Add value to professional conversations with MMS in Salesforce

SMS vs. MMS: what’s the difference?

An SMS is a text message that allows users to send 160 characters of plain text, including a phone number or a hyperlink. Only having 160 characters to use and needing to direct clients, students, or other stakeholders to a link sometimes makes it challenging to get your point across.

MMS or multimedia messaging service gives you the ability to include multimedia content like photos, slideshows, GIFs, videos, audio, or 1,600 characters of plain text. MMS is attractive to businesses, organizations, and schools because visuals are proven to captivate people. The more intrigued they are, the more likely they are to engage.

Sending and receiving MMS for professional purposes

Ninety percent of people who take pictures use their phone’s camera rather than a stand-alone camera. Then we upload those pictures to social media or send them to our friends and family over our preferred mobile messaging apps. Multimedia messages are a part of our every day; we send funny GIFs to our friends (or our coworkers on Slack to lighten the atmosphere), photo updates to our families, and pdf documents to our co-workers. MMS adds more detail and expression to our personal conversations, so why not allow your professional communications to benefit? Let’s explore how organizations and businesses foster digital connections through multimedia mobile messaging.

Real-world examples of businesses leveraging MMS

BMW was able to achieve a 30% conversion rate using MMS to drive tire sales. They sent a series of customized MMS messages to already opted-in clients before the winter season to remind them to buy snow tires. The text message included a personalized greeting, a picture of the suggested tier based on the model of car the client owns, the price of the tire, and a list of dealerships in their area. What makes MMS so impactful is all of the information is right there, directly in one text message. There is no need to click through multiple links to find out more information.

The Chicago Shakespeare Theater utilizes MMS to engage with their theater enthusiasts, conjure buzz for their upcoming show, and increase ticket sales. For example, they performed surprise skits in front of a famous painting replica that missed a few critical figures. After the performance, they invited audiences to participate in a mobile marketing campaign to solve the missing characters’ mystery. The outbound message included a video explaining how the characters disappeared from the painting and how they came to life in a new musical at The Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

Which file types and sizes are supported?

Level up your engagement by including eye-catching visuals in your text messages. Mogli’s conversation view chose from the following supported file formats:

jpeg. The standard image format for compressed image data. All of your images taken on your cell phone are in this format.
GIF. or “graphics interchange format” are those funny animations and bits of video footage you often see on social media
png. “Portable network graphic” is commonly used for web design images, may have a transparent background. Select this format instead of a jpeg if you are sending something like a logo or graph.
Pdf. or “portable document format” is when you need to share easily, send, or print files. Use for documents or statements.
mp4. is used to store video and audio files.

What to check before pressing send on your MMS

There are two things you will need to double-check before uploading your desired file.

First, ensure that your data is no bigger than 5MB if you send it to a mobile number or 16MB if you are using WhatsApp.

Second, ensure that your saved file you are looking to upload is under its corresponding supported file format. If it is not, the data will fail to upload or send it incorrectly. For example, save and upload a photo from an event as a jpeg., not a png. Or a video should be sent as an Mp4, not as a GIF or Mp3.

How different industries leverage MMS

MMS is a versatile means of mobile messaging. Whether your organization is a nonprofit, education, real estate, or financial institution, you can capture your stakeholders’ attention using MMS.

Nonprofits

Nonprofit organizations are often trying to reach and engage inherently hard-to-attain audiences, and text messaging has proved effective in doing so. Sending SMS or a WhatsApp message is deliverable to those who might not have access to the internet and, in SMS, reaches those who have a basic flip-phone. MMS further capitalizes on this accessibility by giving the sender more characters to use in a text message, or the ability to send and receive pictures and other documentation that might serve as either a tool of engagement or measurement and recording within Salesforce or other CRM.

