You can leave this blank if your country does not use area codes, or uses a single area code for all mobile numbers.
- Click Search.
- Click inside the Available Number drop down to see the numbers available.
- Select a number from the list and click the √Buy Number button at the top right.
- Add the voice response text you would like read to anyone who calls your SMS number in the Voice Message box. This is used to advise them the number is for text messages only, and provide your office number. Example: "Thanks for calling XYZ Company! This number is for text messages only. Please call our office at 555-555-1212. Thank you!"
- Optional: Instead of typing text into the Voice Message box you can record a message using a MP3 file, and upload that file to the File Manager. Place the URL to the file in the Voice Message as shown in this image and the message will play when someone calls your SMS number.
How Should You Use SMS?
SMS in ONTRAPORT allows you to have two-way communication via text with your contacts. They can send texts to you, and you can automate replies (or send individual texts) to them.
This feature allows you to:
- Send contacts SMS messages for appointment reminders, upcoming credit card expiration, birthday greetings and other notifications
- Respond via SMS to keywords they text to your account (example: send an SMS with a link to your presentation in Google Slides when they text you the word "slides").
- Fire other automation based on the content of SMS messages received (example: add them to a Campaign when they text you the word "slides", and have the Campaign tag them, send an email with a link to the slides, and create a Task for your team to follow up).
- Relay the text of a received SMS to yourself or other team members.
- Send broadcast SMS to a small Group of Contacts (please see warning below).
Note: The receiving carrier may filter your outbound SMS and discard them if they note too many being sent to their customers, or if the content appears to be risky. See this article on Carrier Filtering and Spam Blacklisting of SMS from our partner Twilio. To use SMS for bulk marketing (i.e, more than 30 identical SMS per carrier sent at once) you should use an SMS Short Code number instead.
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