How to Set Up an SMS Opt In Form (Text Message Opt In Form)

Spam...

Nobody likes it.

We all get emails and messages that we don’t want or didn’t know we agreed to - or maybe never even signed up for at all.

These spam messages clutter our inboxes and distract us from the items we truly care about.

As a consumer, it’s annoying (and for some people even infuriating).

When it comes to sending your mass SMS, you don’t want to be known as the “spammer.”

Not only that, but you don’t want to get in any legal trouble, or into trouble with phone carriers! (More on that later.)

That’s where SMS opt in comes into play.

You know you need to get people’s permission to send them texts, but you need a convenient and hassle-free way to do that.

Here we’ll discuss a bit about SMS opt in consent, and introduce you to an easy “web forms” feature.

We’ll help you obtain that consent and gain SMS leads in no time.

Why You Need SMS Opt In Consent

You can relate to consumers’ frustration at receiving spam messages. As mentioned, you don’t want to be a contributor to that frustration by sending unsolicited SMS.

But beyond that, there are even more profound and serious reasons why you need SMS opt in consent in order to send out your mass SMS.

We’ll go through 3 of these reasons in turn.

Getting SMS Opt In Consent Helps You Stay Out of Legal Trouble

Historically, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) has prohibited most forms of unsolicited mass texting (although a recent Supreme Court ruling has thrown a wrench in some of those legal prohibitions).

Regardless of technical legal requirements, getting clear SMS opt in consent from all of your contacts will help protect you from any sort of legal ramifications (legitimate or otherwise).

Getting SMS Opt In Consent Helps You Not to Ruin Your Message Delivery Rates

If the potential legal ramifications weren’t enough, you should make sure to gain clear SMS opt in consent because not doing so may result in low delivery rates.

If your messages come across as spam, phone carriers will likely begin to notice. And they may start to blacklist your messages and prevent them from being delivered.

And if your messages aren’t getting delivered, then your mass texting efforts will be pointless.

Getting SMS Opt In Consent Helps You Save Money

Let’s tell it like it is - Sending messages to people who don’t want to receive them is a waste of your hard-earned money.

Uninterested people won’t respond positively to your message anyway, so you’ll end up just using up your SMS platform account’s messaging credits.

Getting clear SMS opt in consent helps ensure that only people who actually want to receive your messages will receive them.

This makes your messages more effective and worthwhile.

Use Web Forms to Collect SMS Opt In Consent

As you can see, there are several compelling reasons for making sure to obtain the appropriate SMS opt in consent (not the least of which being that it is required not only by laws and regulations, but by SMS platforms’ terms of service).

But how do you get consent? You don’t want a process that’s drawn out and difficult, after all. (That’s not beneficial to you, or your audience!)

Fear not! The process of getting people to opt in doesn’t have to be difficult. A few tools can help, including web forms.

Your Mobile Text Alerts account will come with an automatically generated, customizable web form you can provide to your intended audience. This will allow them to fill out pertinent information online and easily sign up their phone number to receive your mass texts.

A web sign-up page is an excellent and convenient way to allow customers, employees, and members to subscribe to your texts, and even gives you a means to collect SMS leads.

All they need to do is fill out the form, and all you need to do is share the link so they can fill it out.

Win-win!

What Can You Include on Your SMS Opt In Form?

It’s never good to be “boxed in” and limited in your choices.

You want the flexibility of options!

Your opt in form has many customizable options, but in its simplest form, it can be an easy phone number entry page.

Beyond that, you can have it display “name” and “email address” fields, as well as a section allowing your subscribers to select which “group” (organized segment on your SMS platform) they’d like to sign up for.

Some elements that are customizable include:

• The ability to require certain fields to be filled out - This is useful if you want to make sure people input a name or some other element
• The ability to edit the text that’s displayed in the form’s headers - This allows you to add some descriptors or personality to your sign-up form
• The ability to import a logo to display on the sign-up form - This enables you to implement a level of branding and professionalism
• The ability to adjust the display colors, including background color, text color, and other colors - This is also useful for adding branding and professionalism

You can change the customizations that you make to the sign-up page at any time, giving you the flexibility to adjust whenever you need to along the way.

How to Share Your SMS Opt In Form

If you’re concerned the process of sharing your opt in form might be difficult, don’t be!

The link for your sign-up page is readily available at any time under the Sign-Up Page tab on your SMS platform.

All you need to do is simply copy that link and paste it wherever you’d like to share or display it.