Show your volunteers and donors all the hard work you have been doing to fulfilling your organization’s mission. Collect photos in your two-way one-on-one messages with your volunteers, then showcase their efforts to your donors while inspiring your other volunteers by sharing curated photos to various segments with bulk messaging. Include donors before and after photos or action shots at events to let them know their contributions make a difference.
Inbound images also serve as documentation for measurement whenever it’s impractical, too expensive, or too risky to have field staff to perform on-site surveys. Your messaging tool should be flexible enough to let you measure outbound and inbound performance in whichever way is most pertinent to your goals. In this case, the optical measurement of progress or accuracy can even integrate AI analytics like Salesforce Einstein.
Your organization can also improve international outbound communication and documentation for fieldwork like instructional images with WhatsApp or voice messages, which can help combat language and literacy barriers. Mogli has the ability, however, to send your text-based mobile messages in the recipient’s native language.
After collecting donations with Mogli’s text-to-pay feature, send a branded receipt and a thank-you card to brighten the transaction.
Increase the turnout for your upcoming in-person or virtual events by sending branded MMS images, gifs or video invitations, updates, and reminders that contain a sneak peek of what to expect.

Education

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K12, Higher Education, and Education Enablement Institutions have an opportunity with MMS to engage the entire student lifecycle and make internal and administrative communications swifter. Storytelling videos, pictures, and easy-to-access files are valuable when competing to recruit and retain students. By sending MMS documents right to students’ and parents’ phones, institutions can receive documents back on time or rest assured that they were not lost in an email inbox.

In addition to fulfilling RFIs by email and snail mail, send videos and photo-rich files from your mobile messaging tool in your Salesforce CRM to the prospective students’ cell.
Increase response rate from parents, students, and staff by sending documents and waivers like student permission slips and release forms that often get buried in parent’s email boxes or put onto the back burner. When schools reach parents via their preferred text messaging app, parents can quickly look over, sign, and return while enjoying their morning coffee.
Send instructional images anytime you ask students or parents to sign up for a new portal or student tracking system, for example.
Appeal to older students by sending them funny or trendy GIFs attached to simple text reminders, surveys, or personalized messages.
Allow students or parents and guardians to submit a picture or pdf copy of their doctor’s notes to make sure there is a valid reason for their absence.
Colleges and universities requiring regular Covid-19 testing could allow student clinics, etc., to send the appropriate documentation via text to collect test results in real-time.
Faculty members can quickly send lesson plans and assignments to substitute teachers and students via Salesforce Communities.
Staff can also document and report office or classroom technology issues directly to the IT team. A non-technical person can communicate what support they need in the classrooms and facilities with the detail of a picture.

Financial Services, Sales, Real Estate and Insurance

Financial Services, Sales, Insurance, and Real Estate brokerages can save time with mobile messaging over SMS and WhatsApp. With MMS, those firms can also increase the kinds of value they add over mobile messaging channels.

Suppose you have a new client that needs to onboard. Send them a guide to your services and policies, or visual instructions on how to get started with the company’s app. Picture-based instructions are more accessible to follow than dense text-only documents or manuals.
Insurance clients can send a picture of their proof of insurance or documenting damage.
Share contracts to review and send back signed or amended.
Remember birthdays and other important dates like the anniversary of the first home a family bought with your help by sending a picture memory or event-appropriate company-branded GIF with a personalized note.
Does your company have a new offering, or did the perfect house come on the market? Send images with links to catch their attention, promote the product, and direct them to learn more.
Attach documents to invoice or application reminders, so clients don’t have to click through links to view them.
Send a map that contains pertinent information to your client to find a listing or your office. Public maps on mobile applications don’t always give the best direction, so send one that shows which staircase they’re looking for, or which stealthy-marked road is the right one to turn down.
Politely draw attention to issues ice-breaking images or GIFs to lighten up overdue balance alerts or other troublesome notifications.
Conversely include trend graphs or celebratory images to congratulate clients on achieving specific financial goals.

When to MMS and when to SMS

While consumers and other stakeholders feel connected to brands associated with their products, your business, school, or organization needs to balance personality and professionalism. “A/B: testing your MMS to text message campaigns, so see which results in the highest response rates, client conversions or student decisions, client and student retention rates, donations, etc. Once you know what is most important to your team to measure, it’s easy to pull reports and make insightful dashboards with Mogli on Salesforce.