SharpSpring Text Messaging Easy Setup Guide (2021 Update)

SharpSpring SMS Integration Setup

SharpSpring is a great CRM solution, but doesn’t offer text messaging campaigns or mass texting with its standard service. In this blog post, we will walk through how to add the SharpSpring text messaging integration from Sakari to your SharpSpring CRM account.

The setup takes about five minutes and requires no coding. Once setup, you will be able to automatically trigger personalized text messages to new leads, new form submissions and new SharpSpring accounts.

Why Should You Use SMS with SharpSpring CRM?

Why is text messaging important with SharpSpring? The short answer is because it’s how customers and leads prefer to communicate. Across almost every statistic, customers prefer text messaging:

• Open rates at 90%+
• Almost instant delivery
• Typically read within 90 seconds
• Read rates 5x higher than email

What You'll Need

Before we dive in to the text messaging setup, there are three things you’ll need to start sending text messages from your SharpSpring account:

1. SharpSpring CRM account

If you don’t have an existing SharpSpring account, you can sign up on at their website here: https://sharpspring.com/

2. Sakari SMS account

Sakari is the business text messaging service we’re going to use to send SMS from our SharpSpring account. Using Sakari, we can send and receive text messages based on the leads and contacts we have in SharpSpring.

You can sign up for a free Sakari SMS account here: https://sakari.io/signup/

3. Zapier account

Zapier is the software we’ll use to connect SharpSpring and Sakari to send text messages. Using Zapier, we can connect over 1,000 common systems together in minutes, all without any coding required. You can sign up for a free Zapier account here: https://zapier.com

 

 

 

Step 1: Obtain your SharpSpring API Information

In order to link Sakari SMS to SharpSpring, we need to obtain the SharpSpring API credentials.  With this information we can link the two systems using Zapier.

In your SharpSpring account, click the “person” icon on the top right and click the “Settings” link.

Select “API Settings” in left navigation menu under the SharpSpring API header.

Copy both the Account ID and Secret Key (or keep the page open).

 

SharpSpring API Keys

 

Step 2: Create a Zapier account

 

Zapier is an online automation tool that allows you to easily connect the software applications you love. Using Zapier, you can connect two or more programs together using “Zaps.” Creating a Zap is easy, you can get started in minutes and you don’t need to know any code.

 

Sakari’s Zapier connection with Sharpspring allows users to sync data between both platforms. Configure your sync in minutes to begin leveraging the best of both platforms. Zapier supports over 1,000 applications and allows you to mix and match triggers and actions to make your own automation.

 

To create your free account, go to: https://zapier.com

Step 3: Setup the SharpSpring and Sakari Integration

Now that you have your API keys for SharpSpring and you’ve setup a Zapier account, we’re ready to create our Zapier Zap. When creating our Zap we will define a trigger and a resulting action (sending a text message). You can either create a Zap from scratch, or go to the SharpSpring Sakari SMS Integration page. After clicking on the link, click the blue “Connect SharpSpring + Sakari SMS” button.

SharpSpring Integration Page

 

Step 4: SharpSpring Text Messaging Setup

The first step to creating a Zapier Zap is selecting which App will be the “Trigger” and the trigger option.

In our example, we want to send a text message when a new SharpSpring lead is created. So we will select a Trigger of SharpSpring, with a trigger option of “New Lead.” Within SharpSpring, there are six available trigger options, these are listed below. Other popular examples would be New Form Fill-Out Events and New Page Visit Events. Any of these can be used to trigger the sending of a text message.

Click “Continue.”

SharpSpring Trigger Options

• New Lead
• New Email Open Event
• New Form Fill-out Event
• New Opportunity
• New Page Visit Event
• New Account

Link your SharpSpring Account

Now we will link SharpSpring to Zapier using the API credentials we collected earlier.  Paste (or copy) your SharpSpring Account ID and Secret Key in the popup window.

Click “Yes, Continue.”

Connecting to SharpSpring Account

 

Step 5: SharpSpring Text Messaging Setup

Now that the Zapier SharpSpring trigger has been setup, we need to configure the text message that will be sent. To do this we need will select the Action App of “Sakari SMS.”

 

Send Message Selection

Now we’ll select the Sakari SMS action. In our case we want to send a text message to the new SharpSpring lead, so we’ll select “Send Message.” When selecting Send Message, the SharpSpring contact will be created in Sakari and the text message will also be sent.

Click the “Save+Continue” button.

 

Step 6: SharpSpring Text Messaging Setup

Now we will configure what data is sent from SharpSpring to Sakari SMS and the SMS text message that is sent. By mapping each of these fields, we can use the data in SharpSpring to create our contact in Sakari.

 

Zapier Data Fields

• Account – This is the name of your Sakari SMS account
• Mobile – This is the phone number that the text message will be sent to from your lead record in SharpSpring. This should be either the “Phone Number” or “Mobile Phone Number” field
• Mobile Country – this field is optional. If left blank, the default country code for your Sakari account is used
• First Name – we will create a new contact using the First Name from the SharpSpring contact record
• Last Name – we will create a new contact using the Last Name from the SharpSpring contact record
• Email -we will create a new contact using the using the email field from the SharpSpring contact record
• Tags – You can tags your contacts in Sakari in order to sort/filter your results. Multiple tags are supported. Simply separate tags using either a “|” or a “;” (removing quotes)
• Message – this is the text message that will be sent to the new contact.  You can use a combination of static and wildcard fields. We will cover this more in the section below

Zapier Field Mapping

To populate fields from directly from SharpSpring, click the “+” sign icon in the top right and select the field you want to include.

 

Zapier Trigger Configuration

Text Message Template Setup

When drafting your message, it can either be completely hardcoded, or it can be personalized with SharpSpring contact fields. To add personalized fields, click the “+” icon in the top right of the field entry box. Find the field you’d like to add, select it, and it will be added.

 

Step 7: Set it Live

Give your Zap a name, turn it on and save. Zapier will now automatically check every 15 minutes for new SharpSpring leads. When a new lead is found, two things will happen:

1. The new lead will automatically be created in Sakari (based on the configuration in step 6 above).
2. The new lead will receive a text message using our template created in step 6.

 

Completed SharpSpring Text Messaging Zap

SharpSpring Text Message Example

 

 

Need help getting SharpSpring SMS Setup?

Have questions about getting SMS setup with SharpSpring? Contact us.

 

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