Important Note - For the SMS automation to trigger properly, you must have a Person contact record associated with the deal. The Person contact record needs to also have a phone number as well, as that's the number we're going to send the SMS to.
Deal Automation is potentially the most powerful feature available within the Deals application.
When your sales personnel are working a pipeline, they are likely completing similar tasks daily for each new deal. This might include sending a follow-up email or sending a text message a day later as a reminder. The more tasks that need to be done manually, the greater potential there is for human error.
The Deal Automations feature allows you to automate any number of these tasks throughout the various stages of your sales pipeline. Our platform currently allows you to create automation for Email and SMS. It also allows you to create automation to Build InstaSites and Build InstaReports, two of our standout prospecting tools.
This article will walk you through how to create SMS automation for your sales pipeline.
Accessing the Deal Automations Menu
Navigate to the Deals application. Make sure you are on the My Deals tab.
Click on the Deal Automations button in the top-right corner.
How to Add SMS Automation
Your current sales pipeline view will update to remove your deals and show only the existing deal automation. If you have yet to create an automation, this page should be empty along with a 0 at the top of each stage.
Decide on the appropriate stage for your pipeline. Then, follow the steps described below:
Click on + Add Deal Automation under the appropriate stage.
A menu will appear prompting you to select one of the four available automation. Click SMS.
An empty SMS form will appear with various prompts for text entries. Below, we will explain what you need to enter into each of these fields.
From
Select the phone number you’d like to use to send this message.
Description
This is a brief description that informs you and your team what type of content is within the template or its purpose.
Message
The message field is where you will input the text that you intend to send to your clients. As you enter text, a preview will appear on the right showing what your message will look like to the recipient.
Note - The message field utilizes 1 credit for every 160 characters. You will utilize another credit each time you exceed the character limit.Personalization Options
The templates app allows you to inject personalization options into your templates. This is a useful time-saving tool that can auto-inject data specific to each client.
For example, the first option category that appears is called Business. This includes identifiers such as Business Name, Phone Number, Email, and more. For this demonstration, we will select “Business Name.”
You will now see the text “{{Business-Business Name}} within your message field. The recipient will not see that text, but will instead see their business name.
If you send the message in the template above to “Joe’s Plumbing,” the recipient at Joe’s Plumbing will view a message saying “Hello Joe’s Plumbing.”
As you scroll through, you will find a long list of personalization options that come from your Contacts, InstaSites, and InstaReports prospects. You can also inject your data. The added code will automatically inject the correct data according to the information from your contacts list.
Warning - If you do not have the necessary data stored within your contacts or your account, the system will not be able to inject the data. In the example above, the recipient will receive a text message that says “Hello {{Business-Business Name}}” if you did not associate the recipient with the Business Name in your contact information.
Another Warning - You will see a red text warning that states “Credits may vary due to personalizations.” The reason for this is that the number of characters will vary depending on the content you wish to inject. Be aware of your credits and ensure that you do not unintentionally go over the character limit.
You can test your message by using the field at the bottom of the form. Be aware this will use SMS credits for each test. When you’re ready, click Continue in the top-right corner of the screen.At this final step, we have the option to set up an action delay. By default, automation will occur immediately after a deal card is dropped into the stage. However, you can delay this automation by using this menu.
As you enter values into each field, the text at the top will update in real-time to reflect how long you will delay the action. You will also need to write a description in the final field. We recommend writing a brief description of the reason for the delay.
Finally, click Continue at the top of the page.
Congratulations! The automation is complete.
When you close out of this screen, you will be back at the initial Deal Automations screen. You can now see your automation under the appropriate step.
We can identify our SMS with a time delay of 2 Hours. The blue circle in the top-right corner of the step updates to show that happens to have 2 automation steps in this stage. The blue messaging icon will represent how many text messages have been sent as a result of this automation.
The ellipses icon will open buttons that allow you to Edit or Delete this automation.
Finally, you can hit the ON/OFF toggle to temporarily disable the automation as opposed to deleting it entirely. When you’re done, you can go back to deals or create another automation.
Using Multiple Automation Steps
The example above is important to note because it demonstrates the sequence of how automation occurs.
The Build InstaSite automation step happens immediately followed by the SMS automation step occurring 2 hours later. The dotted line connects the two to illustrate the sequence of events.
When adding more than one automation, be very aware of your delays to ensure that you don’t accidentally cause actions to overlap. Once an automation step occurs, there is no way to reverse it. That’s everything you need to know about this automation type! Happy building!