Thanks everyone for carving out some time your day to uh, talk about Salesmsg and your text messaging campaigns. We've got some really awesome uh, enhancements, uh, to go over uh, in this webinar. Uh, we try to keep the treat, uh, every webinar that we do as focused on your team's end use case as possible. So we're going to go over a couple of exciting new uh, features that we've released, um, and have a bit of discussion as well. Um, so um, here's at a high level, we're planning on covering today wants, um, to showcase uh, one of our newest features, text adjoin keywords, and how your team could use that to uh, generate some auto responses, uh, from your customer inquiries. Um, we released a new regulatory, uh, feature for exporting conversation, um, as well as uh, made some enhancements on uh, the media asset and video library side that we like to chat about. Um, towards the end, uh, we uh, will be covering um, some clients changes, uh, that we're seeing in the industry and some things that, uh, our clients need to do that we're going to help you with in order to ensure that we are adhering to best practice in the telecom space. And then as always, we'll have time for some Q and A. Um, my name is Ben Francis, I'm the head of Customer Success and Support here at Salesmessage. Um, on the call as well, we've got my colleague David, um, who uh, serves as our support lead and later on in the call you'll likely see my colleague Taweed also join. We'll uh, keep an eye on the chat as well. So any questions that pop up, um, please feel free to post them in the chat and either you will answer them directly on the call or my colleague David will uh, go ahead and answer them directly in the chat. So please, any questions you have about anything that we cover today. We'd love for this to be as collaborative as possible. Awesome, so let's dig right in. Um, so one of our most requested features, uh, which uh, is I want to use my SMS campaigns for my top of funnel marketing type of purposes primarily. And I want to be able to tell my customers just text a specific word or phrase to be able to generate a reply and kind of initiate that conversation with my customer just by saying, text this word, text this phrase. Well, we've built that exact thing. Um, so we call it text. To join keywords, you will find it on the left hand side of your navigation within the Sales Manager platform, that little key and graph icon. And um, we're going to walk through exactly what it looks like, but at a high level. And we've seen this, um, in our feature request for this was the single most requested feature that we've ever had, being able to generate these, these autoresponders based on specific phrases, uh, coming in, um, on as inbound text. So we've built that exact feature. Um, so for our customers that are doing topple funnel marketing, whether we're doing online or offline type of marketing, you want to just have your customer text in demo or summer 20 or whatever specific promotion or phrase that's relevant to the campaign you're running and just text that to your Salesmsg number. We can generate an autoresponse, um, using all of the great features, uh, on the message composition side that you have come to know and love from Salesmsg directly. Uh, but there are some interesting other use cases that we've seen from customers, um, that we think might be worth sharing as well. Um, whether that is sharing details, uh, about an upcoming event, for example, if we do event based marketing or even event reminders text, uh, July webinar, um, or Summer event to be able to generate an auto reply with say, the registration link or some event details, a uh, booking page. The opportunities are seemingly endless, um, as well as even, uh, on the support side, um, for customers that are looking uh, for some help being uh, able to text support to your main line to generate an auto reply. Hey, here are the ways that you can interact with our support team. Whether that is creating a ticket, sending an email, or just continuing that conversation directly from there, you've got some great options. So rather than just talking about what this feature can do, I'd love to show you something that we thought we'd have a little bit of fun today. Um, feel free to go ahead and text the word Webinar to this phone number and uh, we will go ahead and add 25 bonus credits to your Salesmsg account. If you're already a Salesmsg customer, I'll um, post it in the chat as well. So please feel free um, to uh, go ahead and take a look at this. But let's dive in and show you exactly how we would build this text. Adjoining Keyword so I'll go ahead and share my screen here, popped into my primary account, you can see the uh, salesmen conversations page. But over here on the left hand side, you'll see our keyword icon where you'll see I've got a variety of different keywords already built. Some uh, cool things about these keywords, um, is so you'll see what the term is itself, the number of people that have texted in that, the number of people that have unsubscribed, uh, related to texting in that word. And the status overall, relatively straightforward. Uh, something else that's pretty cool is if you hover over it, you'll see a couple more icons over on the far right hand side. Something that's pretty neat is you can actually hover over and see what um, uh, the phrase is as well as the number that is currently associated with. And then I click this little three