Mobile Studio Explained

With Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s Mobile studio, you get the capability to target your customers over SMS, Push and Messengers from a single platform. It has been consistently ranked as a top contender when it comes to Mobile marketing automation solutions by analytics experts like Gartner, Forrester etc.

Today we will deep dive into all the features and capabilities of Mobile Studio that is a service offering for Mobile Marketing from Salesforce and is offered as a package on top of PRO edition and comes bundled with Corporate and Enterprise editions.

Following are the capabilities Salesforce Marketing Cloud Mobile Studio has to offer:

Mobile Connect: SMS

This channel could be used to create and send dynamic and real time SMSs from Marketing cloud.

Following are the types of SMSs we can send

1) Outbound:

This type of SMS could be sent as a promotional campaign to a predefined audience on demand or as per a defined scheduled from Marketing cloud.

The content could be personalized using the data from Sales, Service or Marketing cloud in the SMS. There is also a possibility to send these messages as triggered SMS from any third party system on demand over the REST protocol.

Moreover these messages could also be used as a part of a campaign in Journey Builder or Automation studio for real time 1 to 1 customer engagement or sending an automated promotional campaign.

2) Text Response:

With this option you get the capability to send predefined text responses in the SMSs with which a user interacts.

Consider this as a 2 way communication over SMSs with the customer where the Customer is prompted to reply to a SMS with a certain keywords and then based on the input received from the customer, the next SMS from the set of predefined SMSs is sent.

3) Vote/Survey:

This type of SMS lets you receive a certain type of response from your customers when they reply to your message with an option like a voting preference or a Survey score.

This is a one time SMS that can be sent from Marketing cloud prompting the customers to reply back with their choice and then that choice is recorded in the system and can be used to formulate business decisions. It could be a dichotomous response (Yes/No, True False) or a multiple choice too.

4) Mobile Opt-in:

With this option you get to invite your customers to be a part of an ongoing campaign or a campaign planned in future where you prompt them to reply to your SMS or any other print media or digital ad with a Keyword.

If they do so, they are recorded as a participant of a campaign and will all future communications as a part of that campaign as per the campaign planned.

This comes in handy when you wish to encourage existing or new customers or prospects to be a part of your communication network.

5) Info Capture:

This type of SMS lets you capture the response of your customer to your text message where you ask them to provide certain details about themselves or their data like a membership number or coupon code.

You store this information received from your customer in their profile attributes and use it as a segmentation criteria or to formulate a business decision based on this information as a part of a campaign.

6) Email Opt-in:

With this option you can invite your contacts or prospects to be a part of your existing or future email campaigns. This works on the same lines of Mobile Opt-in.Send Email: With this option you can Invite people to receive a triggered email message.

You can send a one-time email in response to a request made via SMS. It lets you Deliver rich materials such as product catalogs, data sheets and more.

And you can take advantage of the graphic impact, longer length, and persuasive capabilities of email instead of a limited SMS length for communications with your customer.

Mobile Push: Push Messages on Mobile App

With this module enabled, you can send Mobile Push messages to the integrated Android and IOS apps. The apps have to be built on the Android or IOS SDKs provided by Marketing cloud.

You can achieve the following if you enable Mobile Push and Integrate it with a Mobile App:

1) Manage segmented audiences of mobile contacts.Send targeted and personalized push notifications.

2) Send inbox messages.

3) Use Geo-fence and beacon messaging for location-based campaigns.

4) View customer engagement with analytics.Automate your campaigns with Automation Studio.

5) Integrate push notifications into customer journeys using Journey Builder.

Group Connect: Send notifications on Social Messengers

With this module, you get a chance to target your audiences over public messenger. Use GroupConnect to send messages to contacts via messaging apps. Currently, GroupConnect supports the LINE mobile messaging app. Use GroupConnect to create and send messages, manage contact subscriptions, and review messaging activities.

In GroupConnect you can create four different types of messages in GroupConnect.

1) Follow message: Welcome new contacts and request attribute information.

2) Outbound message: Send a message, such as a promotion, alert, or rich media message, to a contact.

3) Response message: Respond automatically to a message sent by a contact, using either a targeted or random message.

4) Create carousel messages in Journey Builder or Contact Builder.

We have just explored what all services Mobile studio has to offer and what are the practical use cases of each type of such communications. It depends on your Client and their digital marketing strategy, which of these options and modules would work for them.

This is my take on Mobile Studio by Salesforce Marketing cloud. Let me know in comments if you found this information interesting and helpful.