SMS is a powerful way of engaging with your fans. If you've collected phone numbers previously or through one of your OS Landing Page flows, try using SMS Broadcasts to reach out to your fans in creative and exciting ways!
Note: If you don't have phone numbers in your Artist Settings, reach out to your OS point of contact or email support@openstage.live to get these set up.
⚠️ Please note: SMS broadcasts require SMS credit to be topped up before they can be sent. Click here to learn more about topping up your SMS credit.
Create an SMS Broadcast
To start, head to:
Engage > Broadcasts > New Broadcast
1. Choose your channel
Choose a name for your broadcast, and choose SMS as your channel. For email, click here.
Note: The description is internal and for your own records. Fans won’t see it.
2. Design your message
This is where you add your message content.
You have 160 characters to work with without using links.
Links can be added below the main SMS text field and use 29 characters, regardless of the link. You can link to:
One of your Openstage landing pages
Any external link
All links will be shortened automatically.
💪 Best Practice: Provide a landing page link for fans to register interest.
If your phone numbers are from a previous data set that has been imported, or from a text/voicemail campaign, your first SMS broadcast to these fans should include a link to one of your landing pages and invite fans to sign-up.
This way, engaged fans can opt-in to hear from you and provide you with more data for future audience segmentation.
Use {{fan_first_name}} and {{fan_last_name}} tags to pull in the names of fans that are already on record, making this more personal.
Send welcome SMS only
Selecting 'send welcome SMS only' removes your custom message (including links) and allows you to send an SMS containing your welcome message, a link to download your contact card and options for fans to opt-out from SMS communications.
Your welcome message can be changed by heading to:
Settings > Artist settings > SMS & Phone
The welcome SMS is the same as the GDPR message.
3. Choose your audience
Now, choose who you want to send your broadcast to!
Pick from recommended audience cards or select 'Other' for a drop-down of all your audiences. As you refine your audience, full details on the recipients will show up in the Recipients column on the right.
You can add a combination of audiences, which will appear as pills in the "Added audiences" section.
If you want to filter further, you can do so by clicking on the Customize Audience drop-down to add more complex filters to your audience query.
If you can't find the audience you're looking for, you can create a new one by clicking the yellow link at the bottom of the drop-down, as pictured above.
4. Review your broadcast
Finally, review all the details of your broadcast in a single view. This step checks for any errors or missing info:
Yellow warnings should be reviewed, but emails can still be sent if these aren't fixed.
Red errors MUST be fixed in order to send your broadcast.
Click edit to go back to the corresponding step to fix any issues or make changes.
On the review page, you can also:
Send a Test SMS before sending out to your fans.
Delete a draft, but NOT an SMS that has already been sent.
Clone to duplicate the SMS you are working on, creating a new one with the same design and settings.
🙌 Top Tip: Your contact card picture is pulled from your fanpage profile picture. When you're happy with it, click save in Artist Settings to confirm.
5. Schedule and Send
When you are ready to send your broadcast, click the green Schedule button in the bottom right hand corner.
Regardless of schedule time, an SMS will NOT send until it is activated. You can schedule for a later date at a fixed time, or in fans' local timezones, or click 'Publish Now' to send immediately.
⚠️ Please Note: Do not change any aspect of your SMS whilst a broadcast is 'Active' (i.e. sending) as this can lead to errors in sending.
To make changes, de-activate the broadcast first and re-activate once you're happy with your changes.
Performance
Once your broadcast has been published, you can access performance metrics in the Performance tab.
For more on performance metrics, check out our Broadcast Metrics article.
SMS Costs
The cost of your SMS will be calculated using your chosen audience.
Here you'll also find:
A breakdown by country
Current credit applied to your account
Your quote will factor in the cost of sending any mandatory GDPR messages (see the bottom of this article for more details).
As a guide, click here for the current pricing by region. Navigate to the bottom of that page and see 'usage charges'.
Please note, outbound SMS cost varies by country. Inbound SMS is priced at £0.0123 for all countries. Inbound calls cost £0.0246.
Initial Contact SMS costs and GDPR
Initial Contact SMS at Double Cost
Initial Contact SMS at Double Cost
When a fan receives their first-ever message from you, they will also get a digital vCard that includes your artist name, phone number, and profile picture. This allows fans to easily save your contact details and recognise who future messages are from.
Due to ongoing GDPR compliance, we are legally obligated to include a brief text that outlines a fans' rights and explains why they are receiving this message.
Because of character limitations, these initial messages will require more than one SMS, resulting in a cost that's twice the standard SMS rate. For more information on our GDPR compliance, you can visit www.openstage.live/gdpr.
Every 20th Message
Every 20th Message
The same procedure, including the double SMS cost, will be repeated for every 20th message you send to an individual fan, in line with GDPR requirements.