dots, come in and edit this, clone it or view the analytics directly for this specific keyword. So if I want to create a new one, say uh, for an upcoming event for example, I can come up here, this bright green button create keyword. So um, what I'm going to do is I'll create one for Summer event. Super simple. From there, that is going to be the term that our customers are going to text us directly. And we can assign this to as many or as few numbers as it makes sense for our team. So if we want this is going to be a campaign across business units or um, company wide type of campaign. We're going to be fielding traffic from a variety of sources and we're not sure what exact number uh, we're going to be sharing this out on. You can link it to multiple. That way, regardless of where the customer is initiating that number from, uh, you can still generate that auto reply. From there, I can create my auto reply message. And this can be something as simple as simple text all the way to using a canned reply for example, or using some personalization options by generating some merge fields. Merge fields I'd be a little careful with just to ensure that your customer already exists within your ecosystem. If we're doing offline type type of, of campaigns, billboards, web ads, radio, um, ads, things like that, where it's highly likely that our customer isn't already in our CRM or is a contact within Salesmsg directly. We might want to avoid using uh, merge fields. But I can generate an auto reply with an image, with an attachment, with a video, a, uh, shortened URL, such as if I wanted to share the details for this event, I could come in, post the event details, link out to a specific spot, and even use Salesmsg link shortener to be able to condense down that message. That way I have um, my full 160 characters for that SMS that I want to send back. Next step, once I've created my message, um, and personalized what I want this autoresponder to look like, then I can just come in and assign this to my phone number. So I can assign this to our main number. I can assign this to a specific support inbox or any combination of numbers that make sense. So if I want to sign to our Florida inbox as well as our sales team inbox, you see, I have the option to link as many as I want. So if I get attacked this text from any of those three numbers, it will generate this auto reply so long as the texture and keyword is turned on, which would be this active tab right here. Somebody else is that cool? That's pretty cool is I can actually append, um, and apply a tag as it relates to, uh, this keyword directly from here, such as, um, today's webinar, for example. So I can come in, create the keyword directly in here, and then I can see the status of all of my keywords. I can turn it on or off directly from here. And then if I want to click into any one of these, you'll see that I've gotten a text from James P, uh, from this specific number as it relates to this webinar. So I can see that if I wanted to, I can come in and update the verbiage on this autoresponder after I set it live if I want to, if I want to change the messaging or update, uh, a landing page URL, something like that. You can totally do that. As a part of this really powerful feature, um, being able to generate an auto reply has a million different use cases, uh, that we've seen our customers request. We would love for you to test this out. Um, again, feel free to text Webinar, uh, to the number I posted in Chat. We want to make sure we get to get you some bonus credits for participating in, uh, the webinar for us. Um, if you're ever curious how to best optimize your marketing, sales, customer engagement, event marketing, uh, type of campaigns for SMS, that's where I'm here to help as your Customer Success Manager. Um, so please feel, uh, free to reach out to me, reach out to our team to explore the art of the possible and using text to join keywords as an additional tool in your toolkit ah, for your SMS campaigns. So, jumping back to my slide deck here, let's see. So we've released a new feature on the regulatory side and we've seen several customers in the insurance and finance space that are, um, that are looking to ensure that they can adhere to best practice on the compliance side and being able to export a log of all touch points and conversations you've had with the specific contact. Um, so we've now released a feature where you have the ability to export a conversation directly from the Salesmsg conversation view. Uh, um, so regardless if the conversation is closed, um, so long as that contact lives within your Salesmsg ecosystem, we have the ability to pull up the conversation that you've had with your contact on whatever number you're interacting on and export that directly from here. You have the option to include a specific format, but again, rather than just telling you about what this can do, I'd love to show you. So if I pop back into that account, go to this conversation I've got going here, let's go ahead and pull up the conversation with myself. This line so you can see here, I've got this conversation with myself. Um, I'm going to go ahead and send a quick text hello from the Salesmsg main number. You'll see, I've got a couple of options that you're already used to in the conversation view, see who's assigned this conversation. I have the option to close this conversation. I can call directly, I can toggle on and on or off for call