Here are some suggestions of where you can share your opt in link:

• On your website
• In social media bios
• In periodic social media posts
• In videos
• In email campaigns
• In physical mailings
• In newsletters
• At your physical location(s)

If you want to embed your opt in form onto your website without requiring people to navigate away from your site, you can also take advantage of the provided HTML code.

The code comes in the form of a dynamic iFrame (so that you don’t have to monitor or make changes to the HTML), as well as plain HTML in case you’d like to make changes on the coding end.

These options for sharing your sign-up page make collecting new subscribers and SMS leads as simple as sharing a link, while also giving you more robust choices if you want to dig deeper.

How to Get People to Use Your SMS Opt In Form

As you’re likely well aware, having the tools to connect with people is only half the battle.

You also need to be able to get people to actually engage. In the context of your SMS opt in form, you want people to actually fill out the form and sign up for your texts.

You don’t want to be stuck in the frustrating cycle of sharing and advertising your opt in form over and over with no one following through and subscribing.

How can you actually get people to join your text list?

Here are some tips!

Provide an Immediate Incentive

Give people a tangible reason to subscribe right then and there. If you’re a business, this could be a free or discounted product, for example.

Many times people may subscribe just for the immediate incentive. And that’s OK because they just might stick around once they see how valuable your texts are!

Offer Real Value

Give people a clear explanation of the value they’ll receive if they subscribe.

Let them see the benefits they’ll get from your texts, and why subscribing to your texts is a no-brainer.

Give Clear Opt-Out Instructions

Give people confidence that they can unsubscribe easily at any time.

For an SMS platform, the “unsubscribe” process is handled automatically by the subscriber simply replying STOP to any message.

So you can tell your audience something as simple as, “Reply STOP at any time to opt out.”

Who Uses SMS Opt In Web Forms?

All of this may sound well and good, but is it a good fit for your business or organization? Are there other organizations like yours that use web forms to get people to sign up for texts?

Sure are!

Here’s a list of just a few example industries that could utilize web forms for SMS opt in:

• Banks
• Boutiques
• Churches
• Construction companies
• Direct sales consultants
• Educational facilities
• Enterprise businesses
• Government entities
• Gyms
• Healthcare facilities
• Non-profit organizations
• Real estate agents and offices
• Religious organizations
• Restaurants
• Retail businesses
• Small businesses
• Transportation
• YMCAs

Reasons these different organizations may use web forms for SMS opt in include (but are not limited to):

• Getting employees to sign up for internal alerts
• Getting customers to sign up for promotions
• Getting members to sign up for updates

So as you can see, virtually any business or organization could use these online sign-up pages, and for a variety of reasons.

Other Ways to Go About SMS Opt In

You probably think an online form for people to sign up for your texts is a nice tool. Maybe it would even fit in perfectly with your use case and purposes.

But you may also be wondering, “Are there any other sign-up options I could consider using?”

The answer is, “Yes!”

There are several other useful and convenient sign-up options available, so that you can have a variety of ways to reach out to your audience and get the most subscriptions to your texts.

You can check out the different options below and evaluate which sign-up option (or which combination of options) would work best for you.

Text to Join

One of the most popular ways to get people to sign up for your texts is via the “text to join” feature.

The “text to join” function allows people to send a text message with any content into your account's designated phone number. When they do that, their phone number will be automatically added to your text list.

Example workflow:

• You give your audience the instructions to, “Text UPDATES to ###-###-#### to be subscribed to our texts.”
• Someone in your audience pulls out their phone and sends a text in to the designated phone number.
• That audience member’s phone number is then automatically added to your SMS platform database.

QR Codes

Another opt-in method is to join via QR code.

You simply share (via social media, email, physical location, or any other method) a QR code that’s automatically generated for you within your SMS platform.

All that your audience has to do is scan the QR code on their phone. A new text message will automatically pre-fill on their phone.

They can then just hit “Send” to send the pre-filled text, and their phone number will be automatically subscribed to your texts.

Manually Manage SMS Opt In

You also have the option to manually manage SMS opt in on your own end.

If you go this route, you can collect your audience’s consent outside of the SMS platform’s tools.

Once you have the appropriate consent, you can then load in your contacts via a few different methods:

• Via an “easy add” ("Manage Subscribers") option on the platform (this method is very simple but can only add one individual contact at a time).
• Via importing a spreadsheet containing a list of your numbers.
• Via API, if you have access to developers.
• Via integrations with other services.

Conclusion

To sum up, SMS opt in via web forms is a simple and convenient tool to help you get the permission you need to go about sending mass texts to your audience.

Because you don’t want to be the spammer, and you also don’t want to complicate your life!

Ready to try it out for yourself?

Sign Up Now for Free!