Effortlessly reach your subscribers, ensuring they receive important updates like events, specials, and changes in hours. Avoid spam filters and social media bias with a marketing tool boasting 98% customer engagement.
Contents
- Beginning Texting
- Setting Up Your Texting Service
- Setting Up Texting Permissions
- Scheduling Texts
- Manually Approving Texts
- Quickly Promote Specials and Events by Text
- WATCH: How to Send Text Blasts to Customers
WATCH: How to Send Text Blasts to Customers
Beginning Texting
1. To begin, navigate to the “Texting” tab under "Marketing Channels" in your SpotHopper admin.
2. Click the “Enable Texting Marketing” button. This will open the “Texting Settings” page.
Guide: Setting Up Your Texting Service
1. On this page, you can select the texting package you want to sign up for.
There are four packages available, each at different price points.
2. Once you have selected your desired package, you will need to input the phone number that will receive replies from customers.
Note: This number will remain hidden and your customers will never see it.
When a customer replies to a text sent through SpotHopper, the response will be forwarded to the number you select.
3. Enter your restaurant name.
Note: there is a 160 character limit for this section. If you have a name that is longer than 160 characters, shorten it to fit. For example: “Mo’s Pub and Grill on 5th” could be shortened to “Mo’s Pub”.
4. After all the fields are filled out, hit the "Save" button on the bottom right.
Setting Up Texting Permissions
The next section, "Texting Permissions," controls where and how customers will be asked to opt in to get text messages.
It's recommended that you enable an opt-in option in all possible places. Make the message fun and reflect your brand image here.
Note: The last button on this page sends you to the "QR Code Flyers" tab, where you can select flyers that promote texting to your customers and encourage them to opt in.
Print these flyers and post them on your tables, bar, bathroom, windows, or in your to-go order bags. When customers scan them, they can provide you with their phone number to opt in for texts. If you can't print these flyers yourself, contact your support representative.
Now that you have enabled texting in your SpotHopper platform, you can start setting up promotions that will be sent in texts.
Note: Among initially setting up texting, there is a lag time in verifying your SMS marketing number. This is because our provider must first verify your business account before you can send out texts. It's standard procedure in order to avoid pop-up scammers from spamming everyone's phones - something that none of us want.
1. Click on the “Promotions/Announcements” tab under "Your Info".
2. Here, you can set up all of your text promotions alongside email and social media posts. To set up a promotion for any of the options in this section, simply select a green, activated promotion in order to edit the specific marketing for that topic further.
3. After selecting one or multiple promotions, click on “Customize Promotions” at the top of the screen. This will open a page where you can edit all of your promotions.
4. Navigate to the promotion you would like to set up with texting and click “Edit.”
5. Scroll to the “Texting” section of this promotion, and change the drop-down menu from “No texts” to “1 text”.
6. This will open fields to edit and write your text. Choose what date and time you would like to send the text. If you would like to manually approve texts before they go out, make sure to change “Auto-approve Texts” to “No”.
7. In the "Text Message" box, you can edit the content of your text.
Note: "customer_name" will be replaced by the name of the recipient. If this promotion is directing the customer to a link, the link will be included at the end of the text.
8. Once you are done editing your text, click the “Save” button at the bottom of the section.
9. To preview your text messages and edit them further, click on the “Texting” tab under Marketing Channels.
Here, you can preview and edit all texts that you've generated with SpotHopper.
Manually Approving Texts
1. If you choose to manually approve each text, navigate to the “Texting” tab under Marketing Channels.
From this tab, you can select 'Approve text messages first' in order to always confirm a text draft before sending out.
2. For each message you approve, click the associated green heart 
to schedule. To edit the text further, click on the pencil icon 
in the top right corner.
If you would like to send the text now, click “Send Now”. If you would like to save it and keep the scheduled time, click “Save & Schedule”.
You can send a test text by entering a phone number and clicking “Send Test”. This will send a test message to that number so you can preview your text.
You can also easily schedule texts about your specials and events directly from those respective pages. This is a great way to remind customers exactly why they should stop back into your business and spend money. Help customers make the decision to choose you over your other local restaurants.
Promoting Specials by Text
1. Navigate to the "Your Info" column and click on the “Specials” tab.
2. Here, you can send texts about your specials (as well as post them on social media and include them on your website). To activate the texting feature, check the messaging icon.
3. This will open an editing panel where you can review the text, including the content of the message, as well as when it will be sent.
To edit the text message, type in the text box. The date the text will be sent will be defaulted to the day of the specific special. To edit this, click on the date and adjust accordingly.
Once complete, click “Save & Schedule”.
Promoting Events by Text
1. Navigate to the "Events" tab of the platform.
2. While creating an event you can check the green text message checkbox in order to draft a text message to promote the event.
3. Otherwise, text messages can also be scheduled for previously created events by scrolling down on the event page, finding the event of interest, and then selecting the green text message checkbox as seen below.
4. In either case, a pop-up window will appear that allows you to draft a text, set the date and time to send, and also see how many subscribers will be sent the SMS message.
What upcoming happenings at your business in the next month are worth notifying your customers about via text message?