recording as a part of that process. But also in this three dot next to the call icon is where I can either mark the conversation on red or export all of the touch points I've had with this number. On that Salesmsg number. I can also include notes as well. So for those clients that need to need an audit log for every touch point you've had with the customer, um, ensure that, ah, whether that's for regulatory purposes or even just internal audits, um, and doing more of, um some, uh, additional education and coaching. Internally, you have the ability to export that either as a CSV or a direct text file directly, which will generate so if I click Csv, it'll generate and it will email that report directly to you. You can also download it directly right from here. You'll see that that will pop down in that bottom lefthand corner for me to go ahead and pull up, um, in my Excel or in my Csv file opener. So it's a great way to be able to, uh, ensure that we can stay above board and we can adhere to regulatory compliance needs by exporting those conversations right now. Um, exporting conversation is an individual process. Uh, if your team needs to do this in bulk, we can totally help. So please feel free to reach out to, uh, our support team either through this little chat modal here or support@salesmessage.com and we can help facilitate that bulk export for you. We're, uh, working on a multi select type of option, um, here in the future, but wanted to go ahead and, um, get out this individual conversation export first. Cool. Moving on. So, as you're already used to, uh, with Salesmsg, um, composition tools, we support both SMS and MMS. Ah, whether we want to send a photo, a video, an attachment, a document, um, a V card. We support a variety of different file types directly from here, but some feedback we got from our customers, hey, I'd really love to record a video on the fly and send that video directly to my customer. Awesome feedback. We'd love to help with that process. So we now have the ability in our media library to go ahead and record a video directly from the Salesmsg application. Um, so if you want, especially for sales teams that are looking to have that personal touch with, uh, your customer directly, um, this is a great tool in your toolkit to not only generate a message to where your prospect is most likely to engage with you, but also be able to humanize yourself and the brand by, um, being able to record a video just on the fly. Really, uh, powerful feature. Again, let's dig into exactly how it works. So from the message composition box, uh, down here, I have the ability to, whether I'm doing this through an individual conversation or even through a broadcast, the same option still applies. I can click this little video icon here. I can click Record New, or I can grab an existing Mp4 or movie file directly from my, uh, media library. Again, you can see how much space your, um, account currently has, uh, to use, to be able to hold those videos, uh, for your team to use. We've got a gig of storage as an option. So in here, I can click Record New, and it's going to go ahead, use my machine, uh, directly from here. Again, I'm using my upper camera for zoom. So this actually works out perfect. I can adjust my configuration settings, switch cameras, adjust the quality, high definition, low definition, adjust the input sources, hit Record, and record that message directly to a prospect. So in here, I'm going to go ahead, let this count down. This is a recording on Salesmsgs new video, uh, recording feature directly within the platform. Perfect. In here, I can pause, I can go ahead and scrap that if I want to. I can save it and move on. And it will then compress down that file, convert that to a Salesmsg hosted URL, which will then be dropped in directly into the conversation. So you'll see here, I've got a new asset in the media library. I can grab it, I can add that file, I can even download it directly onto my device if I want to use it, um, either via email or through some other sources as well. But going from Record Add and then typing in a personalized message in a matter of moments, and then I can send and send that asset directly to my contact. And there it is, I just got it on my cell phone. Super simple. So allowing your sales team, um, to be able to interact with your prospects in a much more personal way with just a couple of clicks in a matter of seconds, really great feature. Uh, for any of you on the webinar or watching this recording, I would love your feedback on exactly what you think of being able to record, uh, directly from the Salesmsg platform. So plugging right along. Let's talk about some changes that we're seeing, um, in the SMS and telecom space. So, as a part of being your partner, um, through your SMS and Voice, uh, operation, uh, something that we take pride in is really ensuring that we can be our customers ambassadors to best practice, um, and upcoming changes in the telecom industry. And something that we're seeing recently and something that you might have seen, if you're already a salesmenus customer, especially using toll free numbers, is you might have seen a banner at the bottom of your conversation tab that says, your toll free number has not been verified, please contact our support team. And the reason we included that flag was there, uh, is a new shift in the compliance area of SMS, um, that is trying to validate that all traffic that is sent on toll