What is email to SMS?
Email to SMS uses SMS gateway technology to let you send a standard email as a text message to any mobile phone. Since it is using an online SMS service you can send both personal and business purposes allowing you to send 1 or 1,000’s of text messages. There’s no confusing integration process, software to install or learning curve required, once you’ve created your SMS account you can now fire up your favourite email program and start sending SMS messages!
Why use email to SMS?
Integrates into your personal or company email
The best thing about using this technology is that there is not software integration required, simply open up your email client whether it’s cloud-based (Gmail, Yahoo etc.) software (Outlook, Mozilla etc.) or part of your CRM (Hubspot, Salesforce etc.)
As long as you have the “To” and “Subject” line fields you can send an SMS.
Email and SMS under one roof
If you’re an email power-user or spend a lot of time communicating with people from your email platform then it makes sense to keep everything on that same interface.
To create a more efficient workspace this feature means that you don’t need to be switching back and forth between two areas.
High open rates
One of the great challenges with email, especially when sending bulk messages is that some will get blocked by SPAM filters and accidentally ignored by the recipient.
On average only 20.81% of email messages get opened.
Compare that to 98% open rates with SMS.
By converting your email message into an SMS you get the familiarity of email and the open rate of SMS making it the perfect tool to communication with customers, parents or patients.
Choose where you want replies to go
You can have all of you replies go to mobile (if you want to handle the replies personally) or to email (if you want to have your team handle them) it’s up to you.
Give access to anyone
Anyone on your team can use this feature all they need is the account password or you can set them up as a sub-account so they can send SMS messages from their own SMS account.
Use a familiar interface
One of the problems with having a new platform is learning the features and nuances of how to use it effectively.
Email to SMS is a speedy option especially if you are giving access to team members since all you need to do is give them the format for the “to:” and “subject lines:” fields and they will be sending messages in minutes since they will already be familiar with the email platform.
Long form SMS messages
It can be a little tough squeezing a detailed message into 160 characters (stand SMS message limit) but with long-form messaging you can expand that message to 450 characters which stitches together multiple SMS messages into one SMS on the recipients end.
International or local texts
Just like email you can send your SMS to other countries as long as that country has mobile carrier providers set up.
How does it work?
Sending an SMS from your email client
Sending an SMS from email is easy, first make sure you set up your SMS account.
On open up your email program and enter the following:
To field: recipient’s mobile number @ 160.com.au
Subject line: your mobile number including the ‘61’ @ your account password
Example:
0412345678@160.com.au
61487654321@shoewarehouse
Then simply type out your email, hit “send” and our system will automatically convert it into an SMS and send it off to the recipient.
Can I get replies sent back to my email?
To field: recipient’s mobile number including the ‘(61)’ @ 160.com.au
Subject line: enter in an exclamation mark (!) then enter your mobile number @ your account password
Example:
0412345678@160.com.au
!61487654321@shoewarehouse
Then simply type out your email, hit “send” and our system will automatically convert it into an SMS and send it off to the recipient.
How to send a branded email to SMS message
To field: recipient’s mobile number @ 160.com.au
Subject line: then enter your mobile number including the ‘61’ with your brand name in brackets () @ your account password
Example:
0412345678@160.com.au
61487654321(shoewarehouse)@shoewarehouse
Then simply type out your email, hit “send” and our system will automatically convert it into an SMS and send it off to the recipient.
Bulk email to SMS
You’re not restricted to sending just one SMS message at a time, just like with email you can add all of the people you want to send a text message to and send out a bulk SMS.
2-Way email to SMS
2-Way technology means that you can send and receive SMS messages using your email software.
Delivery receipts
Delivery reports are an essential tool because they let you know who received your SMS and who didn’t.
Summary
Email to SMS is good feature for people who just want to send and receive text messages as well as people who are heavy email users who don’t want to be swapping from one platform to another, by having everything under the same roof you can combine the speed and familiarity of email and the performance of SMS at your fingertips.