SMS

In SMS campaigns, messages are divided into segments, each incurring a charge. Each college has a shared monthly limit of 25,000 segments among the Recruitment, Marketing, and Student Affairs teams. If this limit is exceeded, the college is responsible for additional costs.

Phone carriers use segments to batch and bill text message deliveries. SMS (Short Messaging Service) restricts message length based on the encoding type:

• GSM-7 Encoding: Supports up to 160 characters of basic text per segment.

• UCS-2 Encoding: Allows up to 70 characters per segment when emojis or certain special characters are used.

  

1. Using emojis and certain characters outside the basic text character set (known as GSM-7, full list of characters here) will cause your segment character limit to change to 70.

2. Using more than one segment will decrease the length of each segment. Messages with basic text will only decrease by 7 characters, and messages with emojis will decrease by 3 characters.

3. When using a personalization token such as <name>, where the name length changes depending on the customer, the character count of the message will change accordingly.

   

SMS messages have a basic limit of 160 characters using GSM-7 encoding or 70 characters with UCS-2 encoding. When these limits are exceeded, phones can still send longer messages by breaking them into smaller segments.

Note: Replying to messages in the SMS Inbox does not count toward the segment total (messages sent).

Effective planning is the key to achieving success with SMS marketing and outreach. As you prepare to launch an SMS campaign, it is essential to have a clear idea of your message's use case. When creating an SMS marketing campaign for a college, it’s essential to establish clear objectives. What are you expecting from your SMS marketing campaign? Increase event attendance? Increase student engagement? By setting clear goals, colleges can tailor their SMS campaigns to meet specific outcomes, ensuring a successful campaign.

Consider these common SMS Use Cases.

Write Actionable SMS Copy

• Know your character count. While HubSpot allows a 300-character limit SMS messages max out at 160 characters—if you exceed the 160 count, your text message will be sent as two separate texts. Get to the point quickly, and use links (and link shorteners) to fill out the details of your message.

• Say hello! Send a welcome message to any new contact. Clearly state who you are and why you're messaging to provide valuable context.

• Get to the point: By keeping messages brief, recipients can easily read and act on the information on smartphones, watches, and digital assistants like Siri.

• Don’t overdo it: SMS is a high-cost communication channel. Reserve SMS for use cases that are deeply personalized and/or express urgency.

• Be transparent: Consistently reintroduce your brand, purpose, and message frequency.

• Opt out: Every message should include the option to opt-out.

• Personalize your copy: Tailor SMS communication using personalization tokens to automatically insert relevant details like a student’s name, program interest, or other preferences, creating a more meaningful connection.

How to Use Personalization Tokens
Add personalization to your message by clicking Personalize. Click the Type dropdown menu, then select the type of personalization token to insert. Click the Property dropdown menu to select which property value to pull into the message body. Enter a default value that can be used for any contact without a value populated for the property, then click Insert.
For more details on how to use personalization tokens this, you can explore the Create and Send SMS Messages in HubSpot resource guide.

Good SMS Examples

Write Actionable SMS Copy

• Know your character count. While HubSpot allows a 300-character limit SMS messages max out at 160 characters—if you exceed the 160 count, your text message will be sent as two separate texts. Get to the point quickly, and use links (and link shorteners) to fill out the details of your message.

• Say hello! Send a welcome message to any new contact. Clearly state who you are and why you're messaging to provide valuable context.

• Get to the point: By keeping messages brief, recipients can easily read and act on the information on smartphones, watches, and digital assistants like Siri.

• Don’t overdo it: SMS is a high-cost communication channel. Reserve SMS for use cases that are deeply personalized and/or express urgency.

• Be transparent: Consistently reintroduce your brand, purpose, and message frequency.Opt out: Every message should include the option to opt-out.

• Personalize your copy: Tailor SMS communication using personalization tokens to automatically insert relevant details like a student’s name, program interest, or other preferences, creating a more meaningful connection.

How to Use Personalization Tokens
Add personalization to your message by clicking Personalize. Click the Type dropdown menu, then select the type of personalization token to insert. Click the Property dropdown menu to select which property value to pull into the message body. Enter a default value that can be used for any contact without a value populated for the property, then click Insert.
For more details on how to use personalization tokens this, you can explore the Create and Send SMS Messages in HubSpot resource guide.