free numbers is going through validated, uh, phone numbers. With the changes in regulation and the rise of spammers and bad actors coming, uh, in and really taking over, uh, the SMS space, we are working with our upstream partners, uh, to ensure that all Salesmsg customers, um, have a registered toll free number to ensure that their traffic, their messages back and forth to their customers are never going to be flagged as spam m. And a great way that we can help mitigate that is by registering our numbers for toll free verification. Um, this actually needs to be completed for all existing toll free numbers by the end of, I believe, July. David, correct me if I'm wrong in the chat, um, but we have an easy form filled directly in the application. I believe we link out to it, um, in that little banner window that you'll see, and our support team can help you with that process. It shouldn't take but just a minute or two to fill out a form and get it back to us to allow us to submit that verification on your team's behalf. As, uh, a part of being your partner, we, uh, want to ensure that your messages get to your end customer and there is no delay in service, there's no continuity issues with your customers directly. So, um, that's the biggest change. So if you already have a toll free number within Salesmsg and you have not already submitted your verification, please get that over to us. And if you have any questions, reach, um, out to our support team. We want to help you with that process as soon as possible, because, uh, the last thing we want is for your customers to be left in the dark because your messages aren't getting to where they need to go. Another change that we're seeing in the industry and something that we've been making significant investments within Salesmsg is on the additional compliance features for, uh, our customers that are engaging with large volume lists, thousands of people, uh, throughout a day or even a week. Um, we have a couple of great resources to ensure that our traffic goes out through a preferred lane. The way that I describe this to most customers is, uh, the difference between, uh, going to the airport through regular security versus going in through TSA Precheck or Clear. You're still going to get through, um, but getting through is a much better experience, um, and it's a much faster experience and we're less subject for delays in that process. So, um, within the Salesmsg application, under the Organization settings, we have a whole tab dedicated to our compliance features. We've got some great ones in there. On the texting side, the primary compliance feature is going to be Ten DLC. What, uh, this means at a high level, it is a preferred status where we register the brand using your tax ID or Ein number to say, this is my brand. These are the types of messages I'm going to be sending, um, please let my traffic go through a preferred lane. These are the numbers I'm going to be sending that traffic on super simple process. You can actually submit all of that directly from the salesmen application, so you don't need us at all. And we'll tell you directly within, uh, that compliance tab what Ten DLC status you have currently, your approval status, and even your trust score. And some good information about what a trust score means. On the voice side, we've got some awesome features, uh, such as being able to, uh, set up a branded caller ID. Uh, as we're doing our outbound calling initiatives, um, using a feature called Cnam, as well as Stir. Shaken to be able to ensure that any outbound call that we initiate from our Salesmsg number will never be flagged as scam, likely or potential spam, which iPhone and Android have been rolling out some additional filtering, uh, on those call type settings as well. So whether we're initiating our conversations via text or via call, want to ensure that you're able to get a hold of your end customer quickly and easily. And you can do all of that directly from the Salesmsg application using the compliance tab. As we see changes in the industry, um, and we are watching it closely and have great partnerships with, uh, our upstream carriers to ensure that, uh, any changes that we see that are going to impact our Salesmsg customers, we will be communicating those changes through a variety of ways, um, sometimes too many ways. Whether it's email in, app notifications, um, support inquiries, or even direct conversations, uh, from myself and the Customer Success Team, we want to ensure that we're adhering to best practice whenever we can, and that all of our messages, um, and numbers are in a compliant status. That's where we're here to help. So with that, want to open it up for some questions. Um, so please feel free, uh, to post in the chat if you have any questions. But we've also seated a couple here as well to kind of get the gears turning a bit. So is there a limit to the number of keywords that you can create? No, this guy is the limit. We would really love to see as many use cases as we possibly could for using these text to join keyword autoresponders, whether that's just for your marketing sales team, you're doing call booking lead qualification MQL to SQL type of process. Whether that's customer support related or event reminders, um, the possibilities are endless and we would love to hear your feedback on how well this feature is working for your specific operation. We covered this in uh, the build itself, but