HubSpot’s SMS feature can significantly enhance communication strategies across Maricopa Community Colleges, allowing teams to send critical updates and personalized messages at the right time. This tool can be especially effective in student recruitment, engagement, and retention efforts.
Each college has a monthly limit of 25,000 SMS segments, shared among Recruitment, Marketing, and Student Affairs. When sending SMS campaigns, messages are divided into segments, each charged individually, so understanding message segmentation is essential to managing costs.
Additional SMS pricing is $15.00 for every 1,000 additional segments per month.
SMS Segmentation
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.
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.
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.
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).
Message 1 (GSM-7): 160 characters of basic text per segment.
Message 2 (UCS-2): 70 characters per segment when emojis or special characters are used.
Message 1 (GSM-7): 160 characters of basic text per segment.
Message 2 (UCS-2): 70 characters per segment when emojis or special characters are used.
Text: Good evening, <Name Personalization> from [Insert College Name]. Are you still interested in attending in the Spring? Classes are open for January and February start dates today! Reply STOP to unsubscribe.
Total Segments: 2 segments × 500 contacts = 1,000 segments
Text: Good evening, <Name Personalization> from [Insert College Name]. Are you still interested in attending in the Spring? 📙 Reply STOP to unsubscribe.
Total Segments: 3 segments × 800 contacts = 2,400 segments
Resource: Use an SMS Segment Calculator Resource to determine the exact segments for your messages based on encoding and message length.
Best Practices
Use a Compliant SMS Consent Process
Utilize opt-in terminology. Contacts can opt-in using the three words: START, UNSTOP, or SUBSCRIBE. Every SMS message must include a clear opt-out option. Prioritize giving your contacts the option to opt out of receiving messages.
Test, Monitor, and Analyze SMS Performance
Check delivery rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribes to monitor your SMS performance. Use these results to help you craft better text messages for future campaigns. Watch which texts achieve a high rate of clicks and which text messages cause unsubscribes, then tweak and test text messages to see what drives better results.
Coordinate Texts Around Emails and Social Media
Scheduling texts in conjunction with your email and social media posts is a solid way to make sure your messages are seen and stick in your customers’ minds. The more times someone sees a message, the more likely they are to take action.
Step-by-Step Instructions for Creating and Managing SMS
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.
Informative
Promotional
Informative
Promotional
Registration Updates: Inform students about their class registration status, including waitlist updates or changes to their schedule.
Important Dates: Remind students of key dates, like the start of the semester, drop/add deadlines, and tuition payment deadlines.
Financial Aid Notifications: Provide updates on the status of financial aid applications, deadlines, or disbursement details.
Enrollment Campaigns: Encourage students to register for classes during specific enrollment periods or highlight late-start classes.
Event Announcements: Promote campus events, workshops, job fairs, or graduation ceremonies for student engagement.
Program announcements: Share news about new academic programs, certificate courses, or degree pathways.
Student Services
Enrollment/Admissions
Advising Appointments: Remind students of their advising appointments or make it easy to schedule one via SMS.
Onboarding and Orientation: Guide new students through orientation and provide reminders about onboarding activities.
Campus Support Resources: Share information about support services, such as tutoring, career advising, or mental health resources.
Follow-up on Inquiries: Provide timely follow-ups for students who have inquired about programs, ensuring they feel supported throughout the enrollment process.
Re-enrollment Reminders: Encourage students who have paused their studies to re-enroll by highlighting upcoming deadlines and support options.
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
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.