Good SMS Examples

4. Send a Test SMS Message

Testing SMS messages is crucial to ensure that the content such as personalization tokens display correctly, review for proper formatting and test that links in the SMS work. Testing helps you avoid errors and improve engagement. For more details, you can visit HubSpot's guide: Send Test SMS Messages.

• Open the Editor: While drafting your SMS, go to the top right corner of the editor and click on Send test message.

• Choose Recipients: In the right panel, click the Choose one or more numbers dropdown menu. Select phone numbers of team members who have added their number to HubSpot. If needed, you can enter a phone number manually by typing the full number including the country code.

6. Send or schedule your message

When you're ready to send or schedule your message, click the Send or schedule tab.

• Configure your recipients

  • Click the Send to dropdown menu and choose lists or individual contacts to include in your recipient list. Only contacts set as Marketing Contacts will be eligible to receive SMS messages.

• Review your SMS scheduling options

By default, you can only send SMS messages from 8 a.m. to 7:59 p.m. in contacts' local time zones. This applies to individual SMS campaigns as well as sending an SMS message via a workflow. If you attempt to send or schedule a message outside of this period, HubSpot will defer sending your message until waking hours begin in the subscribers' timezone.

• Send now: Your message will be sent immediately.

• Schedule for later: You can schedule your SMS to be sent at a specific date and time.

Understand SMS quiet hours

Testing SMS messages is crucial to ensure that the content such as personalization tokens display correctly, review for proper formatting and test that links in the SMS work. Testing helps you avoid errors and improve engagement. For more details, you can visit HubSpot's guide: Send Test SMS Messages.

• Open the Editor: While drafting your SMS, go to the top right corner of the editor and click on Send test message.

• Choose Recipients: In the right panel, click the Choose one or more numbers dropdown menu. Select phone numbers of team members who have added their number to HubSpot. If needed, you can enter a phone number manually by typing the full number including the country code.

When you're ready to send or schedule your message, click the Send or Schedule tab.

• Configure your recipients

  • Click the Send to dropdown menu and choose lists or individual contacts to include in your recipient list. Only contacts set as Marketing Contacts will be eligible to receive SMS messages.

• Review your SMS scheduling options

By default, you can only send SMS messages from 8 a.m. to 7:59 p.m. in contacts' local time zones. This applies to individual SMS campaigns as well as sending an SMS message via a workflow. If you attempt to send or schedule a message outside of this period, HubSpot will defer sending your message until waking hours begin in the subscribers' timezone.

• Send now: Your message will be sent immediately.

• Schedule for later: You can schedule your SMS to be sent at a specific date and time.

Understand SMS quiet hours

Access the Conversations Inbox

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to CRM > Inbox

2. Select the dropdown menu next to Maricopa > Select Maricopa SMS Inbox

   

3. From there, you should be able to view your college inbox. All SMS replies will be found here.

   

Viewing SMS Conversations

• All SMS messages received from marketing campaigns will appear in the inbox. Each message will display details such as the sender’s phone number, contact information, and the content of the SMS. To better manage conversations, you can create custom views by filtering conversations based on specific criteria. For example, you can create views for unassigned conversations, high-priority inquiries, or messages from specific channels (like SMS).

To create a custom view for SMS messages: In the bottom left, click the Actions dropdown menu, then select Create a view. In the right panel, enter SMS for the view name, then click Next. In the Filter type section, select Conversations properties. In the search bar, search for and select Source. Click the is any of dropdown menu, then search for and select SMS. Click Apply filter, then click Create view.

The new view will appear below the other default inbox filters and views.

Reply to Messages

• When a contact replies to an SMS message you've sent via HubSpot—whether it was scheduled manually or sent through a workflow—their response will appear in the Conversations Inbox as a new conversation.

• To reply:

  • Navigate to CRM > Inbox

  • Select the dropdown menu next to Maricopa > Select Maricopa SMS Inbox

  • Click on the SMS conversation to view the SMS message conversation history. This will show both your outgoing message and the contact's reply.

  • Review the contact's CRM data, which is readily available alongside the conversation. This helps respond in a personalized and informed manner.

  • Use the reply editor in the inbox to write and send a response. Ensure that the contact is still opted in to receive SMS messages before replying.

    

Track Conversations

• Keep track of message history and view previous interactions to offer personalized responses.

• Please note: If you select the close a conversation option, the SMS conversation will be permanently removed, and you can no longer message that contact.

  

For a detailed guide, see the full resource on HubSpot’s Knowledge Base: Use the Conversations Inbox.