yes, absolutely. Uh, within the keyword builder, you have the ability to assign that keyword autoresponds to as many or as few numbers as you'd like. Um, so if it's a specific demo, or if it's a support type of autoresponder, and you want to link this to every number that you're using within Salesmsg. So anytime you get a text that contains the word support, you um, can generate that response and that directive that here's how we can best support you as a customer. You can totally do that. Yes, sure can. So, as we saw in the event reminders based to base scenario, we have the ability to use our suite of tools, including our URL, shortened directly into that autoresponse. Are we tracking this the same way we are, say, like in a broadcast, for example? And the answer is not yet. Um, as a part of testing out this feature, we recognize that our customers want to track the efficacy of the end destination that we're going to be driving traffic to in this autoresponse. So that's something that our team is uh, prioritizing to build in very short order, we uh, want to give you the same level of granularity that you have on the mass messaging side using our broadcast tool, um, as well as on the autoresponder text to join kind of top of funnel side as well. Um, so, not yet, uh, but keep your eyes peeled for uh, our product updates because uh, we've got some exciting enhancements to share as well. Tell anything to add on that side? No, I think you covered it really well Ben. And uh, the next step from there would be based on user interest is uh, to see if conversion tracking would be a thing to add to keywords, whereby you're not only tracking uh, how many people texted in that keyword, but any auto reply that has a call to action, uh, tied to a conversion event. Uh, that's potentially something we can consider based on um, the demand of the users. Yeah, absolutely. So is it possible to export multiple conversations? Um, in short, uh, right now, exporting conversations is an individual type of process, but if you need to export multiple conversations, uh, our support team can help you. Uh, so please feel free to reach out either via the chat or uh, via support@salesmesters.com and we can help you with that process. Can I record and send videos on mobile to all? Send this one to you? Uh, not yet. The short answer is not yet. So the team is working on a large release for mobile that's going to have a lot of features that are going to bring it to parity with uh, the, uh, web app. But for now, recording videos is uh, limited to, um, web app. That said, though, on your mobile, obviously you can record any video you want using your own mobile device and add it to your text message from the gallery. Yeah, absolutely. So, as Tom mentioned, we're making constant investments in not only the Salesmsg web application, which we primarily showcased on this webinar, but also, um, the other places that we can send and receive messages, whether that's through a direct CRM integration like HubSpot or Pipe drive active campaign, um, as well as through, um, our ecosystem, our Salesmsg, chrome extension, as well as our mobile app for iPhone and Android. Um, so we want to uh, as much as possible, create a universal experience across all of the places that you can send and receive messages. So um, we've got a ton of great mobile specific functionality coming down the pipe in very short order. We're um, looking to try to see how we can continue to deepen that, um, uh, using the same video type of feature that we just released for the web platform. How is there a limit on the length of videos I can record? For now, it's limited to five minutes. We're monitoring closely, uh, the type of videos, uh, our users record, uh, and then if there is a need to extend that, we are going to do that. This is meant for short, engaging messages. Uh, so that's why it's kept at five minutes. Yeah. We had a lot of conversations while we were working on this feature to um, try to figure out what was that, what was that right window? Do I want to be able to send a long form message and how short it was? Too short. Um, and we landed on five minutes, uh, as kind of the sweet spot. We want to be able to have the length, to be able to create a compelling message, but ultimately sending a text to your customer and sharing a video in that process. Not the best vehicle for a long form type of conversation. Typically, uh, what we're seeing on the video side is it's typically a quick intro with a quick call to action. And those are some of the most effective, um, videos sent via SMS. Most of the time those are less than two minutes in duration, but we wanted to give our customers some additional headroom, so we set it at five minutes. Anything longer than five minutes, we might want to reevaluate. Um, if it makes sense to record a personalized video rather than generating traffic to a specific end destination that's a bit more long form in nature. Yeah. So to add even, uh, a little bit to that, uh, Ben, I'm not sure if you had a chance to discuss the possibility of having an auto reply message that includes. The video. So what a great way to build an instant connection with a lead that just landed in your pipeline with a message that has kind of some sort of an intro about your company or whatever the offer is? Yeah, it's a great call out. Uh, we went over, um, in just a few minutes ago, we went over recording a video and sending it directly, uh, through an individual