How to Offer Customized Message Frequency to Your Subscribers

Some of your contacts may want to hear from you every week. Others would be happier with just one text a month. By combining two of our advanced features—custom fields and segments—you can let subscribers choose how often they’ll receive messages.

Don’t let the word “advanced” scare you! It’s easy. We’ll go through it step by step.

Before we get started, we should mention that this method works best if you use keywords to sign-up up new subscribers. If you’ve never set up a keyword before, start here.

1. Create a Custom Field for Frequency Preference

Custom fields allow you to store information about your subscribers, which can be used to personalize your texts later on. For example, the tag %%firstname%% lets you dynamically include your subscriber’s first names in your message.

You’ll need to create a field where we’ll store the info about how often customers want to receive texts. Here’s a detailed video on how to create a custom field. All you have to do is go to the Subscribers panel, click Custom fields, then add a number field.

Give it a name for your reference. In this example, we chose “preferred frequency”.

2. Ask New Contacts How Often They Want Messages

With the custom field created, it’s time to populate it. Open the data collection app, and select the keyword your subscribers use to sign up. Under fields to collect, select Preferred frequency.

Now write a message asking your subscriber for their preferences. For example, “How many times per month do you want to hear from us? Reply 4, 8, or 12.”

Don’t leave your question open-ended. It’s important to include what options people should reply with. This will be key for easily segmenting your list later on.

Once you set data collection live, here’s how it will work. A contact will text in your keyword, then they’ll be prompted to reply with their preferred message frequency.

3. Create Your Segments

Next, create a segment for each of your frequency options. You can find this feature under the Subscribers panel. Just click the Add segments button then add your conditions:

4. Send Your Messages

That’s it! The next time you go to send out a message, you’ll be able to select which segments should receive your text.

Why You Should Give Contacts Control

Marketing is all about serving your audience. There’s no sense in sending texts to people who don’t want them. Because no two subscribers are exactly alike, the more personalization you can offer, the better. When you give people control over your SMS cadence, you’ll not only see higher click-through rates, but reduce unsubscribes while you’re at it.