How do I collect contacts' names?

How can you collect your contacts' names so that you can know who you're messaging?

Here are 2 ways.

Web Sign-Up Form

The easiest way to collect your subscribers' names is to have them fill out your customizable online sign-up form.

The online sign-up form feature gives you a link that you can share with your audience. They can follow the link and fill out the form to be automatically subscribed to your texts, and part of that form allows them to enter in a name.

(You can also send this link to people who are already a part of your database to get them to fill out additional information about themselves.)

You can view your sign-up page link and customize your sign-up page under the Opt-In Methods->Sign-Up Page tab.

First Reply as Name

While the online sign-up page provides a space for your contacts to enter their name, you may want to collect your contacts' names when they're texting in an opt-in keyword or being subscribed through some other method as well.

Your Mobile Text Alerts account can be enabled with a feature that will take the first message people respond back to one of your texts and will capture it as their name in your system.

For example, you could set up an auto-response for your opt-in keyword (see the article on opt-in keywords here) that says something like, "Reply back with your name." Then whatever people respond with will be captured as their name.

So, if your keyword was "Sale" on the number 41372, the workflow might look like this:

• Your contact would text the world "Sale" to 41372 to subscribe.
• The contact would receive whatever auto-response you set up, which may include "Reply back with your name."
• The contact responds back their name, "John Smith."
• John Smith would then be automatically added as their name in your database.

If you'd like to get your account enabled with this feature, let us know at [e-mail] and we can get you set up!