conversation. But as we've grown familiar, the same message composition tools are available on the one to one messaging side, the text adjoin keyword, as well as the broadcast side. So whether we're generating an auto reply and, uh, including links, or including, uh, attachments recorded videos, or we're doing mass messaging, we have the same options available for all those vehicles. Cool. So registering toll free traffic, can you confirm if it's end of this month or end of next month? Uh, David would be the perfect person to answer that question. David, do you have the answer? I do have the answer, but I want to just make sure that, uh, it's accurate. Yeah, I believe it was all numbers. After all. Toll free numbers after May 15 are going to be due by the end of July. And any toll free number that was purchased before May 15, I believe we have until the end of the year. Okay, fabulous. So if you haven't already filled out your toll free verification, please reach out to our team. We want to help you get that registered as soon as possible. Again, we want to avoid any delays for your customers getting the messages that you're trying to send them. And I would say in the meantime as well, maybe to add to that, ben is, uh, to refrain from using toll free numbers in broadcast, especially ones that are going out to larger numbers. Would you agree with that recommendation? Um, not necessarily. If you've already filled out the registration and gotten it over to us, nothing else you need to do, I wouldn't refrain if that's going to be your primary, uh, channel to send out your text campaigns. We'd still recommend using, uh, whatever branded number that you have been using. Something, um, that's something to call out on that side is especially if we're engaging larger lead lists, we're talking several hundred, up to thousands, uh, of contacts. It's definitely worth a conversation either with myself or my team, to talk about whether Ten DLC makes sense for your company as well, which is an additional layer of support, uh, that you can have to ensure that your messages get to where they need to go. So one final thing before we open it up to, uh, just general Q and A, um, is here at Salesmessage, we take immense pride in allowing our customers to know exactly what we're building on and, uh, allowing you guys to help us prioritize what we should build next. Text to join Keywords was one of the most requested features we've ever received. I'm, um, actually going to pull it up just to see what exactly so we had 45 specific, uh, accounts say, yes, I really want this feature. Um, so we saw that feedback and prioritized it and have now delivered on it, uh, in this webinar. We, um, would love to hear what we should be building next based on what would be most valuable for your team. And we make that super simple for you to be able to add your voice onto our product roadmap. Having worked in multiple SaaS organizations for the last seven, uh, eight years, this is something that's a bit unique, uh, in the industry. We publicize what we're working on, and we allow you a vehicle to not only ask us what you need, but, uh, also show you where we are in that process, what's on deck, what's in progress, and what have we delivered on, um, all within a single platform. You, uh, can access this directly from the Salesmsg platform by clicking on your little, um, avatar icon and clicking on Feature Request right here. So if there's something that your team would really get a lot of value from the Salesmsg platform, please feel free to add it here. We want to prioritize it if you see something else and that will be value to you, um, that has already been requested. Upvoted these trends, and we review these, um, almost daily to ensure that we are working on the right things, uh, for our customer base. Dave posted the chat as well. Feedback salesmessage.com. With that, I'll open it up to any, uh, Q and A, um, anybody on the call have any specific questions we can help answer. If not, we'll plan on hanging out for just a minute or two. Um, but another great way to get your questions answered and learn more about the salesmen platform is our YouTube channel. Uh, we release a video for every new feature, um, that we build quick, um, little couple of minute video outlining exactly, uh, how to build and implement this for your team. So please feel free to check it out. And if you are not already a customer, we would love the opportunity, um, to, uh, work with you. So please feel, uh, free to reach out to myself, reach out to David, reach out to Tao to learn more, I believe. Let's see. I think I had a slide on that as well. Tao, any questions in the chat I've missed so far? No, not that I can see. But, uh, we're always available support or the direct chat in the app, or, uh, just, uh, one of these webinars you can always join if you want to have, like, a deeper dive into one of those things. We are always there. Yeah, absolutely. And if you have texted in that webinar keyword as a part of, uh, this webinar, um, I'll be checking those here in just a little bit and ensuring that you, uh, get those bonus credits on your account as soon as possible. So keep an eye out for your credit balance in the salesmen application. We'll, uh, be adding us here in just a few. With that, we'll give you some time back in your day. Thank, uh, you so much for attending. Um, and again, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to our team.
